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Review of WidowPC Sting 917 Gaming Laptop
Let me start by offering some perspective: most of my gaming is sadly done on a Mac. I have no Mac capable to truly running most modern video games. I always turn the video settings down to just below pathetic, and even then I'm fortunate to get tolerably smooth video. It's just something you sort of learn to accept when you have a Mac. Every game I play on it is just a little short of steller when compared to running on a PC. But my newest Windows capable machine is 3 years old, and a joke by today's standards.
This machine came well equipped: A 3.66ghz P4 w/ 2MB of L2 Cache, 1 gig of 533MHz DDR2 RAM, an Nvidia 6800 Ultra w/ 256MB ram, and not one, but TWO drives, a 60gb 7200 RPM for the OS, and a 100 GB 5400 RPM drive for games. It came in minimal packaging- inside the box was little more than a laptop bag containing the manuals and a few cables. Which is good because all that bloat distracts me from my primary mission: It installed my Warcrack in moments and patched up in probably half the time I was expecting it to take.
With that I hoisted the gigantic beast upon my lap, connected my mouse and began to play. Glorious, lickabley smooth graphics. I turned on every single graphics option and restarted the game, only to discover that there was a level of graphical detail in this game that I didn't know existed. Frames never dropped. Capital cities ceased being slide shows and turned into the bustling metropolis of activity that they are meant to be. 15 man boss fights became liquid fast. In short, having real hardware made my favorite game more fun to play. I'd also like to think it made me a better player, but that might be pushing it.
Likewise the audio gave me a surprising thrill. Walking into rooms and hearing acoustic affects. Voices echoing off walls really give spaces a powerful sense of space. The speakers on this machine are great for laptops. Sure your home stereo sounds better. Hell I bet $50 PC speakers sound better, but for built-ins, it was quite nice.
This new gaming experience does not come without tradeoffs. The first thing you will immediately notice about this monster is the screen. Besides having a 1900x1200 resolution screen, it is incredibly shiny. Frusteratingly so. I found myself closing drapes, turning off lights, and even after that, when I entered a dark room, I'd see my reflection shining back at me. Maybe this is simply a personal preference, but I really struggled to see details in dark scenes. I had to throw the gamma settings way up and sacrifice any contrast to see certain things without straining my eye. This might be the single biggest flaw in the machine.
Next up is weight. This thing is heavy. Everyone I showed this machine to was asked to pick it up. No really, I'd say: pick it up. They'd look at me cockeyed and then comply. Without fail they were surprised at the density of this beast. It was kind of a strange experience, watching people lift and then realize that this thing weighed like 20-30% more than you expect. The website says that this thing weighs 11lbs but it sure felt like more.
The thing is huge. It came with a cheapy little case that fit the laptop quite snuggly, but no other bag in my house came close to carrying it. And I've had some big machines over the years. You should expect to need a custom bag. I never hauled this machine through an airport, but I imagine it would suck wipping this out in security. Even the power cube is gigantic. I've actually had handheld computers about the same size as this thing's power cube.
Also worth noting is heat. There is a giant fan on the left hand side that really does an impressive job of moving the heat outside of the case. And onto whatever is sitting next to you. Let's just say my cats were not so excited to sleep next to me. I've used laptops that were physically uncomfortably hot on the lap, and this machine never got to that point. Instead, it simply would turn off. In the middle of the game. No warning. Very unpleasant. I borrowed a little mini lap desk and then there were no heat problems, provided I left the fans completely unobstructed, and used the machine only on a hard flat surface.
With this giant machine comes a full assortment of ports. And not the miniature custom ports some vendors pass off, but rather full sized real ports without stupid dongles to lose. Of course, since bluetooth and 802.11 is built in, the only port you hopefully will need is power.
The short and long of this machine is that it is heavy and hot. The base model costs $2700 but as I reviewed it, it was more like $3200. And this is one laptop that probably shouldn't be used on your lap: the weight, heat, and random freeze-ups when given improper breathing room pretty well kill that. But if you have the cash to spare, this is a sweet machine. It plays games as well as most any desktop I've seen. It added a level of playability to my favorite game. It has the stones to handle the heaviest 3D games of today, and will likely be able to play the cutting edge games for several weeks into the future. I know most people can't afford a machine like this... but if you can, you'll definitely be envied by your friends next time you haul it out at a LAN party... it's a hell of a lot sexier than lugging around a monitor and a mini-atx based machine. I'm sad to let the review unit go back to WidowPC.
Did I toggle off slashvertisements?
*sings* Ohhhhhhh,
...scalawag.
If you want it to be possessive,
It's just "I-T-S."
But if it's supposed to be a contraction then it's "I-T-apostrophe-S."
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Its hard to see it without one.
liqbase
All that, and no link to the product?
Earn a % of cash back from Newegg, Tiger Direct, Walmart.com, and more: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=458505
I love reading a paragraph twice. It's always better the second time around.
To a nail, every person with a hammer looks like a problem.
Can you run the most recent distributed.net client for this system, and provide us with the typical keys/second value you obtain?
