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Please.
Please stop harping on about how crappy laptops are price/performance relative to desktops. Half the posts in any laptop thread are saying: "NOOOOOOOO GET A DESKTOP!!!!!!"
Yes, desktops can have better specs than a laptop for a lot less money. But some people just are not home enough to use a desktop or they want something they can easily bring to their friends' homes. Whatever the reason, you don't need to keep going on and on. I, for one, use my laptop to play games while I'm waiting for classes to start since I usually have huge gaps between them. /endrant
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"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
Comments
You know, you should get a desktop.
Drop the next-gen marketing and people will argue if the game itself has merit.
I LOL'd at this !!
Bite Me
You could always quit school and get a job. Alot of them use desktops, from what ive seen.
MAGA
Laptops are great if you have the coin. Here is one that will blow your sox off and kill many mid-high desktops.
http://www.originpc.com/eon-gaming-laptop-features.asp
follow that link to enter into the world of ultra sick laptops. If I had a sugar momma this would be on my short list of X-mas wishes.....lol
I thought it was hilarious when a friend o mine bought his gaming laptop. Oh how I tried to warn him or even offer to build him a pc and support it if his dumbass did something wrong. No, he said, he trusts dell. After some sorta 3 year installment plan and 5 grand later he is still paying for some 2.4 core duo with 2 8800's in sli.
I once made the mistake of mentioning how awesome dx11 looked in BFBC2. He stopped bringing his laptop over to play games. Expects me to GIVE him one of my guest machines too.... lol no thanks
Laptops are good for many things. But gaming is one of thing they are worst at. The price for performance is really bad compared to desktops. And someone should point that out to an person who doesn't know it.
Of course doesn't that mean that you should spamm the same thing in the same thread no matter what point you have.
Laptops is a great tool for anyone who spends a lot of time traveling, or live in 2 different places. But in most cases do you get better performance for your money if you buy a really crappy laptop and a mid range desktop than a high performance laptop.
Another thing to point out is that someone who do own a high end laptop should also have means to plug in a large screen and a separate keyboard and mouse at home.
I do see your point of having one for breaks and when you wait for classes as well as I see the point of having one for the schoolwork too. But you can have a $400 laptop and a $1000 desktop at home instead of having a $2000+ laptop. Sure you can't play Crysis at school then and have to use low settings in many MMOs but the difference is like day and night.
The secret to finding a good computer is to start looking on what you need it for and where you plan to use it.
Yes, those are extremely nice, I have to admit I never even heard that you could put in a 480 GTX in a laptop.
But give me the same amount of cash it cost for a desktop and I totally blow them away, my own desktop is still better than anything there (even though I have to admit not by that much, but my hexacore and 4 raided SSDs is hard to beat with a laptop). I spent some money on it but not too much.
A gaming laptop cost insanely much and you can always get a better desktop for the same money.
Still if money isn't a problem and you get one of those nice docking units for home use you can have a gaming laptop, but at least I would consider anyone who can afford that without a loan rich. Most of us have better use for our money including gamers with high end desktops.
Could someone give me a link for a notebook carrycase that will hold a flight yoke, rudder pedals and a 5.1 surround with a 17" notebook?
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
A desktop that gets killed by that, even with all of the upgrades, isn't exactly mid-high end. With two Mobilty 5870s in CrossFire you can get roughly 5850 or 6870 performance--if CrossFire works. And if that much heat doesn't melt the laptop. The processor is just plain slow for a desktop and will hold back more than a few games, even if you pay $1000 to get the top CPU offered.
"Laptops are good for many things. But gaming is one of thing they are worst at. The price for performance is really bad compared to desktops. And someone should point that out to an person who doesn't know it."
This, basically. Someone who doesn't know that there are disadvantages to gaming laptops needs to be warned. Of course, someone who is aware of the disadvantages but has good reason to get a gaming laptop anyway can subsequently get help after the warning.
"I have to admit I never even heard that you could put in a 480 GTX in a laptop."
It's basically an underclocked GTX 465. It performs about as well as a (desktop) Radeon HD 5770. And it burns about as much power as the desktop 5770, too. That makes it a horrible card for laptops. Nvidia simply isn't competitive in performance per watt right now, which means there's no good reason to consider an Nvidia card in a gaming laptop.
Well, I could... But in three weeks I start student teaching, so I don't see the point in this. And I'm not exactly broke either. I did have $1100 to drop into a laptop, sure I could have got a good desktop for about $700, but I wouldn't have used it nearly as much. I'm also going to get a laptop from the school to use because of something about needing to find more ways to incorporate technology in the classroom, using the Smart Boards, and moving between classrooms.
