New Laptop needed

cardshark202

Hi,

I'm looking to buy a new laptop which I will use mainly for playing online poker on it. I'm looking for one that could accept 2 extra monitors if possible. Also will use it for surfing, downloading and watching dvds and stuff, dont really need one for gaming. Basically money is no real object but I dont want to spend more than is necessary at the same time. If anyone could advise as to the best place to go I would much appreciate it.

Thanks

Mysteron

Apple macbook pro, best laptop i the world,expensive but worth it; ultra fast, ultra portable and no viruses or other annoying windows problems, you'll never go back to windows again. Don't know about connecting 2 monitors though...

Overheal

Go Dell, theyre cheap and reliable.

Poker, and you want two monitors? I laugh.

Don't know about 2 monitors either. Especially not unless you want some gaming destroyer of worlds. An extra monitor, yes, but not two.

On the macbook front: theres one downstairs we're all trying to fix ( a house of nerds ) after one of our friends mistakenly overrote the mac OS with XP (after he supposedly got sick of it) .... except theres no way for us to open the CD Drive on it because the macbook doesnt have a physical EJECT button. And we cant remove the drive either because it uses a specialist type of phillips screw. Pain in the ass :rolleyes:

Tom Dunne

Mysteron wrote: »

Apple macbook pro, best laptop i the world

Depends on your definition of "best laptop in the world".

Ok, I'm going to nip this one in the bud. If this descends into yet another Mac vs. PC debate, there will be bannings. Enough of the fanboyism, please back up statements such as this with hard facts.

cardshark202 wrote: »

Hi,

I'm looking to buy a new laptop which I will use mainly for playing online poker on it. I'm looking for one that could accept 2 extra monitors if possible. Also will use it for surfing, downloading and watching dvds and stuff, dont really need one for gaming. Basically money is no real object but I dont want to spend more than is necessary at the same time. If anyone could advise as to the best place to go I would much appreciate it.

Thanks

Having said that, if money is no object, then I would recommend a Mac. There is a sticky on the Mac forum with plenty of info on the various different Mac laptops.

I am not so sure any laptop (PC or Mac) can use two extra monitors. Maybe some of the Mac addicts can clarify. One monitor, certainly, but two, not so sure.

cardshark202

Ok well I would prefer to not get a Mac cos most of the poker software I use is not compatible with Mac OS, even though I love Macs. Regarding the 2 monitors, I have definitely seen pictures of people with 4 monitors hooked up to a desktop. Also, I have 2 monitors here so I won't have to pay for those, which would be the expensive part I'd imagine.

Tom Dunne

cardshark202 wrote: »

Ok well I would prefer to not get a Mac cos most of the poker software I use is not compatible with Mac OS, even though I love Macs. Regarding the 2 monitors, I have definitely seen pictures of people with 4 monitors hooked up to a desktop. Also, I have 2 monitors here so I won't have to pay for those, which would be the expensive part I'd imagine.

Yeah, a desktop would be no bother - you can get 2x dual head graphics cards = 4 monitors. Laptops are a different kettle of bannanas. I would wager it is most unlikely you would get a Windows based laptop that could do more than one extra monitor.

I personally believe Dell offer value for money, but the build quality isn't as good as the likes of IBM/Lenovo or Sony. If portability isn't a factor, look for a 17" screen on the laptop. Go for 2 gig Ram at least, I would imagine any hard-drive over 200Gig would suit your needs. One final thing is to check for the max resolution of the graphics card - I would assume you would need a higher resolution.

Overheal

Actually...

Im looking at my lappy here and above the video Out ports there is a laptop-monitor symbol with a '3' next to it... So Im not sure if that means 3 out types or 3 monitors total.

Feel free to do your own sleuthing though, its a nvidia 8400m gs card.

edit: http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/03/29/matrox_dualhead2go/ alternatively...

cardshark202

Thanks for your responses guys. I'll do some sleuthing and see what I can find out.

cardshark202

Sweet that dualhead2go card looks the business, and just seen they have a triplehead2go too! Cheers overheal

domania

This is easily sorted out without 2 graphics cards in your laptop. As we do this sort of thing in work all the time with Dell Laptops.