While not a perfect benchmark by any means, and highly dependent upon which core is used (ie. the algorithm and implementation), it is often a useful test to quantify how a machine performs.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
With all that shit bolted on to the thing, battery life is surely going to be around eleven seconds once you unplug it - an assumption on my part that's surely confirmed by the fact that neither Taco nor the mfr's website bother to discuss battery time. So why not make it into a luggable computer? Leave off the battery, and shave that lardass down to merely ridiculous levels of heaviness instead of insanely heavy.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
WindowPC Laptops.
Who is this person? Why did they get their free loaner (to advertise here perhaps), and why is there no link to anything useful about the machine?
I read teh review, was like ok, it's big, but what's inside?
Here it is:
"When a ball dreams, it dreams it's a frisbee"
"Laptop" is not a valid term for this product, as he mentions in his review. It can be called "portable", but it would not be advisable to place this twelve-pound heat-sterilizer on your lap. Taco mentions it randomly shutting off due to heat.
That said, who has a lap big enough for it? Let me give you the key points:
Dimensions: 15.6"(W) x 11.7"(D) x 1.95"(H)
Weight: 11.3 lbs. with Battery
That is almost the size of two reams of paper .
Product Link for reference.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Looks like this machine is manufactured by Clevo, the Clevo D900T... It's also sold by Alienware (Alienware Area-51 m7700) and probably a few other vendors
...a waste of money. Here's one player that never wins at monopoly!
Seriously, wait 18 months and the price of this rig drops by 50%. Until then, I'm quite content to play in 1024x768 at 60Hz with medium textures; and you know, it doesn't bother me in the least.
See you in the land of the lagless low ping times!
May the Maths Be with you!
WidowPC ?
Why? Because it might turn wifes into 'computer-widows' ? (Just in case that term sounds unfamiliar: referring to a wife/girlfriend who feels like her man has left her, because he's sitting behind his machine all the time, not paying much attention to her anymore...)- more power
- less neck sores (adjustable height monitor)
- bigger monitor
- cheaper than getting something equivalent in laptop form
The only downside is that I love laptop keyboards. If anyone knew of a place where I could buy a plugable USB keyboard the size and shape similar to what you would find on a laptop it would make me really happy for xmas.
At Sager:
t ml
a ker02.html
http://www.sagernotebook.com/pages/web_specials.h
At PCTorque:
http://www.pctorque.com/sager-laptops.php
A sample desktop screenshot, wsxga:
http://public.fotki.com/Marspoet/desktops/windowm
Place where people talk about them:
http://www.notebookforums.com/
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
To test the battery life, I took a trip on the bus to simulate an average commuter's experience. After 25 minutes, the laptop was dead. When the bus made it back to my stop, I discovered my legs had fallen asleep from the weight! I ended up riding the bus all day, unable to leave my seat, and too afraid to move the computer from my lap, knowing I could not give chase to any potential thief until my legs had recovered.
This may be the system's biggest flaw.
...get a review copy of one of these things for myself?
you'll definitely be envied by your friends next time you haul it out at a LAN party... it's a hell of a lot sexier than lugging around a monitor and a mini-atx based machine. I'm sad to let the review unit go back to WidowPC.
Personally, I would guess that your friends would be far more envious if you had a super sleek machine that wasn't noisy, hot, and HUGE but still offered good graphics, response, and the *possibily* of child rearing if you could get a girl.
That's me though.
Sure its alot of money, but I'm sure many people here remember buying a 286 system when they first came out for 2-3 thousand with a monochrome display and a 10meg harddrive :) I still have a 286 laptop in the basement if anyone is interested. It only weighs like 15lb and has a battery life of 20 minutes ;)
http://religiousfreaks.com/http://laptopmag.com/Review/WidowPC-Sting-917.htm1 .html
http://www.resellerratings.com/seller8781-p3-s1-d
http://laptop-notebook.blogspot.com/
Does anyone else want to see a picture of this rig? I know I do...
fak3r.com
How about some links to real reviews?
Such as:
http://laptopmag.com/Review/WidowPC-Sting-917.htm- 1 g +917+
http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-23446-x-1-3
and
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=WidowPC+Stin
While this is an interesting writeup... lack of REAL information AND LINKS makes this kinda pointless (At least he didn't link to his blog that has the same writeup)
I am the proud owner of a Sony X505, which is not a power machine, but is so sexy that pulling it out in a meeting actually gives one credibility, and it runs cool and silent, with no fan. You can hear the disk humming a little, that's it.
The only downside to the X505 is that it's *very* costly. But if you buy one portable every three or four years, like me, and you take it everywhere you go, it's absolutely perfect.
It weighs just under 2lb, 800g, btw.
My blog
WHY did they use a pentium 4 in a laptop. thats seriously asking for the heat issues he described. its well known that those are the hottest chips arround.
i surfed arround widowpc's site, and it appears they dont offer any of there really huge laptops like this with pentium m's. just athlon 64 X2's and P4's, only the "lesser models" come with pentium M's which they themselves describe as "faster than the pentium 4!". someone dropped the ball.. hmm
Max out all the options and it costs $7233.00!!!
Unrealistic I know but possible.
Okay it took me a while to figure out he was talking about World of Warcraft when he said Warcrack. I thought at first it was some game I was missing. Its a funny tagline, but call me an ass, can we be a little more professional about when we have reviews? That aside, I also dont see any physical measurements. How does this compare to the absolutly monstrous Alienware Area-51 series and Aurora m7700. Both of those are HUGE measuring about W)16.0"x(D)11.5"x(H)1.66" and (W)15.6"x(D)11.7"x(H)2.1" respectively. They also have "similar" specs including dual hard drive support and dual optical drive support.
