Slashdot Mirror
NYT: The New Breed of Gaming Laptops Get Serious
securitas writes "The New York Times' Seth Schiesel writes about hardcore gamers and the growing trend toward high-performance gaming laptops. Traditional enterprise computer manufacturers like Dell and HP are entering the gaming markets dominated by VoodooPC and Alienware, with the specialty high-end PC makers going the other way and breaking into corporate markets. There are some accompanying graphics and quotes from hardcore gamers about the Alienware Area 51m, Dell Inspiron XPS, and VoodooPC Envy m:750."
Repeat after me:
i will game only on the desktop.
i will game less than 20 hours per day.
i will go outside and feel the sun.
i will not game on LCD...evar.
i will not play games i cannot stop.
i will game only from the desktop.
The testimonials for the products are priceless.
The Alienware model is lauded by "Daniel P. Martin, 15, High school sophomore". He crows, "My computer would be going at, like, a frame a second right now".
Like, Danny, how are your grades this year?
Dell's Inspiron inspired "Tori K. Beverly, 16, High school junior" to gush "It's easier to take to parties."
Yeah, the screen hinge is probably great for crushing tabs of X.
But this one takes the cake: "Matt A. Hendershot, 21, unemployed says of the VoodooPC, "I'll trade you my Mustang for it. I'm serious".
I'm serious too, Matt... you need to turn off the computer in your parents' basement and get a freakin' job.
And lose the hat. Jeez.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
I don't know how many people really game on their laptops or if they just want that ability, but I know that the only time I would use it would be on long car trips.
But How often do you need to be in that kind of situation to buy a gaming laptop? I have a desktop PC specifically for gaming (among other things) and a laptop for remote work in the library. Is the high latency/low brightness/low color quality of the laptop screens really a good idea for gaming?
I don't know, I always keep my laptop strictly for work and my desktop for everything else. I don't know anyone who would seriously game on their laptop.
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
Laptops need to be able to have video cards that are easily upgradeable for they to really give desktops a run for their money. With a laptop, you've essentially made a commitment to a particular level of video card power for the life of the laptop. I don't like the idea of replacing a $2000 laptop every 18 months for cutting-edge gaming performance.
We really need a common standard for laptop video cards.
"Extended warranty? How can I lose?"
That's the first thing I thought of when I read the 17 year-old's quote of the Dell.
3rd Kellog's?
I know some of you are going to roll your eyes and go 'eMachines? POS'
However, let me tell you...my m6805 laptop is wonderful.
AMD Athlon64 3000+ (1.8GHz)
512DDR2700 (can upgrade to max of 2x1GB, one of which voids warranty, buried in case)
60GB 4200RPM (Probably upgrade to faster HD soon, this is the only downside)
ATI Radeon 9600 Mobile 64MB (9600 standard, same speeds, only 64MB)
15.4" Widescreen
DVD/CD-RW
10/100 LAN
802.11b/g
This thing works just as well as my desktop almost, except for load times. That's got an Athlon 2800+ with 512MB and a 9600XT. Halo I just have to turn down like one more setting on the laptop.
I'm honestly contemplating selling my desktop and upgrading my laptop more, it's that powerful.
Plus, the warranty is great. Battery died two days ago (don't know why, totally failed) I called it in shortly after that, and they overnighted it for free to me. So 24 hour turnaround on battery replacement.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Help me understand why gaming on a PC that costs $3000-$4000 makes more sense than gaming on a $200 console?
To the topic, I can see if you want to game on an airplane you would need a laptop or some console that doesn't exist today, but isn't a great deal of excitement in games these days all about interconnected gaming with the First Person Shooters?
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Shane M. Kluskowski, 16, leaned over the row of empty caffeine drink bottles that separated him from Victor and said that he was washing dishes 20 hours a week at a nearby diner to pay off his own $2,100 laptop.
"It's the best investment ever," Shane declared. "I am going to keep it for the rest of my life, probably, because I won't be able to afford another one."
Thats what I said about my 266mhz K6 laptop I bought in 1998....
I think every geek felt that way once, when the world was shiny and new.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
but if I were a teen today I don't think my parents would buy me a $3199 laptop for playing games. linky
Yeah, this is probably off-topic... (Hey, you kids! Get off my lawn! Meshugganah brats... *grumble*)
PS If your kid is saying "It works as good as a normal computer" perhaps games shouldn't be a priority. I'm just sayin'.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
coincidently i was looking at this monster yesterday - it's got a 3.4GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 256MG graphics card and a 60GB hard disk... external floppy drive though :) - almost $4K - ouch!
When someone asks me for a good gaming machine, I suggest a custom rig... Put it together yourself and have many less problems then any thing you get from Dell...
But for those that need me to come by and install a USB mouse for them I suggest, Alienware, hell yea it cost more... but worth every penny if you can't/won't/don't want to build your own rig...
"The word "genius" isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein," - Joe Theisman
The powerful machines may harm your genitals if you use for longer period of time on your lap!!! Use at your own risk!!
Will they be able to upgrade those laptops to play next year's "latest games". At @$3,000, buying a completely new machine every two years hurts, whereas spending $400 - 700 a year on your tower will keep you in the running for a while.