Duelkore,
My friend wanted to get a laptop, because the one I have is better than any of my friends' desktops, with the exception of one, but he said he paid $1300 for that one (he paid way too much but that's what happens when you get name-brand), about two years ago and then my laptop is about on par with it. Anyways, I talked him out of getting a laptop since he would only be using it inside of his house.
I can certainly understand people mentioning the difference whenever someone asks for a laptop, but I don't see why everyone has to say the same thing over and over and over again in the same thread.
--------
"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
Nowadays you can get a decent laptop for a fair price. Id say, get what makes you happy. I am sadly a loner. Many a night I spend at home. For me, a laptop usually stays on my bed so I can watch movies in bed or porn. There i said it. My laptop is just for internets and the internets is for porn.
I can appreciate the fact that you do have an active social life. Id say go get a laptop. Before you do that though, spend a month reading the specs on all sorts of laptops from various vendors. Read up on the differnce between those laptops and what each little hardware change means to you in terms of video game play.
Its your money, spend it how you like. Please make an informed decision on what your new laptop can play and what you hope you can play in the future.
I certainly agree with everything you said, since you know a lot more about hardware than I do. People are ignorant about these things and many, including some of my friends, believe that there is no difference in performance. When my friend told me that he wanted to get a laptop, I asked him where all he planned on using it, and when he said he was only going to use it at home, I told him he would be much better off getting a desktop.
My gripe is that whenever someone asks about a laptop, nearly every poster tells them to get a desktop and most don't even bother to read it when the TC says that they are going to be using it in different places. I think it'd be foolish to spend over a grand for a laptop that they'd only be using for Office when they are not at home, but I don't think it takes ten different people to say it.
--------
"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
Some people do do that, but most of us who give strong caution against gaming laptops do so beacuse even people "on the go" are not mobile enough to warrant a gaming laptop as their primary machine.
When I was first beginning hich school back in 2003, I got a "gaming laptop". It was a beast of a machine, with a 128MB Mobility Radeon 9000 (iirc on the VRAM), and a desktop 2.8ghz Pentium 4 Northwood chip, paired with 1GB of RAM. It should be noted that I quickly regretted the purchase, as Battlefield Vietnam (released a year later) only got about 20-25fps, on the lowest settings, at 800x600. Nevertheless, it was considered fast for mobile hardware at the time.
Despite the performance limitations, it wasn't a choice entirely without reason, as only about 25% of my gaming was done at home, and within two years (the point at which the machine became really too underpowered to be a primary gaming machine of any sort), I had built a nice desktop anyways.
Once I graduated high school and took a couple of years off from school, I replaced the gaming brick of doom with a non-gaming laptop, which was still able to do light duty on the respectable Geforce Go 6150 (the first integrated chip that could run games playably). It wasn't very good; even WoW only got about 20fps in some zones, but most of my gaming took place on my desktop freshly rebuilt with one of the new Wolfdale CPUs and a modern GPU (first a GTS8800, then an HD 4870), because I wasn't in school.
Now I'm back in college, and I commute right now because I'm earning an associate's degree at a community college before moving to a unversity to continue studies. I have a 40 minute commute each way, and frequently have/had three hour gaps between classes. That made me effectively stuck, twice a week, for three hours at a time, in addition to smaller one to two hour gaps on other days. 50% of my computing time was at school, so I bought an HP N61JQ fresh out of CES2010. Mind you, I also built a new gaming desktop, so I've never been "stuck" on my laptop (which has the GPU performance of a Radeon HD 5650, roughly).
In addition, it's nice to be able to do some photo editing on the go, especially now that I'm getting more into raw shooting with the new camera body I ordered a few months back, something that benefits enormously from the mobile Core I7 and the 7200RPM HDD.
What I'm trying to point out there is that for someone like ME, a powerful multimedia and gaming laptop makes a lot of sense. I love my Asus N61, and use it equally with my desktop. It probably won't see retirement from heavy lifting for another two to three years or so, a task for which I hope it's equipped.
What's more I have the proper disposable income for that to be realistic (something that will probably be far less true after school, sadly), and I already have a gaming desktop that can play all but maybe two or three titles at absolute maximum settings and keep 40-60fps at 1080P (Metro 2033 comes to mind), which means this laptop is NOT my primary gaming machine, which gives me a safety net for titles the laptop will not be able to play down the road. It's a safety net both because the desktop is four times as powerful as the laptop (despite them both costing a comparable amount and being built at the same time), but because the desktop can have its GPU(s) cheaply upgraded.
