Laptop

[brallen1]

Hello, I am looking at laptops for both gaming and school, I really like the alienware m14x. I need to be able to write papers and stuff like that and I don’t think ill have any problem doing it with this set up. This is what I have so far. I want to play ac3 and bf3 and a few others. Please give me some input on it:
OPERATING SYSTEM Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
MEMORY 16GB (2 X 8GB) Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
HARD DRIVE 750GB 7,200 RPM SATA + 32GB mSATA Caching SSD
WIRELESS CARDS Killer Wireless-N 1202 a/g/n 2x2 MIMO for Gaming & Video and Bluetooth 4.0
WIRELESS HD None
VIDEO CARD 2 GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M with Optimus™
LCD PANEL 14.0" High Def+ (900p/1600x900) with WLED backlight
SOUND OPTIONS Creative Sound Blaster Recon3Di with THX TruStudio Pro Software
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE Slot Load Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)
AUTOMATIC UPDATES Alienware M14X 150W A/C Adapter
PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2010, English

Also, I was wondering which wireless card I should go with, it’s between the Killer Wireless-N 1202 a/g/n 2x2 MIMO for Gaming & Video and Bluetooth 4.0 or the Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 2230 With Bluetooth 4.0. I have read that the Killer wireless is a better choice for a little extra money.
Please feel free to give suggestions! Thanks.

 

[brallen1]

Is there a spot on the anandtech forums for building laptops? Also can I build a laptop with this performance for less money? I want to be able to game with my laptop against my brother and my dad, so which wireless (the killer wireless or intel Centrino) will give me the best connection? is there even a difference? Any info/links will be much appreciated, thanks.

 

[Sleepingforest]

Building a laptop is unlike building a computer because the part costs are very different. In a laptop, every part is carefully designed to make good use of space, fit in a certain thermal envelope, and still give reasonable performance. The savings you get, in other words, will be much lower, if at all existent.

 

[Torn Mind]

There is a laptops section here; it is very general and for any kind of laptop one might consider purchasing. http://forums.anandtech.com/forumdisplay.php?f=23

You really can't build an entire laptop from scratch. The screen, motherboard, case, heatsink assembly, etc can only fit a certain way and with certain cables. There is little flexibility in what you can get. The closest you can get to physically building a laptop is getting a barebones kit. Otherwise, you "build" it by going to a custom laptop site like xoticpc and pointing and clicking with your mouse selecting those customizations you want. Sleepingforest is correct, you might not get any savings at all. However, you do have a lot of options; some are quite expensive though.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en...5.1912.5j12.17.0.les;..0.0...1c.1.mNkkh1wL0y4

 

[brallen1]

Ok thanks. Thats what i figured. just curious if there are any other laptop companies similar to or better than what i picked out from alienware, i would appreciate any input. Thanks again.

 

[mfenn]

Ok thanks. Thats what i figured. just curious if there are any other laptop companies similar to or better than what i picked out from alienware, i would appreciate any input. Thanks again.

A boutique build will probably get you more performance for less money than an Alienware (hard to say without knowing what the price is for the Alienware), but won't be as nicely integrated as the Alienware is.