Why not spend the money on a tricked out mini-itx and find a decent LCD monitor with a small footprint?
#!/usr/bin/english
No, I mean, seriously. I'm not trying to troll, I'm just wondering. I'm a gamer, and I play games on my desktop machine at home, and enjoy doing that. When I'm out travelling, I have a laptop, and I want that laptop to be thin, light, and have long battery life. These gaming laptops are none of these things. Are gamers really going to lug twenty pound monstrosities (Yes, I am exaggerating) around so that they can play NWN for 20 minutes until the battery runs out? That would be cumbersome. And I think I remember reading (in an AP story a while ago) that a Dell rep was asked the same question (what's the point of a gaming laptop) a while ago, and he said something like, "Well, these machines are mostly going to be left at home." Well, if they are, why not just buy a desktop? I just don't really see the point. If you can't carry a laptop around with you, what's the reason to have one?
That being said, is there any hope that OLED's will alleviate the motion blur problem? Because right now, as far as gaming / DVD viewing, I'm not giving up my CRT.
Personally I love it. I'm constantly on the computer, whether its writing music, writing stories, lurking on Slashdot, or playing games. While a laptop would be extraordinarily useful to take with me for writing purposes, I just can't bring myself to buy a machine that won't run my games well. The day I can take a laptop to the park and play games beutifully rendered on the new counterstrike engine will be shear bliss.
Maybe it's Groundhog Day and I'm still stuck in yesterday.
is a relabeled and marked up Asian notebook that is also available from http://www.pro-star.com and at a cheaper price. I own the ProStar 4774 and it's the second ProStar I've bought. They're extremely reliable. It's ten pounds of gaming goodness! Sean.
Along with all the moaning and groaning about how the video game industry is dying, there was an article on the news (BBC or CNN, I forget which) last night about re-releases of Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, a pile of Midway and other games coming out this summer for a GBA SP, XBox and some which can be played on a PC.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Which of course leads to my other rant: I wish they would design PCs so the average joe could upgrade them without having to open the case. Aside from taking away business from companys that upgrade PCs, is there any reason why CPUs, video cards/network cards/etc (except the motherboard of course) couldn't just be encased in plastic modules so that Joe Schmo could just plug them right in (something along the lines of the old video game cartridge)? (Something like the slot1 pentium cpus) This would require drastic changes to the ATX layoug, but it seems like it would be a good thing in the long run.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
I am going to hell and I am going to take all of you with me.
The biggest thing fueling my pc upgrades of recent years has always been games. Let's face it, you don't need a very impressive machine to do word processing, spreadsheets, internet browsing, etc. If you're looking to keep a bleeding edge gaming machine, you'll have to shell out a lot of money for new laptops. Recent games also have very large installs, so you'll run into harddrive space problems fairly quickly with a laptop. Laptops for gaming are great if you've got tons of cash just laying around, but otherwise, I think the desktop will be the preferred platform for quite a while.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
Ultimately, the choice depends on whether you can afford it or not. A lot of hardware gets pushed by gamers and it'll always be about having the latest and greatest for some people. With laptops, it's a bit more difficult to upgrade.
Games are best played on the desktop, especially if you're the economical type (however economical you CAN be as a gamer, anyway). At least parts are more easily swapped out, and hardware is generally cheaper.
Of course there are people who use their computing power as status symbols, and there's nothing like an uber-powered laptop to have people oohing and aahing over...like a shiny piece of metal to someone with ADD.
Then again I'm kicking myself once in a while because I didn't fork out for a better graphics card on my laptop and thus can't play stuff like UT2004 and can only play ET on the lowest resolutions. However, games are a bonus for me, not the main reason for the laptop.
The eMachines m6807 or if you want to shave off $100 cause you don't care to do DVD burning, the M6805.
These laptops kick ASS. Ive had an m6805 since launch and I fucking love it. First, the display is like sex on LCD. The keyboard has a great feel to it, better then some crap desktop keyboards Ive been on. Obviously, you can't game with a touchpad but it works just fine in RTSes. With the 4 USB ports, pluging in a nice optical mouse is no big deal.
This machine rocks. When I use AutoGK I normally get 24+FPS on my encodes to XviD. I can play UT2k4, BF:Nam, Far Cry and more on my "ATI(R) RADEON(TM) 9600 Discrete Graphics with built in 64MB Video RAM." 802.11g means Im killing your ass naked while in bed.
But its an eMachines? Well, before 2002 I would have stopped at the name too. However, being a true tech gadget nerd, I don't let a brand name determine my picks. I let the features and #s speak for themselves. I did a review back when I got it and I still love it love it love it. AND FOR UNDER $1500! I received $250 in rebates and spent $189 on the 3 year warrenty.
Speaking of which, that was the final straw that sold me this thing. Dell, HP, Compaq, WHATEVER -- Laptops BREAK. Maybe the screen, maybe the hard drive, modem, network card, etc. Something is BOUND to happen to a portable system in normal day to day use no matter WHO makes it. This laptop is VERY sturdy so I don't worry about that. However, I know that taking it to class and going from full to E on the battery day in and day out is going to cause some loss of charge on that thing. Guess what? My battery is covered. So is my screen, hard drive, modem, network card, etc. All for $189. The only warrenty that comes close is HP's and according to the fine print, you even install a program that wasn't there OEM, you are in technical violation. It is also considerably more expensive.