Wait for the AMD dualcore version. Less heat, WAY more performance. It's a standard Clevo D900K notebook, also sold by M-Tech, VoodooPC, Alienware, etc.
I bet that sumbitch gets hotter than a powerbook! The review mentioned that the heat was a problem when it wasn't on a desk. If you prefer "Laptop" play, perhaps it would be best to sing this song whilst playing:
Chestnuts Roasting While I Open Fire...
[slashdot readers boo and hiss...]
(go ahead...mod it down. I've got karma to burn)
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
This is the worst review I've ever seen. CmdrTaco should have never allowed this. (Oh... wait...) WidowPC's website has much more information on it, specs, screenshots, and so on:
http://www.widowpc.com/2005/06/sting_917.php
Please CmdrTaco, do you really need to use Slashdot to show the world how happy you are with your new hardware?
> I put it through it's paces, using it as my primary gaming machine for a month. And I write about it below.
> most of my gaming is sadly done on a Mac. I have no Mac capable to truly running most modern video games.
> my newest Windows capable machine is 3 years old, and a joke by today's standards.
Where's the actual review ?
All you said was "this laptop is big and here are some features"
Taco, you're no gamer, stop pretending you are to look cool. If you had a "primary gaming machine" you'd talk about games, not how many hard disks it has.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
LAN parties! While I certainly wouldn't call it a laptop it is certainly more portable than some of the rigs I've seen with carrying straps wrapped around them. A built-in screen is much nicer than lugging a heavy CRT around with you, too.
Aside from the gaming aspect, it would still be nice to have a fairly heavy-duty station for 'regular work' which you can take from site to site. Again, you're not going to get much use from the battery, but anywhere you can sit and plug-in would be fine. The $3200 price is a little offputting, but I suppose that's the price you pay (pun intended) for the convenience of a portable game-capable workstation.
{ - Generic Guy - }
Nothing that a little sand blasting wouldn't fix...
Am I the only one who read the title as "Review of WindowPC Sitting [since] 9/17: Gaming Laptop"
My first thought was "sitting since 9/17? I hope he patches it before playing any games"
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Here are some through NewEgg. We use some of the keyboards below at work for our Operations group. They take some getting used to if you're used to a full-sized keyboard, but we don't have any quality issues with them so far. And the prices aren't that bad either. You can get a full list by going to the Keyboards sub-section then doing a search for all keyboards with a "Mini" design style.
2 E16823166015
2 E16823166005
2 E16823192002
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8
I'm sure that other on-line and retail stores will have a number of these as well. I usually buy all of my stuff from NewEgg, so that's the first place I went to.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Sure I may be a pedantic ass, but I find it incredibly difficult to read, let alone take seriously, blatant product placement with such poor grammar. I'll pass.
http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif
funny munging
Of Pentium 4 Prescott laptops. That system is physically incapable of handling the heat output of the CPU + graphics card combined (though I'd bet most of the problem lies with the chip itself). Check any reputable website for information on Prescott thermal output and you'll see why.
You'd have been much better served (at much lower temperatures) by a Pentium M. In terms of game performance, they tear Prescott apart clock-for-clock, they consume about half the power, and they dont' require a case the size of your desk.
Does it run Linux?
No, really, the review doesn't make any mention of how easy it is to install say Fedora on the thing, or how much of the hardware is supported. I find this very surprising for Slashdot of all sites.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
www.widowpc.com , you see the dualcore laptop?? w00t!
Did your naughty bits get melted off ?
Newflash !
CmdrTaco discovers new neutering process !
Film at eleven !
Guns are for wimps... Use a crossbow.. this way you can pin them to their chair when you go postal.
Spelling matters.
Rock Direct do a machine with a very similar spec. There's a 64 X2 version too. Similar price as well. I have an earler model from the same manufacturer and I'd recommend them.
Sure seems like you'd use this almost exclusively for the LAN party circuit. It's pitched at the niche market of gamers too. I guess we're sick of toting our cables and whatnot around by now.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Thats funny. My 6 year old PowerMac G4 runs Doom3 quite well with the settings turned all the way up.
1999 Sawtooth (AGP GRAPHICS).
2.0ghz PowerLogix G4
1gb PC 133 SDRAM
Radeon 9800 Pro 256mb Mac Edition
Lite-On DVD RW
WD400
WD1200
Tiger 10.4.3
30-40 FPS average with the settings turned on Ultra High. (No shadows).
40-50 FPS average with the settings turned on high at 1024x768.
I fail to see the marvel of a PC doing this when a 6 year old G4 can do it quite easily.
I havn't seen a 6 year old PC do this yet.
Please note that this "laptop" is NOT intended for travelling with. It is meant for taking to your friends for a LAN party or to the local Pro Gamer get together. It is probably easier to lug this thing in a Messenger Bag than an XPC + 17" LCD. So...before you say "IT IS BIGGER THAN MY DOGGGG!" please realize its purpose.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
*ducks*
At first I thought, wow this is kind of cool I want to see the pictures. Then I looked at the picture and came across the port diagram. I may be a little out of touch with hardware, but am pretty sure that isn't a 9-pin Male VGA Port.
