Gaming Notebook - Not Sure When to Buy

[Mana]

I am from Canada and in September I will be moving to a place where having a desktop computer won't really be feasible. This is because shipping is a pain and I will be ping ponging between this place and where I currently live every few months. As such, I want a gaming laptop. I am just not sure whether or not I should wait until August before purchasing.

The reason I am not sure is that right now the Asus G73jh looks like a great computer after reading the Anandtech review. Not only that, but at BestBuy it is on sale for $1500, which is $200 off of what they normally sell it for until May 20th. Given the fickle nature of the notebook market, would it be worth holding out a few months to see if something better comes along, or is the Asus G73jh just that good of a deal?

Some additional details, my budget is in the $1500 range before taxes. Ideally, I would like the laptop to last about 1.5 years in terms of being able to play games at relatively high settings before I stop ping ponging and can update my desktop computer. Finally, for the most part it will be a desktop replacement and won't really be carried around all that much.

 

[Athadeus]

If this mysterious sounding place you will be 'ping ponging' to is in the US, I can suggest a much better deal than from 'Best Buy'. That model has the downgraded screen, which is a big part of why the normal G73jh got the Anandtech award and recommendation.

Amazon, AbesofMaine, and Provantage all have the high res, great quality screen version (G73JH-A2) for ~$1,550. It is a good portable, and I think now is a pretty good time to buy a gaming portable.


I also am posting because I have a related question for anyone else who reads this thread. I have read that the computer comes with a ~40gb recovery partition created on it, and that you can choose to burn your own recovery DVDs (like many manufacturers do).

However, unlike other brand portables, I hear that once the discs are created, the option does not exist to skip the recovery partition upon reinstallation. I am wondering if it at least lets you choose which disk drive to put the recovery partition on. I would be more inclined to get one of these + a <100gb ssd if I knew that I could put the recovery partition on the hard disk drive. If anybody knows if this is possible, please let me know. Thanks!

 

[fire400]

If you want something right now, go for it. Get it, use it, keep it or sell it.

 

[Athadeus]

I called a sales number at xoticpc and asked about the recovery partition. They said that it's about 20gb, it WILL go on the primary/system disk, and that it cannot be avoided by burning the recovery discs then using those to reinstall.

If you order one from them, you can pay extra to get a custom set of install discs, which you can use to reinstall Windows without the recovery partition (though it sounded like you have to hard shutdown during a prompt in the installation process that asks for the drivers and utilities disk, then restart and it skips that step and takes you to the desktop).

There's also the option of using your own OEM disc, but I know that you usually couldn't activate older versions of Windows if you used the license for a prebuilt with a OEM disc install.