If you want a kick ASS laptop, then seriously, pick this bad boy up.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Voodoo has one (I think it was the 460) that was great on paper with the exception of missing bluetooth and having questionable battery life..
Subject says it all. It isn't fun to move a desktop around
please excuse my apathy
I really mean something like an AGP slot, but for portables.
I don't know, it might catch as a niche, but I don't think gaming laptops are going to be the next big thing. Gaming on a laptop is uncomfortable, you need a seperate keyboard and mouse to get really comfortable, and laptops are limited in terms of resolutions.
What I think would be a much more viable market is pizzabox formfactor computers. Towers are too bulky to lug arround, and laptops are too limited, but something in a pizzabox format (a la Mac LC II / III or sun sparcs) would be more portable without sacrificing much in the way of expandability or upgrades
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
The Dell Solution will be upgradeable between makes if other manufacturers standardize on the dell proposal. It is not intended to be proprietary RTFA.
Hey, it runs TFC and CS just fine.
You mean the AGP that will now be obsoleted by PCI express?
"At less than 10 pounds and worth twice as much as a similiar desktop, I can steal these all day and make some serious cash" -- (name with-held) age 17.
Huh?
Did anyone notice if battery life is mentioned in that article? Because if it is, I couldn't find it. While a laptop is nice and portable, is a laptop with a one hour battery life really practical? Unless you're hardcore for the LAN parties, I don't think this is really useful. For the $2000+ you spend on a gaming notebook that, with the exception of the Alienware (I think you can upgrade the video chipset), you're stuck with what you buy. At least with a $2000 desktop, you can change out parts in three years when it becomes obsolete.
Athlon64 laptops with ATI Radeon 9600m video chips have been available since November of 2003. Why would anyone want a desktop Pentium IV chip in their laptop? :)
You do realize that they can go for all of an hour before needing to be recharged?
How about that the systems aren't really "laptops" at all, unless you like your pants melting to your medium-rare flesh.
The Athlon64 is a better gaming chip and allows for decent battery life (3+ hours) because of "Cool'n'quiet". In the Intel camp, the Pentium-M is an extremely capable processor and uses even less power than the Athlon64. IBM and VoodooPC both have Pentium-M laptops with game-worthy video capabilities.
What's next? Dual Xeon laptops with a car battery backpack accessory?
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
The important thing here isnt that a group of gamers can get laptops that'll run their games. But the fact that theres a proven market for this means that companies can spend more money on developing higherend portable computers with the knowledge that they'll make a profit. Anything that results in more market driven technology research is a good thing.
Dave Rosonowski.
Ever since their inception laptops have been marketed to the business sector where the purchasing price is less relevant than the total cost of ownership. In a nutshell, most companies would rather pay more to buy a laptop that has solid hardware support than pay to hire someone who was capable of doing that job. Upgrades for laptops have typically been either proprietory and limited - memory and network, or via pccard which is still limited.
Many personal users, especially gamers, have held the opposing view - buying the best machine that their cash can buy and supporting the machine themselves. Many machines have been given new leases of life through CPU, memory, sound- and graphics- card upgrades. Desktop PCs architecture is incredibly open.
I wonder if the manufacturers will cater to this new breeed of laptop buyers. Will we see upgradable graphics cards? How about an upgradeable motherboard? Will there eventually be a range of components from different manufacturers that could be used to build a completely custom laptop?
I guess that it's time for a new standard. Desktop PCs have had the AT and ATX standards to help ensure physical interoperability between components. Newer standards (FlexATX, MicroATX etc) have helped spawn smaller desktops.
AFAIK, no such standard exists for laptops. Yet.
They used to sell one of Sager's notebooks for $500-600 more and call it their own simply because they spraypainted it grey and inserted an "Alienware" label where it used to say "Sager."
One of my friends spent $2600 on that Alienware and my other one spent $1999 on the equivalent Sager. Both of them ended up having problems after a year because the Sager has a badly designed cooling system.
The bottom line is, Alienware doesn't even pick good models to resell at high prices. I wouldn't trust their notebook. They need to find shitty manufacturers who will let them resell their notebook for a profit by putting a rubberized stupid-looking cover on the top of the LCD screen.
Not to mention that when I bought an Alienware desktop (this was like 5 years ago--that computer definitely didn't last me for life, kiddo), AW was a small company that actually had real tech support (i.e. my GeForce overheated and died, and when I called them they overnighted me a new one, no charge). Nowadays, they are just like every other tech support troupe--probably based out of India, but if not, just as bad.
Stay away... and please do your research.
I have noticed that all of these laptops feature "mobile" versions of the graphics cards. These cards all utilize shared memory as well.
Is there a reason that the cards don't come with their own separate memory?
up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
*makes note to limit user processes...
