LAPTOP ADVICE??

[dr150]

Hi Guys,
I'm looking for a good laptop with 15"+ screen, wireless, good/great graphics for gaming.

Price isn't really an issue, but I like the lappy to be sensibly priced. I don't necessarily need the latest and greatest, but I want a lappy that will give me years of service (reliable & well-built) and not be obsolete when it comes to new software--especially gaming......


I hear ABS, Sager are good. Any others?

All advice will be sincerely appreciated.......

 

[Cross]

Well it depends on price, I would say that the eMachines m68XX Athlon 64 Radeon 9600 laptopis the best bang for the buck. But not exactly a battery runner for very long. Its about 1000 for one of those and they beat an alienware P4 w/5600FX 128 by more then 10000 in Aquamark3.

Now if you want the same power and battery life (3-4 hours and to keep the widescreen)
Its the Gateway m505x (1.4Ghz) or 505xl (1.5ghz) both have the 9600 Radeon as well. It pulls the same scores as the laptop above and as its well documented it overclockes just like the m68xx series. This is also about 1000 to 900.

Now if you have unlimited money and you want windows I would say a Falcon Laptop or Sager. Now if 17" is ok for you (I find them to big) the 6800 is in them now. I would say Sager would be your fastest way to find it.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Wait it out a few weeks and look for the new laptops with the GeForce 6600 in 'em. That will be worlds better than the 9600/9700's that come in most of the notebooks today. As Cross mentioned, the 17" models will have a 6800; but won't be portable at all.

 

[dr150]

I understand that all LCD panels on lappies GHOST....if that's true, what's the point of having a great video graphics processor?........

 

[trungthiendo]

i don't think that is true...it depends on who makes the panel for the laptop itself...some panels are high quality while others are not. Therefore you are left with ghosting issues, because of slow refresh rate

i would think on the high end laptop for DTR/gaming, the lcd panels themselves are top notch and ghosting would not be an issue, but i would research on that more

 

[dr150]

I read it on Toms Hardware, where he said that ALL LCD panels on laptops ghost. He said this while reviewing the Asus flagship notebook and saying the Asus ghosted as well, true to form, even though he liked the Asus very much.

That is indeed disconcerting that one could drop $3000 for a laptop that ghosts....

 

[Wuzup101]

I've noticed no noticeable ghosting on my 15" powerbook's LCD while playing UT2004, americas army, RoN, etc... (though RoN would probably be unlikely to ghost anyway). I'd say the best thing you can do is check the lappy out in person first. I personally like IBM for notebooks (pc ones anyway... ). However, if this isn't going to be taken with you a lot, and it's just a desktop replacement of sorts, sager seems to have some nice stuff at a good price.

 

[moretoys]

A laptop that has stirred up some people in other forums is the Acer 8100. I've seen them in 2 basic configurations. The upper model is as follows:
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional; Intel® Pentium® M Processor 760 (2.0GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 533MHz FSB); 1GB (512/512) DDR2 333 SDRAM; 100GB hard drive; modular Super-Multi (DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RAM) drive; 5-in-1 card reader; 15.4" WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050) TFT display; ATI® MOBILITY? RADEON® X700 graphics, 128MB DDR; 802.11a/b/g WLAN, Bluetooth?, gigabit LAN, V.92 modem

 

[fbrdphreak]

I would say you are going to expect some level of ghosting on an LCD panel; most laptops aren't specifically designed just for gaming and even then, I doubt any manufacturers build laptop LCD panels for gaming just yet.

 

[mdahc]

In terms of obsolescence, I'd wait for notebooks with AMD Turion64 technology to surface within the next few months. You get 64-bit compatiblity for the next generation of software and games, not to mention battery life that's supposed to rival the Pentium M. One ODM, Arima, already has a few models on their Web site. The one I linked to has a widescreen display, uses the ATI Radeon Xpress 200M chipset, and is supposed to be configurable with the X600 or X700 mobile GPU, for example.