You'll also notice that I'm usually one of the chief opponents of most people on these boards buying a gaming laptop, despite owning one myself, because when I listen to the lifestyles of these people, I get the distinct impression that it isn't warranted. When I tell them not to buy a gaming laptop, I'm not telling them that gaming laptops are bad for 100% of people, or that they can't play games at least competently. What I'm telling them is that if they're on a limited budget, it's not worth cutting their performance in half because they think they might want to play at Starbucks, or with a friend, once or twice a week, because in a couple of years (often less), their gaming machine will be woefully inadequate, and they'll have to buy an entirely new machine for it to be their primary gaming machine.
That is what we object to: not buying a gaming laptop, but buying a gaming laptop as a primary gaming machine, because then you lost that completely vital aforementioned safety net, and if there's a title you want to play that the laptop isn't up to task with, you're just out of luck.
This is all a VERY big Achilles' Heel to gaming laptops, so we just want to make sure potential buyers understand that giving up that safety net of a desktop is something that's only warranted under the most extreme of mobile circumstances.
I had to comment on this post myself. I am truck driver myself and only get home about 2 weekends a month. MMOs are now part of my entertainment when i am out on the raod and as such. Laptops are the best choice I have. I also have to depend on Wireless internet connectivity (verizon is definately the best of the bunch of this option, and lucky me i am grandfathered in with REAL UNLIMITED service, not the 5 gig cap they put on people nowadays)
While I would love to have a full size desktop.. I have to be honest in saying that laptops are the tool of choice for me. The downside to this is that about once every 3 to 4 years I have to go out and invest in a new one. Now the upside to this is I now own my own truck.. In which I can use my laptop purchase as tax write off.
If you are liike me I will say that laptops are a great tool. Yes you will obviously pay way more for the conveniance of being able to game on the move. However to me its worth it. As I love my computer games and MMOs.. Luckily Laptops in the last few years have dropped considerably in price... I would recommend a slightly below top of the line. As it will get you about 3 to 4 years of use.
Currently I am playing on a Gateway FX series laptop with a core 2 pentium 3 gigs of ram, and a Geforce 8800 Video card. I paid about 2500.00 3 years ago for it. I just bought a new laptop for my girlfriend for christmas an HP that would run circles around my old gateway, and I only paid 1000.00 for it.
I am currently running Aion on my current rig which runs it without a hight most of the time. I get some lag in bigger PVP battles and thats about it.
This next fall with some of the new games releasing I might be upgrading to a new computer depending on how my current one runs the new upcoming games.... I plan on keeping my budget to 2000.00 or less... I cant imagine what that could get me these days on a desktop... I just had a friend buy a computer for 1700. and hers is a beast.
You're the sort of person for whom a gaming laptop makes sense. Do you exclusively play games with the laptop plugged into a wall whereever you're staying, or do you try to play games with it unplugged sometimes? The latter won't offer much battery life, and some gaming laptops can't do it at all.
You'll probably be able to get a Core i7 2720QM Sandy Bridge processor, a Barts video card (laptop version of Radeon HD 6870), and a good SSD on your budget early next year. If not interesting in buying then, then it will probably be best to wait until early 2012 and get an Ivy Bridge processor with a video card built on a 28 nm HKMG process. Get whichever offers better performance per watt out of Southern Islands (Radeon HD 7000 series) and Kepler (likely GeForce 600 series) and you'll have a gaming machine that will be good for years to come.
Come Spring, you'll be able to get a Llano machine with integrated graphics good enough to play games on for probably around $700 or so. If heat is a problem for you in laptops, then a Llano machine will offer passable gaming performance without overheating. It won't offer performance anywhere near what Sandy Bridge with a discrete card will offer.
Of all the forums you could have visited, you come to this one which is a gaming forum and not a professional forum when it comes to computers the very least. You must be very bored enough to toss such a rant. The concern to laptops are not that they are better or worse, but that they are not standardized.
Games keep demanding more and more and where there is more demand, there is more heat. When you combine the rate at which laptops overheat with the demand of the best games out there, the portability is nice but the risk is not. Standardization came in 1992, but not for laptops.
Have you any idea how many clients have asked me to help them fix a laptop screen that dies or fix other hardware issues and have had to tell them "I am sorry, but there is nothing I can do. These parts aren't standard and each model has their own configuration, you pay for portability at the cost and sacrifice of everything else." Its heartbreaking when I go to a company to get a laptop part and they want to charge as much as the value of the laptop itself, better to buy a new laptop altogether.....