I dunno, I decided to get 'serious' a while ago, and just converted an old laptop [Kaypro II] into a luggable desktop. It has everything I need, including a 10K RPM SCSI RAID, etc.. Also this finally put to rest the squabbles we used to get into at SIGGRAPH over who's laptop could render the fastest. OK, the solid steel reinforced frame puts it in at over 50 pounds, but I'm happy when I get where I'm goin. I know it's not for everyone, but I am not the 'I want to watch my own inflight movie, mew, mew, mew' type anyhow. It's great for going to conventions and being able to get some serious work done, not to mntion a great tribute to a great machine, long live Darth Vader's Lunchbox!
I bet Dave with the Alienware has the song "Feel the Vibration" by Marky Mark as his Windows startup.
My 1998 Dell Inspiron 7000 had an upgradable video card, but AFAIK, only two cards were ever offered. The only difference was memory size, and since I had bought the bigger size to start with, I could never upgrade.
So, my stance on laptop upgrade cards is "show me the upgrades!". Even buying from a large company didn't assure me future improvements, and I wonder if that isn't part of a company's business plan - why actuall get around to selling the upgrade when you can sell a new laptop?
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
How long has the NYT been putting periods in the acronym "C.P.U.", and if it's not standard practice then how did it ever get past the eds?
'will be'...'intended'...
Dell hasn't shipped anything yet. I'll believe it when I see it.
Why does it seem that PC gaming software market is dying whilst PC gaming hardware market is flourishing?
Really - can you name some games (of recent) that are real fun to play AND that require pretty decent hardware?
I'm a Q3er and I'm still running my P3-600 with a Geforce2 GTS and after a lot of time spent tweaking the game, I can keep my FPS above 100FPS at 8x6 with pretty good detail, and I can still beat people with the LATEST hardware. You can't tell me that you need the absolute fastest hardware to be able to play a game; it's the gamer, not the machine. I'm not even thinking about upgrading (just because after I outgrow q3 I won't game anymore).
You could have a Porsche and Rick Mears will still own you with a Cavalier.
no i haven't purchased from them, but they supposedly have an awesome reputation.
17" widescreen with Radeon 9700 (256Mb video ram)
http://www.powernotebooks.com/images/8790/
that Sony should market a "PS2 laptop" for a slightly higher price than a console, but cheaper than a regular laptop.
(yes I know about the accessories to make the PS2 portable. not the same.)
It's great, I don't even have to destabilize my game with Alt+tab, I just hit the button on my monitor that switches between composite video and DVI. Ain't technology grand?
As any traveller will tell you, a portable gadget is only as reliable as its durability. When you're talking about a $2000+ gadget that weighs anywhere between 5 to 13 pounds, is constructed of weak plastic, silicon, and an LCD screen that costs half of the entire system alone, people are very, very wary of actually using a system such as this for its intended purpose. Hardcore gaming while travelling.
Voodoo PC is overpriced. Any slashdot readers actually own one these things? From what my friend tells me it's real hot with the millionaire club folks in Cali. I guess when your wallet is lined with $1000 bills, dropping $5 to $10 thousand for a computer is a drop in the pond.
A NY times article posting without a parenthetical registration complaint!
I just don't understand why someone would spend $2,000 - $3,000 on a laptop just to play games. Sure, it's convenient to have a portable kick-ass gaming system, but not when it's THAT expensive. You can piece together an equivalent desktop system that performs as well, if not better, for nearly 1/5 the price.
I don't know many people who NEED to take their games with them, as laptops are generally meant for portable work.. start putting hardcore gaming technology and you're gonna be paying out the ass for something you really don't need.
Unless you're fine with blowing that much money, take a step back and think of convenience vs. necessity.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
My University requires engineering students to purchase a laptop. It is OK to have a desktop, but a laptop is required. The reasoning is the engineering labs are limited and have aging computers, so by requiring the students to have their own laptop, labs that don't have computers/have computers below requirements become available.
It seems like a dirty cost-cutting measure, but there is one large advantage. My largest CS lab had 8 people in it. This meant the TA was able to provide individual assistance easily. My Microprocessors lab was a different story. To perform well you needed an oscilloscope. Scopes were limited, so the lab sections had about 25-30 students per section. I was often in the lab for 45 minutes before the TA could get around to checking my prelab so I could start on the lab itself. (Often the prelab involved a circuit you would tear apart during the lab, so working ahead was out of the question).
Anyway, I haven't been able to play the newer games for a year or so now. I even have problems with older games like Quake III. Due to the financial strains of the university and the internships I'm doing, a new desktop is a luxury I cannot afford. I would have loved the choice of a performance laptop when I was looking for one.
Plus, a laptop is sometimes more convenient. In the small kitchen of our dorm, four of my friends had a small LAN party at one table using their laptops and a switch. This would not have been possible with their desktops, as they would have had no room. Playing from the rooms was unacceptable; the network seemed designed to thwart gaming. So there are a few reasons people want to game from a laptop. Some people do not have the luxury of a desktop AND a laptop, and must use a laptop for both work and play.
What's not changing is that it's still a sad waste of time. Next time you see some slackers doods at the mall with their pants down around their knees showin' off their name brand panties while talkin' about the new "gaming laptop" daddy bought them, why don't you think about all the tech jobs going to India, a place where people take education a bit more seriously.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I've got 2 17" Dell LCDs hooked to a Quadro NVS card. I've played UT, Madden and Civ3 and it works fine.