But you will have to buy a docking station for the laptop so you'll probably have to purchase one of the business spec ones.
They usually have 2 ports for connecting monitors. The you can change the setting on the laptop to span 2 monitors. The laptop will recognise them. So you can split the view and open seperate applications or IE sessions on each screen.

This is the one I use and lots of people in here use 2 monitors.

http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=ie&l=en&s=dhs&cs=iedhs1&sku=452-10374

papu

get a dell laptop with a hdmi port then you can have hdmi> monitor and Vga> monitor , and the monitor on the laptop itself giving you 3!

i know all the xps's have hdmi but im not sure about the rest.

Feelgood

IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad in my opinion. Been using the same one now for the last 4 years and haven't had a moments trouble with it. They look a bit ****e though are very robust.

Also are the choice laptop for the majority of the worlds fortune 500's as they are so reliable.

Carlow52

The panasonic seems to have the name for being rugged etc, large screen size not an issue as I want to use it in the car and in the field so something small and rugged is what I am after.

All advice welcome.

ps just on the mac laptop issue, I have an imac where I run xp as well: the hdmi only works on the mac side not when xp is being used, seems its a virtual graphics card, and not the one that safari uses
the hdmi from the mac with a 32" lcd is an awesome picture, have not sorted the sound yet, not an issue yet as i use headfones

Tom Dunne

Carlow52 wrote: »

The panasonic seems to have the name for being rugged etc, large screen size not an issue as I want to use it in the car and in the field so something small and rugged is what I am after.

All advice welcome.

ps just on the mac laptop issue, I have an imac where I run xp as well: the hdmi only works on the mac side not when xp is being used, seems its a virtual graphics card, and not the one that safari uses
the hdmi from the mac with a 32" lcd is an awesome picture, have not sorted the sound yet, not an issue yet as i use headfones

Please do not jump in and hijack somebody else's thread. It leads to all manner of confusion.

Feel free to start your own, so people can respond directly to you.

AlmightyCushion

My dell inspiron 9400 has both a vga and a dvi. That might mean it could use dual external monitors.

cardshark202

Ah my current laptop(inspiron 9100) has both dvi and vga ports lol. I've been using the vga port. I'm stilll getting a new laptop but now all I need is one with both ports and then I can get one of the dvi-to-vga adaptors. Am I correct in my assumptions here?
Thanks again for all responses so far.

ramanujan

hi,

i've a dell m1330, which has a hdmi out and also the standard (vga?) out for monitors, so i suppose you could hook two of them up? - (i could check over the weekend if no one on here knows)

if i was getting one for poker and mobility wasnt as much of an issue i'd go for a m1530 as it would be a nightmare multitabling on my 13" screen, if you ever wanted to play without being next to your monitors.

can i ask as why you wouldn't just buy a nice desktop and laptop? since your in the nice position of money not being an object!

you could pick up a lovely laptop and desktop for less than the price of a mac book pro. thats what id do.

Overheal

Worth attempting to DVI-to-VGA converter.

This is easily sorted out without 2 graphics cards in your laptop. As we do this sort of thing in work all the time with Dell Laptops.

But you will have to buy a docking station for the laptop so you'll probably have to purchase one of the business spec ones.
They usually have 2 ports for connecting monitors. The you can change the setting on the laptop to span 2 monitors. The laptop will recognise them. So you can split the view and open seperate applications or IE sessions on each screen.

This is the one I use and lots of people in here use 2 monitors.

http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna...&sku=452-10374

lol do you work on commission or something? Docks are handy but potentially overkill for the situation.

DeadParrot

domania wrote: »

This is easily sorted out without 2 graphics cards in your laptop. As we do this sort of thing in work all the time with Dell Laptops.

But you will have to buy a docking station for the laptop so you'll probably have to purchase one of the business spec ones.
They usually have 2 ports for connecting monitors. The you can change the setting on the laptop to span 2 monitors. The laptop will recognise them. So you can split the view and open seperate applications or IE sessions on each screen.

