About to buy a gaming laptop - advice needed

silvine

Hi folks,

I posted here earlier today about a gaming laptop. I came up with this one

Acer Aspire 5920WSMi at http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5920WSMi_Laptop_LX.AGS0X.015/version-1.asp.

I will be using it for playing games and downloading music/films.

I'm on a bit of budget. Is this the one to go for?

Thanks again.

AlmightyCushion

CPU is great, it's got a nice big hard drive and 2 gigs of ram is great as well. The graphics card is apparently comparable to a 7600 which would be mid range but would probably be the best you could get without getting a 17" screen. What games are you intending on playing?

silvine

FEAR, Oblivion and whatever else comes out over the next 12 months.

I've never owned a laptop before, are they as easy to upgrade as desktop?

I normally just buy a new graphics card when my desktop starts to complain about the latest games.

Timmins

You won't really be able to easily upgrade the graphics card in a laptop, the RAM and hard disk are easily upgraded but a little more opening of the case would be required to insert a new CPU or GPU.

silvine

I don't mind upgrading just once the laptop can handle it. I've bought PCs before only to find there's not much that can be done with them when they begin to age.

Will I still be able to game with this in twelve months time? Is there a better buy I should consider?

Thanks again for the helpful advice.

Sephiroth_dude

whats your budget?I was gonna sugguest the dell xps m1710 but then i read in a different thread you were warned off them?

silvine

I'll have a look at it. I don't want to go beyond €1400.

There was a discussion on boards a while back about XPS desktops. A few users claimed they were overly expensive and better could be found elsewhere for a similar price. I'm not sure if the same applies to laptops though.

Sephiroth_dude

silvine wrote:

I'll have a look at it. I don't want to go beyond €1400.

There was a discussion on boards a while back about XPS desktops. A few users claimed they were overly expensive and better could be found elsewhere for a similar price. I'm not sure if the same applies to laptops though.

oh rite ya...ya the xps laptops expensive alright i payed 2400 for my and im happy with it but eh next time,im probbly gonna build my own pc,way cheaper by all accounts,i dunno would even get a good gaming laptop for 1400 maybe im wrong anyway best of luck with your search

silvine

I had a look at the XPS machine. The XPS M1710 has a better graphics card and a bigger screen though. The Acer has more memory, a bigger hard drive and is cheaper. The latter seems like better value...

Sephiroth_dude

can you post up a link?i just wanna take a look at the acer one and its specs

silvine

It can be found at
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5920WSMi_Laptop_LX.AGS0X.015/version-1.asp

TerrorFirmer

It'll be pretty good for games, its comparable to a desktop 7600GT so you should be able to run the likes of FEAR at high settings no problems. One thing though is that you can't upgrade it - only a very few select laptops use the required swappable module and I don't think that one is one of them, so you're stuck with what you have once you buy it. You could change the CPU, but to be honest the card will be a limiting factor before the cpu will so with those sort of spec's, you're really buying and that's it.

silvine

It'll be pretty good for games, its comparable to a desktop 7600GT so you should be able to run the likes of FEAR at high settings no problems. One thing though is that you can't upgrade it - only a very few select laptops use the required swappable module and I don't think that one is one of them, so you're stuck with what you have once you buy it. You could change the CPU, but to be honest the card will be a limiting factor before the cpu will so with those sort of spec's, you're really buying and that's it.

So what's the lifespan of the lap top then, how long will it be able to play the latest games? 18 months?

Darwin

I wouldn't worry too much now about the lifespan of laptops for gaming as there are some very interesting developments on the market with respect to external VGA solutions. Both Asus (see here) and MSI (see here) have products in the pipline that will allow standard PCIe graphics cards to be used in an external box with any laptop sporting a Expresscard slot (the successor to PCMCIA I think). Although it remains to be seen how these good products will work, and more importantly what they will cost, it's a promising start.

silvine

Darwin wrote:

I wouldn't worry too much now about the lifespan of laptops for gaming as there are some very interesting developments on the market with respect to external VGA solutions. Both Asus (see here) and MSI (see here) have products in the pipline that will allow standard PCIe graphics cards to be used in an external box with any laptop sporting a Expresscard slot (the successor to PCMCIA I think). Although it remains to be seen how these good products will work, and more importantly what they will cost, it's a promising start.

That's pretty cool! I'm a little unsure about making the switch from a desktop to laptop but something like this would certainly sway me.

silvine

Any thoughts on this laptop?

Hewlett Packard Pavilion dv9385ea

http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/Hewlett_Packard_Pavilion_dv9385ea_GH837EA-ABU/version-1.asp

TerrorFirmer

Darwin wrote:

I wouldn't worry too much now about the lifespan of laptops for gaming as there are some very interesting developments on the market with respect to external VGA solutions. Both Asus (see here) and MSI (see here) have products in the pipline that will allow standard PCIe graphics cards to be used in an external box with any laptop sporting a Expresscard slot (the successor to PCMCIA I think). Although it remains to be seen how these good products will work, and more importantly what they will cost, it's a promising start.

I would not really take those into consideration when buying a gaming laptop today, as firstly they're going to be hugely expensive, as well as totally impractical really. The Asus one so far can only be used on an external monitor, how pointless is that? If you're going to be that stationary, you might as well buy a gaming desktop and a normal laptop for the same price! After all, in 'gaming' laptops, you're paying hundreds in most cases just for the gpu. I know I wouldn't be able to lug around those stations everywhere I went..

The HP you've linked to by the way is way inferior to the Acer, don't bother, it'll still play games OK but it's not as good.

Darwin

I wouldn't dismiss these out of hand. I'm sure there are many people who would like the convenience/portability of a smaller laptop coupled with a capability to hook up to a bigger screen for the purposes of gaming. Gaming laptops are hardly what I would call the most portable of machines in the first case (I've owned several) for the obvious reasons - weight and battery life. I don't think I ever gamed on it away from a power socket. Granted the first generation of external graphics solutions will be overpriced and probably not up to par, but it points the way to promising things ahead.