Wonder what kind of perfomance I can get with serial video out. : )
Stellar, frustratingly and, if there were such a word lickably. Seriously, these are our editors?
Or actually, can it run games? The reviewed laptop is crap, but the point was to run the latest games on a "laptop". You can get the smallest, sleekest whatever, but have fun with solitaire and your basic web games!
My laptop's battery system doesn't work, yet I still use it for movies and taking notes in class. I'd play games on it if it were fast enough.
Sure, you won't be able to use it in a car very long without an inverter, but you can use it anywhere else; including planes and trains with AC outlets.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
While this is a short one word question, I think it was valid. Certainly not flamebait.
As usual most people will complain about the heat and battery time of this thing. The point is it's a game laptop, it's not intended to work on battery mode, placed on your lap while sitting in a couch or go war driving. It mainly is an easy to move game pc which comes in handy when you go to lan party's or want to play head-to-head at a friends house.
Besides in my experience all laptop's get fairly hot and don't last long on battery mode when playing games.
this being said, I would never buy a widow pc for the same reason I never buy a high-end desktop:
It's not worth the ridiculous amount of money because gaming is by far not the main use of my computer.
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/sanyo775/
:)
:)
This was my first computer, I got it as a hand-me-down from my dad and it was portable! I think it only weighted something like 17 kilos. Thank you dad, love you!
Aaah, the days when one had to change fuses inside the computer
this comment is provided "as is" and without any express or implied legibility or congruity [...]
...It's about as good as a desktop station you may buy today, but for two-to-three times its price. It is so big and weights so much that you can't really carry it around (in a backpack, in a suitcase. Sure, you can *move* it, but that's not my idea of a laptop, or even a portable device. And don't forget the powerbox). It has two optical drives, and I still fail to imagine what may the second one be useful for. It requires extreme care in choosing where you place it -- and even then, it seems that to be safe you need a laptop deck. It is noisy and hot. And most likely, the battery lasts a brief time.
;o)
Even the spider placed in the case is rather bad-looking (if at least it were centered, and in the place of that squary logo it has...)
Honestly, the only good thing I can find about this lapt-- uh, port-- no, wait. Um... "thing". "Thing" will do. I was saying -- the only good thing I can find about this "thing" is the keypad, because I always miss it and it's just unconvenient having to use the Fn key to invoke the emulated keypad of most laptops
If I were looking for a true gaming platform, I would buy a desktop station. With a TFT. And even a nice, small barebone that doesn't bulge out a lot. And all that I can carry in a large sports bag (even the bubble-plastic-wrapped TFT) which, though indeed will be bigger than the reviewed lap-- eh, "thing", I bet won't be much harder to carry around. *And*, it will pack more power. And cost about the same.
That supposing I went to LANs and played games. Which I don't do.
In the meanwhile, my 12" iBook will do nicely. Cheap and good.
(This is my first attempt at trolling, so bear with me if I have been somewhat informative, insightful, funny or otherwise. I will get better with practice.
Ok, where are the photo's, and why should or shouldn't I go out and buy this laptop. There aren't many selling points here except this way over extended use I wont need to wear a condom anymore because of inability to have children, perhaps increased muscle size, and back problems due to its weight. There is no need to even make a expensive and large laptop like this. This isn't the early 90s anymore where a brick is acceptable. It'd be much more impressive to have a stunning case with a decent computer inside and an Apple 2" Cinima display. And... this would cost about the same amount and be much more stylish and impressive.
www.sushibarnetwork.com
If you want a great gaming laptop with reasonable battery life, and still be able to lug it around, go with a Ferrari
Opinion:=TMyOpinion.Create(Me);
My desktop Mac is primarily used for video editing and graphics work, but I just find Taco's statement unfortunate, because it just perpetuates the "Macs suck at Gaming" myth. My God, Taco's "laptop" is freakin' $3,400. It sounds like the only thing it has going for it is that it's easy to pack up to a LAN party. You aren't going to pull this out on an Airline tray. The batterly life must suck. It's hot, heavy, not particularly good looking (IMHO). In short, it has almost no features that I would look for in a laptop.
I don't know, I suppose this kind of bohemoth will probably appeal to the kind of guy who thinks he'll look L33T to everyone around him because he's got the biggest, noisiest, hottest laptop in the room. When in reality the guys with the sleak Vaio's and PowerBooks are just laughing at him.
The other day I was sitting in a hotel cafe and this guy's struggling to fit his gigantic laptop on his "table-built-for-two" and still have room for his breakfast. He was pounding proudly away on it. I just felt sorry for him because he kept getting dirty looks from the waitress who had to keep stepping over the powercord he'd strung about 10 feet to the wall. I thought about pulling my TiBook out, but that would have just been low.
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
"Seriously, wait 18 months and the price of this rig drops by 50%" ...had I heeded it, I would still be waiting for the successor to the successor to the successor^n of the VIC20 whilst trying to get my programs to load off tape into my ZX80.
I have a targus backpack and the thing fits in that ok, if only just. The other thing about this laptop, the fan runs all... the... time. And its loud. I like the slightly smaller clevo better, the D470W I think it is. But I'm not really a hardcore gamer, I just use the D900T for work. Still, I'd go with the AMD64 version of the D470W if I was going to do it again.