I'm not drunk, I just have a speech impediment. And a stomach virus. And an inner ear infection.
please do not speak his name aloud.
he deserves to be forgotten by the history.
Why is everyone here obsessed with getting the top of the range laptop to play games. It is really not needed. My laptop that is a year old costs less than 1900 euro , has a pentium 4 mobile 2.2 with 640Mb RAM and a GeForce4 420 Go and is 2.7Kg (6 pounds.... I think). This is easily good enough to play all the 3D games out there. You dont need 150 FPS because it is a LCD screen. Having a 3.6GHz HT Pentium 4 in a laptop will get really hot really quick. Then in a years time you will have a heavy hot brick of a laptop that is still fast but not very. Plus you battery life means that you can not really play away from a power socket anyway.
...its all entertainment)
On the other side it is your money and you can do what you want with it. (Beer, bedroom companions, laptops
Check out this months issue of Maximum PC for pretty good reviews on all those laptops. According to them the Dell is quite the machine.
I knew /. had ads, but I thought they were just banners. Are you guys letting them into the forums too?
Seriously though, I don't much of a difference in price to warrant this kind of purchase, it's still twice the cost of an equally (or better) equipped desktop. I don't go to LAN parties, so I guess spending that kind of money on a laptop is out of the question. Buy a desktop and use the rest of that money to take a girl on a date. Enjoy.
Only thing I am surprised not focused a bit more is the root I went on laptops going, for the lighter wieght high end machines... I will admit that i only have a 14" screen and 32mb video card (this laptop was bought almost 18 months ago) but it also means I only carry around 5lbs of electronics and have a battery that lasts longer then 1hour...
;)
In short I am trying to say don't forget the other end of higher end which can be alot more useful to a student at least...
And on a remark to the 1st post... Does time in class count?
"It's the best investment ever," Shane declared. "I am going to keep it for the rest of my life, probably, because I won't be able to afford another one."
Jesus. What more can be said! Except the second he unpacked it, it was only worth $900 or less... Especially with all that teen goo stuck to keyboard.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
This debate raged a couple of weeks ago. There's apparently at least two camps on portable computing: fully-featured and super-portable.
The fully featured camp really wants a desktop with a laptop-style form factor. It's easily portable, but not necessarily "highly mobile". Battery life, size and weight are all traded for power, peripherals and screen size.
The super-portable camp wants something that's convenient to take anywhere without being a burden. Size, weight and battery life are more important than power, peripherals and screen size.
We got a bunch of Dell X300s in the other day, and they've taken kind of an interesting path -- they all come with these docking stations that attack to the laptop in the same footprint; it just makes the laptop thicker, and provides a place for the DVD/CDRW, extra ports, extra battery, etc. Otherwise you can remove the laptop from this and have a thinner, lighter, more portable device.
A clever extension on this idea would be a very small laptop (say 800x600 screen) with no peripherals except USB2/LAN ports that slotted into a "full size" laptop and gained the usual ports/bays AND a larger screen.
eMachines has 138 employees.
They have a different CEO as of 2001 who made hardware quality changes within the company.
Also, that same CEO is now going to head Gateway.
Look for Gateway to gain credibility points RSN.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
astroturfing n. The use of paid shills to create the impression of a popular movement, through means like letters to newspapers from soi-disant `concerned citizens', paid opinion pieces, and the formation of grass-roots lobbying groups that are actually funded by a PR group (astroturf is fake grass; hence the term). This term became common among hackers after it came to light in early 1998 that Microsoft had attempted to use such tactics to forestall the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust action against the company.
This backfired horribly, angering a number of state attorneys-general enough to induce them to go public with plans to join the Federal suit. It also set anybody defending Microsoft on the net for the accusation "You're just astroturfing!".
Methinks slashdot needs to be more careful about who gets moderated up in these discussions. Of course if parent poster is not guilty, let them prove it.
Liberty.
What little exercise I get comes from lugging around my tower and 19 inch monitor.
If you're really into LAN parties, lugging around a huge tower and a CRT is definitely a pain in the butt. Even when you're not lugging them around, those beasts eat up a lot of space and usually look ugly. (Let's face it- even if you don't agree, looks are an issue for PCs, especially if they're in your living room, especially if you happen to have a wife/girlfriend) But I still don't see the appeal of a laptop here. Why not compromise and buy a tiny Shuttle PC? They're cheap, easy to build, and you're sacrificing ZERO power/upgradability compared to "normal" desktops, unless you realllllly need more than three drive bays or have a poopload of PCI cards. 5.1 audio, acceptable video, USB2, and firewire are built right into the motherboard. And most models have an AGP slot for a "real" video card. And you could build one for a fraction of the cost of a "performance" laptop. $220 for a Shuttle w/ nforce2 chipset $70 for an Athlon2500 that you can easily run at 3200 speeds $80 for 512MB of 400mhz ram $200 for a Radeon9800pro $300 for a 15" lcd $80 for a hard disk $50 for an optical drive That's only $1000 for something that not even a $3000 laptop could beat, gaming-wise. And it still fits in a backpack. Of course, the system I just described isn't really that useful for taking notes in class. :P
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Check the prices out at Powernotebooks.com
Check out the Sager 8890 Specs and then rethink alienware and dell.