This is the one I use and lots of people in here use 2 monitors.

http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=ie&l=en&s=dhs&cs=iedhs1&sku=452-10374

Exactly what I was gonna propose, I've one of these meself in work and they are a dream to work with
(bar some USB issues)

cardshark202

ramanujan wrote: »

hi,

i've a dell m1330, which has a hdmi out and also the standard (vga?) out for monitors, so i suppose you could hook two of them up? - (i could check over the weekend if no one on here knows)

if i was getting one for poker and mobility wasnt as much of an issue i'd go for a m1530 as it would be a nightmare multitabling on my 13" screen, if you ever wanted to play without being next to your monitors.

can i ask as why you wouldn't just buy a nice desktop and laptop? since your in the nice position of money not being an object!

you could pick up a lovely laptop and desktop for less than the price of a mac book pro. thats what id do.

Well later this year I plan on going to live in buenos aires for a while so having a laptop that can take a couple of monitors would be very handy.

cardshark202

Ok I'm looking at dells at the moment. I am doing the customise and buy yoke on an XPS M1710. How does this sound:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7400 (2.16 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 4 MB L2-cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English
17.0" UltraSharp™ Wide Screen WUXGA (1920x1200) TFT Display with TrueLife™
4096MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x2048]
320GB (5.400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
512MB DDR3 nVidia® GeForce™ Go 7950 GTX graphics card
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software - Vista
9 cell Lithium-Ion Battery (80 Whr)


That all comes to about €1830.

Now I know I could probably go for a lower spec machine, but I don't ever want performance to be an issue and I will be using 2 other monitors with it so I don't want a graphics card that will be overly affected by this. Maybe there are machines available from other sources other than dell which offer similiar specs for less?
Any advice much appreciated

AlmightyCushion

What's the graphics card on that one?

papu

cardshark202 wrote: »

Ok I'm looking at dells at the moment. I am doing the customise and buy yoke on an XPS M1710. How does this sound:

Now I know I could probably go for a lower spec machine, but I don't ever want performance to be an issue and I will be using 2 other monitors with it so I don't want a graphics card that will be overly affected by this. Maybe there are machines available from other sources other than dell which offer similiar specs for less?
Any advice much appreciated

dunno if you need the 17" one but youll get good performance from the 15.4" ones aswell the 1530's they also look better imo.
Cpu is good
1900x1200 will make things VERY hard to see on a 17" monitor
3gigs of ram is the most 32bit windows can use
drop the 320gig to 200gig 7200rpm? unless you need the space you'll benefit from the faster load speeds

Overheal

I'd do some research on that card. Firstly Im 99% sure the 7-series cannot run dx10 and I'd be wary if could run the Shader 3.0 and OpenGL 2.1. Look it up. Those are gaming standards. DDR3 and memory size on it is great though.

Hard Drives gonna be slow(ish) but big, so good trade.

For a 17" id be surprised if you cant find a 12-cell battery for that. I swear by mine. Otherwise it looks to be a well rounded machine.

edit: the card appears solid enough and even runs a bit faster than my 8-series but doesnt have the same bells and whistles:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-Go-7950-GTX.2121.0.html
for comparison: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVidia-GeForce-8400M-GS.3709.0.html

your card uses up to 4x more juice than mine. So let me tell you now: I have a 15.4 inch screen and a 12 cell battery. My battery life is on average about 3-5 hours. You can expect less with a 17" screen, that monster card and a 9-cell battery. Might be worth investigating if you can change it out for an 8-series option before purchase.

papu

Overheal wrote: »

I'd do some research on that card. Firstly Im 99% sure the 7-series cannot run dx10 and I'd be wary if could run the Shader 3.0 and OpenGL 2.1. Look it up. Those are gaming standards. DDR3 and memory size on it is great though.

Hard Drives gonna be slow(ish) but big, so good trade.

For a 17" id be surprised if you cant find a 12-cell battery for that. I swear by mine. Otherwise it looks to be a well rounded machine.

afaik the the dells only come with 86-87-8800m's so there all Dx10

AlmightyCushion

7 series card is definitely not dx10. At that price cardshark, I'd be wanting the 8800.

AlmightyCushion

papu wrote: »

afaik the the dells only come with 86-87-8800m's so there all Dx10

He edited his reply to include the graphics card. It's the 7950gtx.

papu

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

He edited his reply to include the graphics card. It's the 7950gtx.

silly me i see now thanks.

