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Dell's World of Warcraft Laptop
Psychor writes "Dell has released a high specification new laptop complete with World of Warcraft branding (Horde and Alliance versions available). With a starting price of $4,499 it's not cheap, but does feature SLI graphics and AGEIA PhysX technology (a laptop first). RAID and solid state storage are also options." Unfortunately for purchasers, the laptop won't boot on tuesday mornings until early afternoon, and some days you just won't be able to log in.
Given that World of Warcraft used to run just fine on my old P4 2.0ghz with 512 RAM and a Geforce 4, why on earth would I want to spend such a ludicrous sum of money on a laptop to play it with? I know that Burning Crusade was a little harder on systems than the original game and that Lich King is likely to be slightly more so, but we're still not talking about a game on the cutting edge of technology here. Even cheap, off-the-peg PCs bought in the last two or three years should be able to run it just fine. World of Warcraft relies more on design than technology for its visual appeal.
Crysis? Sure, I can see that people could need an expensive upgrade to play that (I know I would - although after playing the first 2 hours, I'm not convinced the game is worth it)... but not World of Warcraft.
That said, I can see some redeeming value here, provided they design it so that the Horde laptop randomly crashes and reboots, mysteriously formats your hard drive at regular intervals, sends filthy e-mails to your mother and electrocutes your dog.
For that price it should come with a lifetime subscription. Actually, it might just be cheaper to switch to meth.
Wow plays fine on my current machine, and it would be nice to play it on a laptop, but for $4500.00 I can pay a sherpa to carry my desktop where ever I go.
~Liberalism Is A Mental Disorder~
LEEEEEEEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOY'S laptop!
(click here if you didn't get it)
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
"I'm going to die broke, and a virgin!"
Given that it basically comes with both collectors editions (either of which can fetch upwards of 1200-1500$ on ebay), as well as a beta ticket for upcoming betas, this is a pretty good deal. I wish I could afford it. Not just for WoW either, with a physics accelerator and the SLI'd graphics this a pretty beastly desktop replacement.
Anyone know what sort of battery life this thing gets? : p
This guy's the limit!
How can you tell a WoW addict apart from the rest of the geeks? They don't bother calling in sick on Tuesdays!
Egads, this is getting rediculous. Eventually they'll start selling the Warcraft car, the Warcraft home, and even the Warcraft refrigerator, so you never have to give up your Warcraft addition for pesky things like driving to the grocery store or having a life.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Are you kidding me? I like Dell's cheap machines and love Warcraft, but if you wanted to sell a lot of them, they wouldn't price them so high. You're trying to sell these to gamers not investment bankers. Way overpriced.
I think it boils down to which battery was used. Sony batteries are obviously from the goblins.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Costs as much as an epic flying mount, fer chrissakes!
So, I run WoW on my MacBook Pro CoreDuo (not the Core 2 Duo), and it's graphics are all maxed out in options, and I still pull around 39fps. My laptop only cost me a $3,000.
Seriously, fully spec'd, that Dell WoW lappy maxes out at around $6400! WTF?
OK, this might be an in-joke for you WOW players, but, honestly
Strange random stuff shows up in summaries, but this is probably one of the more arcane ones.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Does it come with a WOW mouse? I guess it would look something like a hedgehog on steroids...
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Rather than just raid 0 drives, they also have an option for a 64GB Flash drive, and 200GB second hard drive. This looks like an interesting idea. Get the speed and power savings of a flash drive, and the second drive can spin up and store more when you need it to, then go back to sleep.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Or perhaps a Crysis/CoD4/anything-that-might-actually-challenge-a-modern-PC branded uber-laptop, mmm?
It's no secret that its the fps market that drives the top-end gaming PCs market. MMORPGs such as WoW are generally designed to be relatively undemanding, to maximise the player-base. A cynic might suggest that it is those who are time-rich but cash-poor (to put it euphemistically) who are the most reliable market for these games, so forcing an expensive upgrade doesn't make sense.
Dell has a Vostro for around $800 US right now which would play WoW very well.
Go here;
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/vostronb_1500?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&~tab=bundlestab
Select the smart buy unit and customize the video card & select the 8600GT with 256MB of RAM. Bare in mind this is the DDR2 and not the DDR3 version, so it's not a super quick 8600GT but it's plenty fast for WoW.
The normal site has it for $729 right now. Corporate customers can get a better deal.
Take it to a 2.0Ghz dual core, 2GB RAM standard, the 7200 120MB HD, BlueTooth and the webcam -- a better gaming build, and you are just under $1000.
That's one hell of a deal for decent casual (not extreme) gaming machine..
I have never actually played WoW, but I have seen others playing it, and the graphics didn't look like they were all that intensive.. Does WoW really need the high end SLI graphics capabilities?
On that Dell laptop, what accounts for the ridiculous cost? The basic specs didn't look like anything exotic.. 160GB 7200RPM drive, 2GB RAM, 2.2GHz Core2Duo, not exactly pushing the limits with that.
The only exotic pieces were the SLI video, and the "physics accelerator". Would those two things really add $2,500 on to the price of a laptop?
There's no reason other than bragging rights and honestly in computer games, It doesn't matter at all
Last time I checked the entire WoW community revolves around the concept of possessing the biggest, shiniest, chock-full-of-stats l00tz. Furthermore, WoW players will pay hundreds of dollars for a card containing an unlock code so an purple monkey with wings and horns that serve no purpose other than to follow their character around.
While there may not be any reason other than bragging rights to own this laptop, bragging rights matter a great deal to the community this technological terror is marketed to. While it may not sell like gangbusters, I'm sure they'll ship more than a few of these.
Respect It.
So for Horde fans in this thread, is getting modded Troll a complement?
bye bye karma!
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
The Ferengi would be proud...
Right! We need physics acceleration for a game that doesn't even have hit-box collision... I think I'll keep playing on my dinosaur PC, thank you very much.
(-1, Night Elf)
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
---- what I meant to say was
My home system is an Athlonxp 2200, with a 6600GT. It's somewhat old, but was pretty much Just Fine when I was running at ~1024x768 resolution. I could get most graphical effects, shader stuff, and a good range of "vision". Last December, my family bought me a 24" widescreen LCD. Holy cow. I cannot play at lower than native resolutions. It's physically possible, but it's an assault on my eyes. Thus, I play at full resolution, but absolutely bare minimum graphical settings.
While this laptop is surely overkill (and I'm sure any recent laptop would do Just Fine), there's a reason to have all the bells and whistles.
Hence, SLI and PhysX. (I didn't know WoW could even use PhysX?)
Can you let me out now anyway ? I'm nearly 38 now.
--
your son
FigurePrint Demo
This blog says that you'll also get a special in-game pet. Those who don't play WoW don't understand how much value people put on such things. Many people buy blizzcon tickets ($100) each year just to collect the in-game pet from that year.
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Yeah, sometimes we're playing with friends and they have to take a break because one of their kids had a nightmare or some such.
Of course, the kids come in handy, apparently one of our friends is upping her fishing skill by "letting" her child fish.