Pro-star oems machines for Alienware, Sager, and apparently this company as well. You can get the exact same machine without the extra markup by buying direct from them at http://www.pro-star.com/. You won't get things like "machine tattoos" or cool colors, or rubber doohickies, glowing alien eyes or anything like that on your box though. They also have a thinner lighter centrino based machine that has a GeForce 7800gtx. I have the Pro-star 3724 which is a 15", WUXGA (1920x1200), GeForce 6600 machine and I love it. Just about every company I've seen that makes a machine of this caliber is a pro-star.
Also known as a plywood board?
The simple fact is I havent played any games on a PC for over a year--i play them on my Mac! My powerbook (17") is great for my games and has better color than my Dad's monster of a desktop. I play Medal of Honor and World of Warcraft although i seldom play MoH anymore. Anyone who says playing games on a Mac sucks is just another troll lugging around a heavy pos.
a pentium 4 laptop making press? for gaming?!?!?! wtf? if you want something that will ensure that you never have children (by burning your lap - P4's have a major heat problem) at least get an Athlon 64 or FX laptop. p4's suck at gaming, they make way too much heat, suck way too much power, etc. they just suck.
What kind of idiot rambles on about size in a review, but ultimately provides no reference to the actual size, either in text or pictures. He doesn't have much to say about actual performance either. This is an entirely superficial "review". What kind of person doesn't look beyond the appearance of the thing. Oh, that's right, he is an avid Mac user, so this isn't all that surprising.
We need to moderation system for articles like digg. This one should be rated -5, moron.
In my opinion, the HP NX9600 is a better buy. Sure, you won't get the 3.66 (3.4) nor the super beefy HDD (has a 7200RPM 80gig though) or Video (ATI X-series), but to me saving the $2000 is well worth it.
The 600 series processor introduces the 64 bit extensions called EM64T, delivering RAM totals over 4 GB and Microsoft's x64 (64 bit) edition of Widows XP.
Looks like someone's getting ahead of themselves!
This same system is marketed by Sager, Prostar, Alienware, and many others. I have the Prostar version and it over heats like a mother fucker. I'm in the military so I mainly bought it for portability, not necessarrily laptop use. It pisses me off though that it over heats so much. At best you can expect 20 minutes of gameplay before it crashes. I highly reccomend getting somthing else. I don't think I'm even going to take it to Iraq because I doubt it would last 5 minutes in that heat.
Why cant they make a 16:9 laptop, not 15:9, not 16:10 ...
I guess everyone loves the GlareBright (tm) screens too.
You can buy a desktop computer that is big, but powerful for about 1400$ US (AMD64, GeForce 6800 or better, min 1gb of ram, etc).
You can also buy a 12" PowerBook for that much. It weighs 4.6lb, and gets 5 hours of battery life (half-bright screen and WiFi off; turn on WiFi to start with 4.5hr). My 12" plays WoW alright (although my desktop does it better).
Alternatively, you can pay a bit more, and get a little ShuttlePC that has a nice projector output. Lug it around in your backpack (after all, it's going to be 8-10lb), and it's about as portable as this Widow PC.
Or, for the price of both the desktop and the PowerBook (or a Shuttle and a cheaper x86 laptop), you can buy this monster which weighs 11-13lb (depending on whose specs you read), and gets 57 minutes (!) of battery life. Plus you can't upgrade the thing when it's out of date in a year or two (like a friend of mine who had a Dell gamer laptop he hated). That laptop is the same as if I took 3 12" PBs and stacked them up in terms up weight, and gets roughly 1/15th as much battery life (57 minutes vs. 15 hours of 3 PBs).
You might as well buy a 17" widescreen PowerBook, which comes equipped with some very sexy specs, is thin, and gets up to 5.5hr of battery life. You'd only buy such a "laptop" as a penis extension!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
An important thing to remember about this laptop is that it is a "desktop replacement" Saying that, it is a very bad idea to try gaming adequetely on a laptop while it's on your lap. The optimium surface for computer gaming is something flat and elevated, i.e. a desk.
During the past semester at college, I've regularly checked out laptops from my university's library for notetaking in class. All they have are Inspirion D600 laptops (my university has a Dell feitsh), but I've found they can run some classics like Quake 3 relatively well, even on those crappy Intel graphics chips.
Gaming laptops are made for a very niche catetory, like the kind of people that don't want to lug their desktop to Quakecon. Of course, anyone who buys a gaming laptop for such a purchase didn't buy it to play Doom 1. You plunk down 3 grand, and sometimes even more, to play high-res games on a widescreen that your average PC monitor probably could run rings around.
Ok, you have a gaming machine... Great! You have two drives, one big, and the other bigger. The big drive is faster than the bigger drive. Trust me: put your games on the FASTER disk.
60gb is a lot of room, honestly. Put your OS and your games, both which require a lot of disk I/O on the faster drive. Put your MP3s, browser cache, etc. on the slower drive, since these things require fewer continuous reads from the drive over their use.
This will reduce the time staring at loading screens by a noticable amount.
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
16:10 is to have menu / toolbar / timeline access while watching a 16:9 movie. Or more likely to edit one. Or thats my justification for it anyway. I don't mind the black bars during the movie part if the ratio lets me have two full 16:9 windows in 2up mode and my final cut timeline underneath it.
