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."
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.
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
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.
They are upgradeable-- "Upgradeable Video Modules"
High Latency? Nope...we play {Halo,Quake III,HL/Steam} at college, on 802.11b, with pings of 20-50, which is not noticible (except when the slow laptop hosts)
Low Brightness? Not a problem, unless I'm outside with the sun in my face or on the screen.
Low color quality? Good enough for me, I can't see the difference in my games versus a CRT, I've ditched the CRTs altogether, but then again, I'm not addicted to having 350,203,234,234^10 colors either. (Yes, I'm exaggerating)
We seriously game on our laptops because they're mobile, powerful and capable. Sure, we have slightly longer load times, but mine (eMachines 6805) gets ~3 hours normally, 1-1 1/2 gaming. And that's with a Desktop Replacement designed laptop.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.