A budget gaming laptop

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Hey folks,

I'm in the market for a new laptop this christmas, and I'm wondering, what specs would be best for what I want to do. I'm not going to be running the latest games, but I want something that'll be okay with say, SH3 and NFL Head Coach. I also want something that wont slow down when I run Corel Painter with MSN, like my current sucky one does.

I'm looking at an Acer at the moment, with 128 graphics and a Dual Core 1.6 processor. Is that what I want?

[JSLTIGER]

It's kind of hard to tell without the exact information on the processor and GPU. What's your budget?

[Kapitan_Phillips]

Lets say 500-600 pounds :)

[kiwi_2005]

No such thing as a budget gaming laptop, its either a laptop for the office (Always budget) or a gaming laptop - Alienware laptops are the best.

[JSLTIGER]

Lets say 500-600 pounds :)

That translates to what? $1100/$1200?

[Chock]

500-600 quid is just on the ragged edge of getting something decent, but not quite in the big league. For example, I have a HP DV2000 Pavillion for 500 quid, which is classed as an 'entertainment laptop' i.e. it is geard toward watching DVDs in that it has a bunch of controls for playing DVDs along the top above the F keys. But what I was interested in, was the fact that it was particularly small (thus very portable) and had 2 gigs of RAM and had Vista on it (as I wanted to check that OS out). It's primary purpose is as a backup to run Photoshop so that if I do on site training and the clients computer goes tits up, then I can use the laptop in such a case, so all other things were secondary in favour of that consideration. As such, it can play some newish games, but not others, the real big deal is that of support for pixel shader 2.0, which is what most new games and sims demand. If you envisage wanting to play those, then make absolutely sure it has that capability, and by that I mean, actually test the thing in a shop, because mine is supposed to have shader 2.0 support, but in fact it often fails to run stuff which requires that, so even though it is well up to running demanding stuff like FSX, and of course can handle complex image manipulation in Photoshop, it will not run SH4, simply because of the shader issue.

I'd recommend nipping into WH smiths or somewhere like that and looking what they recommend in PC Advisor magazine, as they have a category for laptops in that price range and you can usually trust that magazine's judgement, because they are not afraid to say something is crap if they think it is, unlike a lot of 'reviews' in other magazines, which are little more than contradeal advertorials.

:D Chock

[CCIP]

Coincidentally, I just bought this http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10093867&catid=
the other day :D

This one is better than most of the Pavillion line as it includes an actual video card (a GeForce 8600).

Very good for the money, and I assume you'd be able to find something comparable! I checked it against the Acer offerings, and this one was better generally.

It runs SHIV, I checked. Not brilliantly, but it does run quite well at slightly-reduced settings (FPS averages in the 20s - low 30s at 1440x900, with post-processing and environmental effects enabled but light shafts/glare off). I would definitely recommend this one.

Mind you, when I was getting it, I didn't have "gaming laptop" in mind. For me it was more a mobile PC for work/media, and if games played it was a nice bonus. Then I saw the GeForce 8600 listed with this one, and said, "hey - why not game too?" :)

[Tchocky]

Coincidentally, I just bought this http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10093867&catid=
the other day :D

This one is better than most of the Pavillion line as it includes an actual video card (a GeForce 8600).

Very good for the money, and I assume you'd be able to find something comparable! I checked it against the Acer offerings, and this one was better generally.

It runs SHIV, I checked. Not brilliantly, but it does run quite well at slightly-reduced settings (FPS averages in the 20s - low 30s at 1440x900, with post-processing and environmental effects enabled but light shafts/glare off). I would definitely recommend this one.

Mind you, when I was getting it, I didn't have "gaming laptop" in mind. For me it was more a mobile PC for work/media, and if games played it was a nice bonus. Then I saw the GeForce 8600 listed with this one, and said, "hey - why not game too?" :)
I've got the previous model in the 9000 series, 1GB RAM, 120GB HDD, and a GeForce 7600.
Bought it about 15 months ago, very happy with it :)

[CCIP]

There may be just one downside to it - it's a hefty bastage!

I got a bag for it today and weighed in what the computer + neccesary kit weighs as luggage. 13lb! Add a couple of books and my lunch to that, and my daily bus commute is gonna be a little heavier these days :dead:

Not a "laptop" per se either since it's big enough to be a little unconfortable for that. Other than that it's great though! Just started an SHIV career with it :D

[SUBMAN1]

If I may chime in here - The only thing you really need worry about if you are looking for a gamining laptop is the GPU on the graphics card. If it's an Intel, forget it, you won't be gaming on it. If it's an NVidia or ATI, then you have a chance. If it be an ATI integrated chipset, say an x1300 or so, you won't be gaming much on that either - its a pathetic GPU.

I wouldn't go with anything less than say, an ATI x1600 in it. Anything less has pretty much no horsepower to play a game like SHIV.

I bet you could still find a Acer 4400 (I have one sitting next to me) with a relatively quick (for a laptop) for the price range you are looking for. It has an x700 in it - one of the better GPU's ever released on a laptop (At least one with any battery life to think of). The x700 is faster than the x1600 in case you want to know.

-S

[Janus]

Coincidentally, I just bought this http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10093867&catid=
the other day :D
It looks quite nice, but the 17'' and the somewhat exotic screen resolution would scare me away.

[CCIP]

Coincidentally, I just bought this http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10093867&catid=
the other day :D
It looks quite nice, but the 17'' and the somewhat exotic screen resolution would scare me away.

It hasn't been a big factor for me so far, actually. I do run SHIII windowed, but it doesn't bother me other than that. Otherwise I've already got a half-dozen games running on it and they're alright. (and a couple that I couldn't get running, but I attribute that more to Vista than the res)

But again... depends on what you want from it. For me the screen size is a big plus. For others the weight/size is a bigger minus.

[SUBMAN1]

Screw trying to find an Acer Travelmate 4400 - I just did a quick look and as far as I can tell, they have all been snapped up. Not a single one for sale anywhere. Good luck trying to find one if you are.

-S

[nikimcbee]

Lets say 500-600 pounds :)

Now that's a heavy laptop!:rotfl: Are you in a weight-lifting competion or something?:rotfl:



Sorry, I couldn't resist:88)