Surprise, surprise another gaming Laptop question

Deadwards.com

Firstly, thanks a million for reading this post.

I am going to California in a week and am strongly thinking about purchasing a laptop/macbook. I am completely computer illiterate but from viewing all of the threads here I see that there is a lot of knowledgeable people here so your help would be greatly appreciated.

OK, I am looking to get a relatively portable laptop 13-15 inches as I have a large screen at home that I can plug into when necessary.

Price wise I have around $1,500 to spend but I don't know what to get or where as I am only away for a week and would need to be able to pick up in-store.

I do play some online games (half-life and wolfenstien) but not too much else.

Does anybody have any advice on the above?

Thanks again.

lovetwix

for gaming laptops..following tables are helpful ...and if you have time..look around the site as well..there's awful lot of info..

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html?&or=&search=&sort=sorting&type=specs

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html

it answers a simple question "which is better" regardless of the price

death1234567

If you want a gaming laptop then dont buy a Mac.

Tom Dunne

death1234567 wrote: »

If you want a gaming laptop then dont buy a Mac.

Throwing up baseless statements like that really annoys me. Are you saying there are no games available for the Mac? Are you saying the Mac is not capable of running games? If not, what are you saying?

Please don't just throw up nonsense like that without backing up your statement.

lovetwix

death1234567 wrote: »

If you want a gaming laptop then dont buy a Mac.

don't you know mac can run windows very well now? and it could come with a very powerful graphic card as well

TerrorFirmer

Yeah the Pro is one of the very few laptops that come with the DDR3 8600GT so it would trash the Vostros models, but that said it comes at a steep price. Macs are plenty capable of gaming, but due to the cost in relation to the performance you actually get for said purpose, are not very economical.

this is probably what Death meant to say.

440Hz

Deadwards.com wrote: »

I do play some online games (half-life and wolfenstien) but not too much else.

http://www.shopping.com/xPO-Half-Life-Platinum-Edition-2

http://www.apple.com/games/articles/2002/02/wolfenstein/

death1234567 wrote: »

If you want a gaming laptop then dont buy a Mac.

uhhhhhmmmm try googling before saying that, things change, machines move on, you might have gotten away with that years ago. Its a very general statement to make. Hardcore gamers are less likely to be a Mac yes, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't buy one, Macs can play games.

tom dunne wrote: »

Please don't just throw up nonsense like that without backing up your statement.

+1

lovetwix wrote: »

don't you know mac can run windows very well now? and it could come with a very powerful graphic card as well

Precisely, "anything you can do we can do better"
Sorry, what I mean is... you can have the best of both worlds with "us"!!

Deadwards.com

Wow! Thanks everybody for such quick responses. Will take a look at the links but of course if anybody has further help it would be greatly appreciated.

TerrorFirmer

440Htz in fairness gaming on the actual Mac OS is a joke. You pay about 300% for games then you would for the PC. Example - most games that fall into PC budget ranges of 8-15 euro still cost 20-50 euro for Mac. And generally fall on the more expensive side. 25 Dollars for RTCW is a joke. Dual Boot would really be the only way to go.

And, if you want to game on a MAC, you need to get the Pro with 8600GT. And that starts at what - nearly 2 grand? And that's for the crappy 8600GT, the proper one only comes with the one starting at 2.4K!! Compare that to the 8600GT in the Vostro which costs about 800. Granted it's slightly worse performing but maybe about 20% compared to the 300% price difference.

Basically, again, yes Macs can play games. But should never be looked at as a games machine, as its sole intention. Just a waste. You'd really want to want a mac for other reasons and see gaming as a bonus. In which case, you could get a regular macbook or pro and still have enough left over to build a gaming desktop.

Mac+Gaming = not exactly a winning forumla unless you're minted. Macs do certainly not have the best of both worlds in regards to gaming so it would entirely misleading to suggest that they do. There's a reason why the MAC gaming community is so tiny. And by that I mean people playing games on Mac machines, not just Mac OS.

edit: Oh and if you were playing much older games from say 2004-ish then any Mac would be fine for that sort of thing, not just the pro.

death1234567

Original Poster wrote : "I am completely computer illiterate "

My advice: If you want a gaming laptop dont buy a mac.

I think thats acceptable advice for a computer illiterate, easier run games on PC than MAC for a non-nerd IMO. Thats all.

No need to get all defensive you Mac Fanboi's

440Hz

HavoK wrote: »

440Htz in fairness gaming on the actual Mac OS is a joke.

Now I never claimed it was wonderful.. just said its possible. The "we can do anything better bit" was just that you can run windows and have the best of both worlds, so you could run your windows games on your windows partition on your Mac, OR your Mac games on your Mac partition. That's all I meant really

Deadwards.com

Great advice everybody. Looks like I will be up late tonight to narrow down my search.

Now for the hard part, does anybody know of a good store near Redondo beach to by one?

Nehpets

Of course macs can play games

solitare, minesweeper, etc.



Nobody buys a mac for gaming - or do they? If they're going to dual boot XP they might as well buy a windows machine. (You could counter argue they they would only want to use XP for the gaming and everything else for the mac but I couldn't counter saying use your home PC for gaming and macbook for text documents and blah blah blah). If they are a hardcore gamer they'd want dx10

If you want casual gaming then save yourself some money and buy a vostro with XP. You'll get a great spec one for the same price as a normal macbook (NOT the pro one.) which won't be able to play the games the vostro can

lovetwix

hey guys..stop this mac/pc dispute.. let's get back to op's question

Deadwards.com

@ HavoK. I just saw your review of your Vostros and I am sold!! You reviewed all the games that I love and they look fantastic in comparison to my current machine so I think after all of my pontificating I am going to buy here from Dell with the spec you have.

Thanks everybody for you help with this.

Tom Dunne

lovetwix wrote: »

hey guys..stop this mac/pc dispute.. let's get back to op's question

Hey! That's my job.

Deadwards.com wrote: »

@ HavoK. I just saw your review of your Vostros and I am sold!! You reviewed all the games that I love and they look fantastic in comparison to my current machine so I think after all of my pontificating I am going to buy here from Dell with the spec you have.

Good choice and great advice from somebody who knows what he is talking about (Havok).

Deadwards.com

Well everybody, I am almost ready to make my big purchase.

I am looking at the following spec and wonder what people think, should I change any of the options I have selected or will this be OK for most gaming?

2Ghz processor (2.2GHz too much extra)
15.4" Ultrasharp widescreen WSXGA+ (1680x1050) TFT with Truelife
Built in 2 megapixel camera
Bluetooth
9 cell battery
2 Gig of RAM (Would like 4 but too much extra!)
256MB nVidia GeForce 8600M GT
160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
Built in bluetooth

1 year base warranty (ahhhhh must be careful!)
No anti-virus software (can get online for free)

Total: 909 ex vat

TerrorFirmer

Looks good. Is the 1680x1050 necessary? Would you use it on desktop? Games will not run at that res on an 8600GT. Just in case you have grand visions that out pace the cards capabilities.

You should also look into Truelife if you haven't already, people are really split 50/50 on it.

Deadwards.com

Thanks for that HavoK. Was just thinking of the screen to get as good as possible.

Which screen would you recommend for the optimum performance?

TerrorFirmer

Don't get me wrong 1680x1050 is a fine looking screen, I was just pointing that out in case you were looking at it purely in gaming terms. I can't comment on Truelife as I have never used it, opted out for my 1500. But again people are 50/50 on it, it's meant to be a real pain when using it in a sunny environment.