Why should we accept this reviewers word on what is "good" or "performs great" when he admits to gaming on old Mac and PC hardware?
In other words it's a review written by someone who has no idea what modern equipment is like or should be like and will be overly impressed by the bells and whisltles because it's going to be better than his current crap regardless of how it performs.
The specs look good but at the price ($2695.00) I'd rather build a PC with an AMD, more storage, can still play any game around and buy a cheap laptop for carrying around.
What you need is a doctor, not a computer. Buboes, anyone?
truth hurts!
I recently had the misfortune of owning a Hypersonic AX6 and the bigger misfortune of not purchasing the extended warranty. When the motherboard inexplicably died a year and a half after I dropped $2000 on the computer and called them up, they wanted a little under $700 for it! Little did I know until I did a little research that the laptop was just a repackaged Mitac imported by a company in California called Sunrex/Hyperdata. I called them up and they offered me the motherboard for a little under $400. Hypersonic upcharged the motherboard by a whole $300! (The reason it's so expensive anyway is that there's a Radeon 9600 Pro built into it.)
Moral of the story: Don't buy boutique gaming machines. If you really want that power machine, find the original importer/manufacturer who will charge you far less for the same hardware.
A side note: I'm not taking my chances with that motherboard dying again and instead have a Dell Inspiron 6000 with a 3-year warranty on its way to my house.
Why does Taco have such shitty computers????
... were is the 8/10 rating?
This sig is false.
The other day I was listening to "All Tomorrow's Parties."
The Republican Party's platform sucks.
Grrr.
Now that you've tried the lesser machine, go for a review of one from Alienware next. http://www.alienware.com/ A friend of mine got his alienware notebook last month for only a few hundred more than you quote. It came with 3GB of ram and two 120GB sata hard drives with a similar speed CPU. Certainly a lot more computer for just a few dollars more.
I guess it'd be ok for lan parties but otherwise I really don't see the need for a notebook with 5 minutes of battery life and that requires a group of native bearers to haul it around for you.
And yet you don't know the difference between "its" and "it's"? Remind me, what's your "job" again?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Sounds alot like a workstation laptop from say... Alienware or Boxx. Boxx at least sells laptops with RAID 0 arrays of 7200 RPM drives. This thing sounds like a type writer in comparison to their HD Laptops.
I purchased it from powernotebooks.com ;)
Specs include:
PentiumM 2.13 Ghz
2GB RAM
GeForce Go 7800 GTX
100 GB Sata, 7200 RPM Drive
So far, so great - I was about to purchase the P4 line of notebook but decided against it after taking a look at several benchmarks and reviews - the Pentium 2.13 runs nearly as fast as 3.8 P4 and it is much cooler and does not require the bigger case and is therefore a bit less heavy
Runs FEAR very well and it has handled perfectly under a couple of stress tests involving ripping a DVD, running WoW, several browsers open, copying several GB's of mp3's - I was able to tab through all my open apps without any slowdown or major hiccup
Im a very happy camper considering I have the power of a solid desktop on my lap!
"...using it as my primary gaming machine for a month. And I write about it below."
So, what you're telling me is... it's already obsolete.
That's rock for over 5k$ !
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
With the "laptop pad" I actually do sit on the couch in my living room and use the PC. It has wireless networking but, alas, I require the (long-wire) AC adapter because the battery life is limited to ~1 hour. Most poker games, I mean, "coding sessions" take longer than that.
I don't think it was mentioned in the review but among the "ports" are all the popular digital camera interfaces. So you can take the CF or SD or whatever out of your camera and mount it from XP and get your pictures directly instead of via USB/serial link.
And yes, a good bag helps to carry it. I think a heavy-duty shoulder pad is the secret.
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it."
- H. L. Mencken
And really, how is something like this article any different than a book review? Or do you get your panties in a bunch over book reviews too?
Ok, if that's not the sign of a guy who drives a VW Jetta and drinks girly mixed-drinks, then I don't know what is.
Ahh feel the advance in tech. And wheres the USB ports?
check our xtremeNotebooks.com - just got a raptor722 with a 7800GTX GO with otherwise similar specs for ~$2500...
Go to Voodoo Laptops, look at this
Then go to Alienware, look at this
Then look at the case on the Widow
Seems someone is outsourcing these things...they have the ports in the same exact spots, I wonder if thier parts are interchangeable. And the insides are exactly the same. I would assume so, since they are identical on the outside.
You must be new here or really retarded.
How could you miss the whole Kathleen thing?
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
You, sir, are being very inconsiderate to Mr. Taco. Here, I will fix your typo: "A review of Taco's favorite Cowboy Neal hand cream^H^H^H^H^H for wanking to porn in front of his laptop?"
See Carl demonstrating this big, bad computer in action:
/ s3/ep47/edork4.jpg
http://myweb.usf.edu/~tyblagg/hungerforce/epstuff
Ohhhh, you've been a bad, bad chicken....
Out of order? Fuck! Even in the future nothing works! - Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) "Spaceballs"
"I rarely play games on a deadline"
;)
You obviously haven't played many RPGs. "Ok, just one more hour, I'm close to making level and finishing this tower!"
I guess BSI has been completely overlooked. Granted it's about 35lbs, but it's rugged!