I have the Sager NP5680 P4 2.8GHz with the ATI Radeon 9600 with 128MB DDR... and it cost around $1800.. (thanks to work for picking up the check)
Check out the 17" laptops for around $1500. Nice!
-Tolerate my intolerance
cannot find any... Oh... it probably hosted on old model of PII 233 laptop.
...and into some sort of sunglasses/visor display technology (a la Snowcrash) then I think that portable/laptop gaming will move to the forefront of the various hardware platforms.
B.
I just bought a Dell Precision M50 with an nVidia NV17 GL chip and I couldn't be happier.
I purchased a Sager laptop, which is really a clevo rebranded. Alienware rebrands these, if you look at some of the models, you can see that it's just a fancy paintjob. It was (6 months ago) about $500 dollars less than the competing voodoo or alienware for the same power.
The same machines are rebranded as prostars also, so check them out if you are in the market.
I've been very happy with my laptop, even though it weighs in at 9.5 lbs. It took some time to find a backpack that the monster fit in, but now I'm really mobile, when I want to haul it.
It is true that I don't leave the house with it often, but all the mobility I was really looking for was around the house and on business trips. I'm rarely away from the power grid, so battery isn't that big of a deal. It's only got an our of life. And no, I will not give you my home address...
Whatever happened to being innocent until proven guilty?
Everyone is seeking their own standard, that's why there isn't one yet. Dell wants their idea to become the standard, while Alienware wants theirs to. Someone needs to bite the bullet and give up their method.
Guess what! I just get my brand-new Xtreme gaming laptop up and running, and what is the top story on Slashdot?
That really sounds more petulant than anything else. Do you really look down on people because they don't have the same motivation that you do?
What would you say to someone who DOES enjoy games, but learned Java in 3 months while TEACHING 15 hours a semester? Would you acknowledge that person as superior and redouble your efforts to exceed him?
If you do something right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
I have HP NC8000 (basically a re-branded compaq NC8000). I bought it just few days ago. I researched all of this for about 3 months in depth before I finally bought one. I have been eyeing the laptop market for about eight years now, after having bought my mother 2 laptops over this period of time and one for my sister.
e ries/45 05-3121_7-30583495.html?tag=search
/ 4505-3121 _7-30567436.html?tag=pdtl-list
:-) ], and I am a small business owner (I own/operate a small College Bookstore).
I decided on the HP because, for me, it represented the best compromise of power, weight, speed, and graphics, and desktop-replacement functionality. It has a 1.7GHZ pentium M, an ATI 9600 radeon Gpu with 128ddr ram on the gpu, the laptop itself has 1 gig of 333mhz DDR remory. On one battery, the laptop lasts me about 4.5 hours unplugged (more if I dont play games...) or almost 8 hours with the optional second battery. It weighs about 6.5 lbs and is 1.6 inches thick. It is *great* for wireless gaming with the 802.11g integrated card and integrated bluetooth.
My second choice was an IMB thinkpad t41p, but I ultimately decided on the HP because it has a built in DVD+RW drive and a second modular port (yes, it is a 3 spindle design) and I was able to get it under an E and I educational discount, so I saved about $800.00 ^ ^.
CNET did a review of the NC8000 and they were fond of it as well:
http://reviews.cnet.com/HP_Compaq_nc8000_s
CNET liked the T41P a bit more, though:
http://reviews.cnet.com/IBM_ThinkPad_T41
I *do* game occasionally (warcraft 3, Unreal, and Diablo II - yeah I know its old...) but also have a real life as a married man of 11 years, with a baby on the way [due in spetember
Oh, yeah, and it's great for long car drives as my custom mp3 playlist goes on and on, and for movies in the Hotels...
.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
The next computer I buy is going to be a laptop and hey, if its powerfull enough to play the latest games then that'll be even better.
Like alot of people i'm going to put a wireless network in my house so I can access the net from anywhere and what else is better suited for that than a laptop.
I'll keep a couple of my servers but they'll be running linux and hosting stuff.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
If you think Alienwares are the only company that does this, you're sadly mistaken.
In fact, that alienware laptop wasn't Sager's. It was Clevo's. Clevo is the name of a laptop manufacturer, probably the biggest one there is. Dell, HP, Compaq, IBM*, Sager, Alienware, Voodoo, and others all buy from clevo, stick in ram, a hard drive, and a logo and then sell for profit. Sager's model was cheaper than AW's because it was not as well known
Apple and IBM* are the only major companies who make their own laptops. Period.
*Some thinkpads are made by IBM and some are made by Clevo. Depends on the model.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
Don't pay for overpriced Alienware or VoodooPC, check out iBuyPower.com for a great deal!!
Me and my boyfriend live 7 1/2hrs apart, so we only get to see eachother on vacations. He's looking into buying a laptop thats fully capable of playing games on for when he visits me since we like to DM in UT2k3 and other games when he visits. A laptop would just be a lot easier to transport over this long of distance.
