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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."
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.
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!
Gamers aren't geeks any more. That's what's changing.
:)
I know 2 people with laptops used for nothing but gaming, and they're both the kind of guy that would, stereotypically, be said to have a life. They go out, they visit friends, they party, they don't want to geek about at home playing XBox or their PC. So they have a gaming laptop.
Having survived the 1980s it looks like the gaming laptop as I've seen it used has the place of a ghettoblaster... not everyone has them but those who do share with friends when they're out... It's just one more part of the entertainment for them.
(me, I'm a nerd. I don't game and I get off on coding. until coding is entertaining at parties I guess I'm out of luck
I have a Dell 600m and I have to say, that laptop LCD displays have improved 10 fold over the last few years. A couple years ago I would never want to play a First Person Shooter on a laptop due to the horrible refresh rates.
On this laptop I can play Enemy Territory with no problems. The display is excellent and even seems clearer then my NEC MultiSync CRT. The laptop has a Radeon 9000 (64mb) which can handle RtCW:ET with no problems (and the new Linux ATi drivers are very good).
Using a USB mouse, there is not much difference in gaming on a laptop then the desktop. The big plus is that there is a lot less to lug around to a LAN party.
I haven't tried new games like UT2004 on it, and will admit I'm afraid to due it being underpowered for a game like that, but overall they do make decent gaming platforms.
But there is no way I'm paying $3000+ for one!!
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
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
While still a good option (as far as system speed), if I had one of these I'd still have to bring my CRT (no LCD screen in existence can refresh at 160 Hz). The laptop would save a trip from the car though (keep it in a backpack while you carry the monitor).
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.
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.
The same reasoning was why I went with the 8200 (with 64mb video ram) a year and a half later when I bought the second one.
Why did I choose Laptops? Because both times I was preparing to be deployed overseas with the US Army (Kosovo in 2001 and Bosnia in 2002). I certainly wouldn't be able to take a desktop with me on those trips. However, I knew I have ample extra time while off duty to need a game machine.
As I went shopping for laptops, only one other company (I think it was hp) offered even 16 megs of video ram. Dell had not only the 16 but also the 32.
When I was notified I was going again in 2002 I decided to get another new machine, this time Dell was the only laptop provider with 64 Megs of video ram (major provider that is, I could have gotten one custom made at a local laptop builder but at almost twice the cost.)
I also purchased a multimedia projector when I bought the second laptop, and can thus have as big a screen as I want when I game. It's also great for impromptu movie nights.
Now I intend to get another box to run a server on, but other than that I don't see any reason to own such a bulky space hog, and will stick to laptops. I do everything on my laptop, and when I need the space where it happens to be sitting, I just fold it up and put it in my travel case. When I get a box to use as a server, I'll find a closet or similar out of the way place and put it there, but don't plan on accessing it very often.
I've also used my Laptops to DJ church dances, and just did a rather resource heavy slideshow presentation for my brother's wedding. And for both events it's alot easier to cart in a high performance laptop or two than it would be to cart in a desktop.
To conclude, I use my laptop for serious Gaming as well as everything else. If obtain employment where I need to keep things seperate, I'll just utilize a seperate HD caddy and swap HD's between work and everything else.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
I used to work for emachines as a tech support flunkie. For a quite awhile I was ashamed of it and ranted regularly because of the poor service I was forced to give customers. For example I had a hotel owner beg me to send him a hard drive because his had failed. He said that he would pay for overnight shipping without hesitating and that we should name our price for doing so. Policy prohibited anything but offering him the normal slow warranty fufillment process and mule based delivery. The policies also prohibited me from telling him to walk down to the local store, grab the appropriate drive and run the restore procedures.
Ok, so I still like to rant, but eMachines has seen the light. Maybe. When I worked for them he would have gotten his battery via regular parcel post or UPS ground, and God only know how long that takes.
Bulletproof hardware will likely always cost large piles of money. Great, heaping, has their own ZIP code piles of cash. That's fine and dandy if you're NASA and are putting machines on some other planet with exactly one semi-redundant backup. Most of the rest of us must make trade offs. If reliability is slighted for cost's sake, then some kind of replacement system is necessary.
If it is necessary, why not do it right? How much extra does good customer support need to cost? In my example case, replacing the guy's drive overnight could have been as easy as setting a single flag on the ticket and having a pile of "ship this out on the next plane" stickers at the fufillment center.
Legendary customer support will always cost big money. If you want multi-lingual engineers that have taken sacred vows and can offer prayer, holy communion, teach yoga or sacrifice chickens for your machine, then it's coing to cost you.
I accept the fact that stuff will fail. Crappy customer support doesn't have to be, and good customer support doesn't have to be expensive.
It sounds like e-Machines is getting it. Now we can top calling buyers "eWhores." Perhaps "eMildlySluttyAfterTwoBeers." Really, I'm happy about the change.
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.