Well... actually I almost have... The HP Pavilion ZD8000-series has been around for quite some time and offers a much nicer HUGE wide laptop with said real numeric keypad. And the price is at least half of the brandless unit plugged here...
/me wonders what battery life this advertised monstrosity has :)
I have used my ZD8190 for like half a year now, and it is a really nice desktop replacement. Battery life sucks though... Like 1 hour with normal use.
...are the Turion64 based gaming laptops? Seriously, an AMD laptop with a decent graphics card and memory will trounce anything going on Intel. Benchmark after benchmark after benchmark later, and the world is still saying Intel are better than AMD. They're not. Face the facts, read the evidence, and stop supporting the Wintel empire.
Goten Xiao
No built in mouse pad? Pffft..
A qualitative laptop review with no images, thanks /. I'll never get that minute of my life back.
This hulking, ugly, outdated and overpriced laptop was trumped before it was fab'd by the Dell XPS Gen 2, which can be had for much much less $$$. Dell has even moved on from that model to the new XPS M170 which is also cheaper and blows this awful laptop completely out of the water.
after I read this little nugget: most of my gaming is sadly done on a Mac.
Anyone that does their primary gaming on a Mac is not conversant with either current games or equipment. I'm not particularly interested in the opinions on a gaming laptop from someone that doesn't have a modern machine or play modern games.
For even more money, it's also sold as the voodoo envy and the alienware something-or-other. Sager/Widow/Voodoo/Alien all resell the same platform (the Clevo 900T), differing only in cost and extra case flash. Note that Clevo is also producing the 900K, which Athlon64 based, so most of the vendors will soon be offering that product as well.
Disclaimer: I'm the reasonably happy owner of a 9880 that I use for OpenGL research and the occasional Battlefield 2 game.
Is something burning?
Oh, it's my karma.
It is huge both in terms of dimensions, weight, and specs.
You cannot use the word "both" for a list of more than 2 items. Please contact your high school english teacher for a proper scolding. Have a nice day.
With 7200rpm 100GB drives out as well as 5400rpm 120GB drives, why put a 60GB drive or a 100GB 5400rpm drive in at all? For a computer like this, it seems like it's targetting the I'm-rich-and-want-the-ultimate-gaming-portable-no- hold-barred crowed. Why not 2 100GB 7200 drives in RAID-0 (or separately as configured)?
www.clarke.ca
This definitely NOT a notebook. It breaks new meaning to the word "laptop". Even brings back memories of the so-called "luggables". Who needs to lift weights when you can carry this beast around?
Forgetting the rest of the clearly self serving advertisment (nice work editors!), I want to focus on 160 GB...
"It has more disk space on it's two (yes two) hard drives than any laptop and almost any desktop."
What the fuck is this guy on?? I havent seen a desktop with that little hard drive space in over 4 years. Sure, my personal boxes are fairly high end and Ive had over a terabyte for a while now. However, even the old HP corporate shitbox on my desk has 200GB.
Not to mention calling something with a 2+ year old GPU a "gaming machine"; *IF* it had a 7800 in it, I might be willing to entertain the notion...
FFS, my laptop (a 2 year old centrino) has 120GB in just one drive...
I have no problem with a good review, but hyperbole and overselling like this is ridiculous. We need to do a better job of filtering this crap out!!
ok, Ill go off and calm down now...
err!
jak.
What the fuck is with the LEDs; are they for the built-in microwave?
I've had one of these for just under two months now; It's a beast of a machine!
... my other computer is a Toshiba R100 ...
Two Gb of memory 200Gb of disk (raid 0, 1 or jbod), reliable Wifi, brilliant screen and the best builtin speakers I've come across in a portable.
But it seems to weigh a TON; or it did at first and has a battery life of just barely over an hour. Despite the power requirements it feels quite quiet because it's fans tend to blast the hot air out for only a few seconds before going back to normal office 'silence'.
This machine seems to be a classic Clevo design just like the last three machines I've bought from them (through distributors of course). They've all been heavy (tho this is the heaviest!), they've had huge screens (tho this is the biggest!) and the previous ones were very reliable.
1) (200Mhz) Died 'cause it got rained on.
2) (750Mhz) Still going strong, no battery, little sis has it.
3) (2.4Ghz) Glide pad got gouged. I wonder how much it'll cost to get it repaired?
So far this one is living upto it's ancestors only time will tell if it will continue to.
Still
If you cant have 13 pounds on your lap, you are a wimp.
Sure, todays state of the art is much smaller, but just a few years ago 13 pounds would have been considered lightweight.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
WidowPC is also able to deliver these laptops, fully customized, in 2 business days! Compare that to Alienware's several weeks for the same piece of equipment (Clevo D900T).
On the downside:
I'll be living and working in a remote location starting in February, so this sounds perfect. I need something for a small living space that I can transport without having to disconnect a bunch of cables. A typical desktop is out of the question, but I don't want to sacrifice the performance or storage. I don't care about battery life or weight, just footprint, ease of portability, and performance. I was considering the Alienware line, but after checking out WidowPC, their laptops seem even closer to full featured desktops.
Now I just need some Pringles cans and a 30 mile high antenna tower so I can get LOS to somewhere with an internet connection.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
um... this apparently doesn't have wifi... what is this, 1995?