"You all laugh because I'm different, I laugh because you're all the same."
The sager 8790
http://pctorque.com/8790.php
kicks the pants off of any Alienware notebook and costs several hundreds (if not a thousand) less.
Though the gpu is not upgradeable, at least you have the option of not paying the Microsoft tax if you want to use one of the Linux Flavors.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
Even a cheap laptop is a $1000+ investment; a good one is over $3000. You'd have to be a fool not to protect that investment, especially if you rely on it to make a living. That goes double if your're leasing it for the tax advantage -- 2 year lease + 1 year warranty = disaster waiting to happen.
Yeah, a 3 or 4 year warranty is expensive, but you are guaranteed to have a perfectly functioning laptop for the duration. That's worth it for a lot of people.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
I recently bought a fujitsu N5010 for a desktop replacement. It's got a radeon 9600 mobility chip with 64mb of vram. Sure...it doesn't beat a desktop, but considering the type of work I do and the games I play, it fit the bill. This computer has a screen to die for. It's a 600:1 contrast ratio...bring on full sun. No problem. For more folks, raw speed is irrelevant now. I would have preferred a centrino or amd based system so I could have had better battery life, but once I saw this screen....I had to have this one. The screen on this laptop beats anything I've ever seen. Sony's x-Brte is probably very similar. FWIW, I have a very small desk space (dining table) and I need to put a computer away very frequently to use the space for other things. So ten pound laptop is just fine. Portablity isn't everything. Getting rid of cables, separate monitors and the abilty to put it up at the end of the day, out weigh the power of a desktop. Probably not only for me, but for quite a few other folks too. The market for these kind of machines has got to be growing as people discover that they don't need uber power in order to process words. A tidy desk is qutie a triumph!
'Cause it's by a karma-whoring troll. That's not Seth Finkelstein.
I love it when people spell "ignorant" wrong. Particularly when they're applying it to someone else in a condescending manner.
Do the monitors still have that damn ghosting? Only CRT's don't have those and no laptops use CRT's (or they wouldn't be laptops.)
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Sager - proof you CAN take it with you.
Sager - supporting body building geeks since 1985.
Sager systems proudly supports an alphanumeric-free corporate moto.
Sager - pronounce it as you will.
Sager - Arousing nerds since 1985.
Sager - When you can't make it to the steam room...turn on a Sager.
Sager notebooks - aliens made them famous, we made them cost less.
Sager - if you buy it crazy people will think your god, but the smart people will pray to you.
Sager - Mini Me won't be able to carry our 17" notebook.
Sager - Viagra has a new name.
Sager - Its what's for dinner...and lunch, and breakfast, and it sometimes replaces sleep...
Sager - it kicks the llama's ass
Sager - Making Dell owners say grrr
Sager - My lappy kicks your desky anyday
Sager - LAN parties will never be the same
Sager - You won't cry 6 months later like Sony owners do when their lappys CAN'T be upgraded.
My Favorite:
Sager - The best thing you've had on your lap since college.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
I love it when the spelling Nazis pipe up, it shows how sad they are that it makes their pathetic day to point out some technical error while unable to actually comment intelligently on the subject of the post...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I'm in the market for a gaming notebook, so I've done some research. I think the best bet may be the the ABS G1 Gamer's Notebook, which Tom's Hardware Guide reviewed last week. A WAY better price than, say, the top-of-the-line Voodoo PC ENVY m:860. It may not have the ATI 9700, but the 9600 is still pretty good.
Looking for political forums? Check out "The World Forum".
Check this out. Dell support doesn't even know it exists.
Short review:
Athlon 64's are THE gaming CPU. 3000+ to 3400+. Heat isn't a problem. UT2004, Far Cry, etc. have 64-bit editions coming out and WinXP 64-bit is alledged to ship when SP2 does (late June). Fedora Core 1 for AMD64 runs with the "idle=poll" kernel option workaround (HP has been alerted and will fix this in the BIOS).
The 15.4" 1680x1050 widescreen is stunning.
The 802.11g wireless range is extremely impressive thanks to the two antenna panels behind the screen.
Bluetooth works well with Microsoft's keyboard/mouse kit. Buy AA NiMH rechargable batteries for at least the mouse, you'll need them.
Quadspeed DVD burners are available, but DVD-ROM/CD-RW was the best available when I bought.
Only 4200RPM drives are offered, but swapping in a 7200RPM Hitachi 60GB drive was trivial. They include a full WinXP Home CD and separate driver and application CDs. The drivers install in 1 shot. VERY nice.
The 12-cell battery, combined with AMD PowerNow!, make for excellent battery life.
Cluestick-beating-worthy offense: they used a nVidia GeForce 440 Go 64MB video chip. On what is marketed as a gaming notebook. And it's not on a separate card so you can't upgrade. ARGH!!! This chip is fine for strategy games but it's not up to playing UT2004 at full detail.
Memory: buy from HP, buy Micron-based SODIMMs (Crucial.com is sending out Infineon-based SODIMMs lately that DO NOT WORK on Athlon 64 notebooks when paired with a second SODIMM, nor do Corsair SODIMMs), or buy from somewhere you can easily return memory to. Kingston is supposed to work. I'm working with HP to run this down. More here. You can get to the SODIMM slot that's under the keyboard with minor effort when you know how (see the previous link).