AlmightyCushion

cardshark202 wrote: »

Ok I'm looking at dells at the moment. I am doing the customise and buy yoke on an XPS M1710. How does this sound:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7400 (2.16 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 4 MB L2-cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English
17.0" UltraSharp™ Wide Screen WUXGA (1920x1200) TFT Display with TrueLife™
4096MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x2048]
320GB (5.400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
512MB DDR3 nVidia® GeForce™ Go 7950 GTX graphics card
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software - Vista
9 cell Lithium-Ion Battery (80 Whr)


That all comes to about €1830.

Now I know I could probably go for a lower spec machine, but I don't ever want performance to be an issue and I will be using 2 other monitors with it so I don't want a graphics card that will be overly affected by this. Maybe there are machines available from other sources other than dell which offer similiar specs for less?
Any advice much appreciated

As far as I can see here is the same spec laptop as yours (well bar the ram and hard drive but they only cost an extra €130ish to upgrade). With the upgrades it costs less that €1600. If you get it through epp or get a discount coupon that will save you even more money.

cardshark202

These responses are all great and a huge help. The one problem with the dell site is that they don't offer a huge amount of choice when speccing out laptops. For example the 9 cell battery is the only choice on that page. I guess I should be able to upgrade the battery by ordering over the phone?

Btw almighty those specs are all the same in the one you linked except for the processor, which would make it the exact same as the one I did.

AlmightyCushion

I don't think dell offer any bigger batteries than the 9 cell. The specs you have listed above say t7400 which is the same processor that is in the link. I wouldn't bother upgrading any higher on that. It's a less than 10% increase in clock speed for an extra €250. Complete rip off and I'd doubt you'd ever notice the difference.

cardshark202

Ok I've gone through the customising a bit more and arrived at this:

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=ie&cs=iedhs1&kc=NRS17102&l=en&oc=N04X7102&rbc=N04X7102&s=dhs

My question is is it worth an extra 340 for upgrading the processor? Would it improve performance a huge amount?

EDIT: Just read almighty's reply, seems my last question has been answered! TY!

RE-EDIT: Total price now comes to about €1550

cardshark202

Finally, one last question:
There was a mention of discount coupons or 'buying through epp'. What is epp? I see that I have input a discount voucher already(Well almighty did i think)?

AlmightyCushion

Epp is for employees of companies that have a special deal with dell. They get around 10% off. The good thing is dell don't seem to ever check if you work for the company so most people get away fine by saying they work with aib. This is the link for the above laptop through epp site. The 10% epp discount will get deducted at the checkout.

There is a thread in bargain alerts to do with dell laptop deals. Check through some of the more recent posts and see if there is a discount voucher in there.

cardshark202

Genius. Thanks!

AlmightyCushion

No problem, man. Hope you enjoy the new laptop.

coconut2674

Overheal wrote: »

Go Dell, theyre cheap and reliable.

Poker, and you want two monitors? I laugh.

Don't know about 2 monitors either. Especially not unless you want some gaming destroyer of worlds. An extra monitor, yes, but not two.

On the macbook front: theres one downstairs we're all trying to fix ( a house of nerds ) after one of our friends mistakenly overrote the mac OS with XP (after he supposedly got sick of it) .... except theres no way for us to open the CD Drive on it because the macbook doesnt have a physical EJECT button. And we cant remove the drive either because it uses a specialist type of phillips screw. Pain in the ass :rolleyes:

hey,did you try holding down the eject button on start up? works for me!

papu

coconut2674 wrote: »

hey,did you try holding down the eject button on start up? works for me!

the macbook doesnt have a physical EJECT button.

ahahahahah genuis....

coconut2674

papu wrote: »

ahahahahah genuis....

there is an actual eject key on the macbooks keyboard,on the top righthand corner...holding it down ejects a disk,even when the laptop's only starting to boot up...

Overheal

Ill go down and give it a lash but i think the issue is that the OS has been wiped which may have ****ed up the BIOS and everything else... but hey its worth going downstairs I guess.

edit: denied.

papu

Overheal wrote: »

Ill go down and give it a lash but i think the issue is that the OS has been wiped which may have ****ed up the BIOS and everything else... but hey its worth going downstairs I guess.

edit: denied.

ahahah unlucky

Overheal

Not my macbook wtf do i care :pac:

papu

Overheal wrote: »

Not my macbook wtf do i care :pac:

ahah thank god i'd be gutted