Why are you riding a BUS? Do you not have your sovereignty/liceness-less travel yet by giving your person a International Motorist Permit? Today, the BUS rates are worse than the cost of gasoline! I'll have all you know that I once helped someone buy a ruff-turded ~1980 Chevette for ($)USD 35.00 and helped direct its movement (at night) back to a car lot with only 10% brake capacity and a shitty transmission.
From the previous owner, that car secretly had "hippy" wrot all over the inside; by the hint of dog hair, the smell of that strange/funky smoke we've all experienced at an outdoor drive-in theatre, and every corner had a pile of shit with a dooby-brother peeking out of it. I suppose those doobies weren't worth smoking after having the bag rupture from a Police/State night-stick searching tool, so they were unloaded wherever. But damn, my point is that anyone can buy a old-shit car that is capable of traveling (not driving when using a homebrew international motorist permit) twice around the world at 40 miles per gallon of fuel, for less than USD ($)350.00 for the car and USD ($)500.00 for the gas (at today's USD ($)2.50 cost for each gallon).
I'll have you know that car was dumped on the corner, without any improvements, and sold to the first trippy college student for USD ($)300.00! With the money, I believe it payed-down a Cell-phone bill. That was years ago, and will never forget that f-ugley car.
without prejudice
I'm not overstating. My 12" gets me 5 hours. If I have wifi/bt off and the screen min, that little thing will say 5.5hr to start with. If I turn of WiFi, 5 or just under. If I have the screen maxed and everything on, it'll be around 3hr. If I have something sucking CPU and clocking it up, maybe as little as 2 hours.
My friend's 17" gets between 3 to 4.5 hrs. He runs his screen between medium and full bright with WiFi usually on.
Either way, way the fuck better than 57 minutes, and still better than the people who brag about 2hr from their x86 laptops.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
"It has the stones to handle the heaviest 3D games of today, and will likely be able to play the cutting edge games for several weeks into the future." WEEKS YOU SAY??? i guess i need one....
http://www.sagernotebook.com/pages/go_np9750.html
Hardware RAID, 2 CD-ROM drive bays, TV Tuner (optional), subwoofer, DVI, remote control, the works. And all in a compact 12.5 pound package! Ok, it is big but won't blind your eyes like the one above.
today is spelling optional day.
I currently own a Samsung SPH-i330 PDA phone. It's a wonderfull toy, I can browse online at ISDN speeds and actually accomplish something, and has applications for virtually anything I can concievably want to do. It is also four years old, and I can't replace it. Why?
Because noone is building top-end products anymore. Every new PDA phone out there drops critical things, most specifically, analog roaming.
I'll be willing to shell out a cold $1000 for the phone that I want, but noone will make or carry it. I want EVERYTHING, and I'm willing to pay for it. I don't care if the phone is a bit larger, or clunky, so long as I can do what I want with it.
At least I can buy a laptop with what I want in it now.
(The above might be over your head. Disregard)
What the heck is a 'sig'?
Sorry, but you should have picked up a Dell XPS M170.- 31520758.html
http://reviews.cnet.com/Dell_XPS_M170/4505-3121_7
Apart from a much sexier design, it's 1920x1600 resolution, 8.6 lbs, and got a Pentium M giving less heat (and fan noise from said heat). Then slap in 2GB RAM and ask for a 7.200 rpm disk.
Then plug in a 500GB external drive. One drive is plenty for your OS, apps, and any games you're currently playing. External USB2 is fast enough for your movies and holiday pictures.
Thats the aim, not as much a Laptop, as a Portable, but since portable is out of fashion these days, they make one mean bugger of a laptop.
.... mmmm lovely.
Id say anyone getting this just wants somehting they can seamlessly pack up and move that has all the grunt of a full size PC. And funnily enough. Unlike Alienware. WidowPC now have AMD dual core powered laptops
XML - A clever joke would be here if
So this is a machine similar to the Dell XPS M170, except that it has a desktop processor instead of a Pentium-M with a second-generation Centrino chipset.
Therefore the WidowPC prolly runs a lot hotter and louder than the Dell.
Well, I have a Qosmio G20 (I don't know the US equiv), it's a 2.13 Pentium M with a gig of 533Mhz RAM, 2x 100gig 5400RPM hard drives (yes two of them), NVidia Go 6600, etc...
I have to admit, the biggest bummer of the notebook is the aging screen, it's only 1440x900, but the brightness is so good that I believe I'm getting eye problems from looking at it (I guess they but the brightness buttons there for a reason).
Battery life is ok I guess, I haven't really put it through the ringer though, only had the notebook a week.
As for performance, I bought World of Warcraft just to see how it looks, I maxed out all the video settings and it seems to function just fine.
Here's the best part of the notebook, it comes from a vendor that doesn't forget that they should support a notebook when the new model comes out. My last Toshiba, the Satellite P20-S203 was running strong with full support up until my 3 year old son jammed a screwdriver in the PCMCIA slot, the insurance company totalled the notebook and gave me a Qosmio.
When it comes to desktops, one vendor is the same as the next, it doesn't matter where you get it from, but when it comes to machines that you can't just gut for one peice or another and getting replacement parts is impossible, a vendor like Dell, HP, Toshiba, IBM, etc... is nothing short of mandetory. The mom and pop shops are great for the first year, what happens the second?