In summary: GREAT notebook for getting work done, will be great for Linux once the BIOS is fixed and it's workable now, so-so for gaming. Serious gamers will probably want eMachines' notebooks instead, or wait for Athlon 64 notebooks from ASUS, Acer, etc. If you want thin-and-light, the Athlon 64 2700+ 1.2V 35W CPU (see page 20 here) looks ideal, if there are any OEMs out there with enough brains to use it.
Check out Sagers from PCTorque.com and PowerNotebooks.com. They are as good as the Alienware and Voodoo laptops for hundreds or sometimes even aver a thousand dollars less. And heres a note for those of you buying the more expensive ones - they're all Clevo rebrands. They're made by the same people and "recased" for whatever company made the sale. If you don't believe me, spec out identical Alienwares and Sagers and check out the price difference. The difference between my dream laptop from Alienware or Voodoo and the same one from Sager is almost $1500 (dual HDDs, 1 GB RAM, DVD-RW, etc.) Don't buy directly from Sager though (bad direct support. Buy from PCTorque or PowerNotebooks. I have a Sager 4080 and love it. It kicks ass on BF1942, CoD, and all of my other games. Check out their ratings on ResellerRatings.com.
If you mod me down, I shall become less powerful than you could possibly imagine.
well moderated, go on the Mods!!!!!
I've built/upgraded my machine over and over, and it has probably saved me several thoasands of dollars. For those of you who are tight on money but want a decent machine, this is the way to go. HOWEVER, the temptation is to just go out and buy whatever parts give you the best price/performance ratio. This sounds like a good idea, but if you're unlucky, you could easily come across one of the many odd incompatibilities that creep up between computers parts that are suppose to be compatible. The three parts that are most likely to cause you trouble are the sound card, motherboard, and video card. Do your best to find someone else who has used that combination of video card/sound card/and motherboard with success. Also, these days it is VERY important not to skimp on the power supply. A 250w PS is just not going to cut it these days, and really it is getting where a 400w PS is the minimum of what you aught to have. You can't get a PS that is too big, so save yourself the pain of upgrading it in the future and get the biggest one you can. It's a real bummer to get everything set up to find your machine constantly rebooting because it can't suck off enough power. I guess my only other advice is to research your parts not just buy visiting the review sites and reading customer reviews at stores, but by visiting technical help sites for that part as well. (Specifically again, motherboard, sound card, and video card) Some parts have problems with specific games, and it is best to find out about this on their forums than after you've bought the part and can't play your favorite game. It also helps you see through the hype, as an example, I bought an ATI graphics card and have had loads more problems with it than I ever did with Nvidia cards. Had I visited tech help forums on the two cards, I probably could have gauged better and seen through the marketing BS (No, their drivers are NOT as good as Nvidia's now). I'm not saying never buy ATI, but find out if one of the games you want to play has lots of trouble with that hardware first.
with very crappy laptopesque keyboards.
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
I know it's a bit late, but I feel compelled to comment. I was at the LAN where these laptops were, and they were pretty decent. I mean, the Dell XPS outperforms my machine by a small margian, and the voodoo looks sweet.
That said, they played the games smooth, but my thinkpad 390e is going to have to be enough for now.
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
I have a dell Inspiron 5150 which they dramatically decreased the performance of with the release of the XPS. It has a 3.2 HT P4-M and I still get over three hours of battery life. At seven pounds, it is a little bulky for taking everywhere I go though. Other than that I love it.
I still don't see the point in creating a gaming laptop. Why not just buy a Falcon Fragbox? Those look pretty cool and have a lot more power than any laptop.
See, the thing about laptops, is that companies like VoodooPC and Alienware do not know how to go about making them. They pack a lot of power into the system -- uping the processor speed, RAM, video card, and harddrive space, but in turns, you still have the same refresh rate as you did without the extra power. You just have a lot faster notebook with it. That's always the downer on LCD monitors though -- the refresh rate. With CRTs, we can get some really high frames per second (FPS), but LCDs just don't put out enough. So until the day when a laptop can ship with a mini-CRT monitor or an LCD with a decent refresh rate (higher than 60), I'm sticking to my desktop computer for gaming.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
I picked up this copy of the New York Times today.
... For this one, I had to light a candle and take a deep breath."
The front page has a gruesome photo of burnt bodies of American civilians hanging from a bridge in Iraq.
Further in, there are more photos of burnt Americans.
The craziest part is that even further in, in the "Circuits" section this Slashdot article is pulled from, there are reviews of two games based on the Viet Nam war.
A quote from Matt Costello, a scriptwriter for the Viet Nam war games, is:
"If I'm writing Bad Boys II or Doom 3, I just go do it and have fun.
Just in case you are looking for Linux on such a laptop. Here are some installation reports about Linux on 64bit CPU laptops.
Can anyone recommend a good place to buy gaming laptops in Canada? PCTorque and PowerNotebooks look nice, but they're in the U.S. and I don't want to get broadsided with massive customs fees.