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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."
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.
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.
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.
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!!
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.
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.
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!
So between games you can post on /.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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
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
Less than an inch thick, some come with 64MB VRam, most have battery life of 4 hours + (higher end with better batteries are 9 hr +).
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
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'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.
It would be nice if you could easily upgrade the video/ram/cpu/etc without having to rip the whole laptop apart.
Have you looked at a laptop recently? My HP Pavilion has three removable covers in the base; one for the hard drive, one for memory, one for the video card. All it takes to upgrade any of the three is a small screwdriver to remove the single screw and removing the plastic cover. Piece of cake.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
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.
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
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.
"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.
One of my HS Seniors just got one (two, actually, but one was a mistake) as an upcoming graduation/start of college present. He says it's a desktop replacement machine for him. I'm happy for the guy, but I wouldn't want to lug that beast around on a daily basis.
"Sometimes the only thing left to say is 'Oops'" -- debbers
Oh and btw - doesn't laptop use on planes cause problems with navigation equipment? Or is it just during take-off and landing that its problematic?
Laptop use is not problematic except in the sense that if there is a rough landing (or aborted takeoff), they don't want to get sued when your laptop smashes into the seat in front of you and breaks its LCD, or when your gadget gets thrown into your face and breaks your nose. As a result, they ask you to turn off and stow any electronic devices during takeoff/landing. Cellphones are a matter of debate, but speaking as a student pilot I find it hard to believe there's any inappropriately shielded piece of equipment on an airplane for the cellphone to interfere with.
Random and weird software I've written.
Unless you're fine with blowing that much money, take a step back and think of convenience vs. necessity.
For you it may not make sense. For some people who have high disposable incomes but not much living space (like those in NYC), a high power laptop capable of gaming is a fantastic option. Saving $1500 is nothing compared to not having a huge desk (with a massive 21" CRT and a huge tower) eating up a huge chunk of your space. Since you're going to buy a $2000 laptop anyway, adding another $1000 to make it a kick-ass gaming system is not a big deal.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
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.
Don't anyone waste your money on AlienWare. They're just overpriced Sagers.
I've got a Sager 5660 and it's been rock solid compared to any of the name brands I've owned. And it spits out UT2003/2004 FPS like no tomorrow.
I snagged mine last year from PowerNotebooks.com and they been the best laptop vendor I've dealt with so far. One of the hightest ratings on ResellerRatings.com for Sager dealers.
Yes, I'm whoreing, but it's rare I'm pleased with hardware and the buyer experience.
The other nice thing about Sager, they usually allow tradeins or upgrades for the latest mobo/CPU for a reasonable amount of $.
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.
Mod this idiot down. Look at my post history, look at my long standing karma. Head over to shacknews and check out other posts from he there. Look at the blog, does it look like an eMachine whore job?
No.
This is the whole POINT of the comments system you retard. Seriously, abre los ojos!
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Student pilot here as well. The reason you're not supposed to use cell phones from the air (and this is from another pilot I met who works for Nextel and gets mighty upset when people say it doesn't matter) is that you hit too many cell towers when at altitude. On the ground, your range is greatly reduced by all the obstructions.
---- The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. -Thomas Jefferson
Help me understand why gaming on a PC that costs $3000-$4000 makes more sense than gaming on a $200 console?
Sigh. This isn't even an apples and oranges comparison at this point. It's an apples and bicycles comparison.
To go to the heart of the argument -- console vs PC gaming. The two are completely different and serve different markets and needs. The PC is somewhat more expensive (yes... somewhat. I can build a PC capable of running all current games, as well as all games planned for release in the next couple years, for $617 ($525 w/o OS)), but can do considerably more than just play games. It also runs those games at resolutions and polygon counts that console gamers can only dream of -- even the Xbox on a HDTV is lower res. Some games -- FPS, most RTS or turn-based strategy games, and MMORPGs -- are simply best on PCs due to the better controls available. The networking, upgradability, and mod scene is far better on PCs as well (although consoles like the Xbox are making strides on those). Games are cheaper on PCs (which is countered by the lack of a rental or resale market, but not everyone rents or resells console games either).
Consoles are easy to setup and play, have a lower initial investment, and are far better for head-to-head playing. Some game types are far better on consoles -- particularly fighting games, platformers, driving games, and most sports games in general. The downsides are largely covered above (poor graphics, poor online support, poor/non-existent patching or mods, higher long-term cost).
But why, you ask, did I say it was an absurd comparison? Because you're trying to compare a console to a highly specialized laptop. Take that console, put a 15-17" LCD screen on it and then make it run purely from battery power for 1-3 hours. You might want to contemplate wireless networking too, in order to try and level the playing field a bit more. Let me know what the cost is then.
Oh, and a perfectly capable gaming laptop can be had for about $1500, as several people have posted. To be fair, a console is $99-$179... unless, of course, you want a memory card or more than one controller, or online support...
I don't care if I get modded down for this, but hey, it's something that needs to be said.
Methinks slashdot needs to be more careful about who gets moderated up in these discussions.
I absolutely agree. Posts such as yours should never be moderated this high. Just because someone is clearly impressed with a laptop that they've purchased (one that I am considering purchasing, as well) does not mean that they were paid by the laptop manufacturer to advertise it.
Of course if parent poster is not guilty, let them prove it.
Ever heard this expression: "innocent until proven guilty"? It's quite a popular phrase, and I think it very well applies in this case. The burden of proof is on you, so if you're going to accuse someone of astroturfing you better have some real proof. Show a connection between rosewood and eMachines, especially considering the number of "Insighful" and "Interesting" posts in his post history.
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.
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
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!