Home Forums General Discussion Laptop’s

Viewing 12 reply threads
  • Author
    Posts
    • #5519
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Can anybody recommend a decent laptop, with a decent graphics card for a cheap figure?? I dont fancy a dell, i dont like things that i buy to blowup, unless they are fireworks! :shock:

    • #33095
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Don’t be too wary about Dell, give it abit and they’ll fix those batteries. If you do wait the M series are rather awesome. Outside that Sony’s are great albeit you pay a wee bit extra for the name. I’m sure I don’t need to point out Alienware do excellent lappies aswell…for a price anyway. :D

    • #33098
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Check out: http://www.notebookreview.com

      Toshiba and HP have a few worthy laptops.

      I have a Dell Inspiron i’ve had for about 5 years now, it’s starting to age now but it never exploded…hope i haven’t jinxed myself!

      So don’t give up on them just for a bit of bad press…that was actually Sony’s fault – nice bit of buck passing!

      Actually, just out of curiousity, does anyone use an Apple in any form – iMac, Mac Book?

      I’m sorta-kinda-maybe thinking of getting one, but i’m just worried i’ll limit my programming due to the lack of a Windows environment – boot camp, etc aside for the minute. They have a good discount for people going to college.

    • #33101
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I need a decent graphics card in the laptop too though, and the price range im going for is 1000 – 1300. The M series looks pertty good. i think you should ask forum member fitch about mac’s, i think her studio is mac based!

    • #33104
      Anonymous
      Inactive
    • #33108
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Hrm, a good laptop with a decent graphics card is going to be tough to get for that price. If you could push it to ~e1500 you’d be sorted. That said my mate recently got a very nice Sony Vaio from Dabs which comes with a GeForce 7400 GO. Not the best card in the world but at least it will run decent games unlike Intel’s integrated solutions.

      Ik is right though, definitly wait till the new Intel Merom (Core 2 Duo) CPUs are mainstream. They’ve been shipping since the end of July but they’re still pretty scare at the moment. Trust me though, they’ll whup the current Core Duo’s ass. :)

      As for the Mac’s…hrm to be blunt I don’t like Apple but I have to admit the Macbook Pros/Powerbooks are very nice. I don’t however, think they’re the best for games given that most of them need to be run through Rosetta for the emulation to work. They are available with Radeon x1600 cards which are slightly less powerful than a Geforce 6600 desktop card, again not too powerful but a step up from integrated chips.

    • #33109
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      For games on a Intel Mac your best bet is to use Bootcamp so you can dual boot it into Windows XP. Using Rosetta or anything else for that matter will hurt performance. If you do stretch for a MacBook Pro make sure to clock the GPU up to the ATI specifications, Apple down clock them for better battery and heat.(You’ll need to use the Catalyst drivers as the the drivers that come with Bootcamp wont allow you to use any overclocking software.)

      From the benchmarks I’ve seen Core 2 Duo and Core Duo are pretty close were gaming is involved, it’ll be processor hungry tasks like encoding video that really sees the Core 2 architecture take flight. If you’re really not in a rush wait until the next iteration of Core 2 Duo it’s expected the early part of 2007… sorry can’t remember the name. Early gossip has it beating the current gen by a long margin. If you’re in a rush though Core Duo is a perfectly fine processor range.

      What exactly are you looking for the laptop for? If its for college/work remember a 15″/17″ packed to the gills might sound good but your wallet and your back won’t be too thankful.

      Oh just for the heads up Sony produced the Dell laptops which explode…since Sony were mentioned though that should be fixed now.

    • #33110
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Will be used for some programming, small amounts of max work nothing heavy though. I would like it to be able to handle some games, not top of the range spec’s but decent. the highest i can go is 1300, il just have to keep looking i guess!

    • #33111
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      For games on a Intel Mac your best bet is to use Bootcamp so you can dual boot it into Windows XP. Using Rosetta or anything else for that matter will hurt performance. If you do stretch for a MacBook Pro make sure to clock the GPU up to the ATI specifications, Apple down clock them for better battery and heat.(You’ll need to use the Catalyst drivers as the the drivers that come with Bootcamp wont allow you to use any overclocking software.)[/quote:d0c58a0859]
      Thats my main argument for not getting a Mac. I asked a mate why he was getting one since most of the stuff he used his laptop for was Windows orientated and he just replied “Well I can use Bootcamp and dual boot”. So basically the one reason he was buying one was becuase it looke good. Make sure you don’t get one for the same reason. :)

      From the benchmarks I’ve seen Core 2 Duo and Core Duo are pretty close were gaming is involved, it’ll be processor hungry tasks like encoding video that really sees the Core 2 architecture take flight. If you’re really not in a rush wait until the next iteration of Core 2 Duo it’s expected the early part of 2007… sorry can’t remember the name. Early gossip has it beating the current gen by a long margin. If you’re in a rush though Core Duo is a perfectly fine processor range. [/quote:d0c58a0859]
      Quite right actually, check out the review on Anandtech for a comparison of the two chips. Oblivion seems to be the first game to show a marked difference. I havn’t heard about the new iteration of the chip yet though? :?

    • #33114
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I’m looking for one so I can boot OS X, Windows and Linux on the same machine, seems a perfect base to develop and test cross platform apps. Its daft buying a laptop for looks alone, though you could do a lot worse than a MacBook.

      I searched around and got the codename for ya, Santa Rosa. I’m probably wrong in saying its the next iteration of Merom since Santa Rosa will not only mean a faster FSB(and 4MB L2 Cache as standard instead of the current 2MB and 4MB you can get with Merom)but also the introduction of a couple of other new technologies (new WLAN supporting 802.11n or WiMAX) and new motherboard design (a DX10 capable integrated GPU is expected).

    • #33118
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      So basically the one reason he was buying one was becuase it looke good. Make sure you don’t get one for the same reason.[/quote:b3319b653b]

      I’m not looking at getting a Mac because they look good, i’m just a bit fed up of Windows and feel like trying something new – most of my game dev is in java anyhow. Although i think i might give ubuntu a whirl for something different – a friend recommended it, a complete OS on a CD!

      The University i’m going to apparently have a special deal with Apple for a better rate than the Higher Education deals, I won’t know just how much until i register in September though.

      In relation to the Mac as a gaming laptop, legend has it they deliberately _under_ clock the gfx card in order to keep the heat and noise levels down.

      Fujitsu-siemens might be worth a look but the largest screen i’ve seen is a 15″ Lifebook, but it had a pretty lousy gfx card.

      Toshiba have a pretty decent laptop p-100 or the p-105 if that model is available in Ireland? Or if you can hang on the Tecra A7 should be out soon – it’s available from the Toshiba US online store.

    • #33119
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I’m not looking at getting a Mac because they look good, i’m just a bit fed up of Windows and feel like trying something new – most of my game dev is in java anyhow. Although i think i might give ubuntu a whirl for something different – a friend recommended it, a complete OS on a CD! [/quote:4d25fb4e98]
      While I’m not exactly a linux head I do know Ubuntu is one of the nicer distros out there so it wouldn’t be any harm giving it a whirl.

      In relation to the Mac as a gaming laptop, legend has it they deliberately _under_ clock the gfx card in order to keep the heat and noise levels down.[/quote:4d25fb4e98]
      Thats not a legend, its actually completely true. :)

    • #33120
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Thats not a legend, its actually completely true. [/quote:bac607a96a]

      That’s crazy :shock:

      I was taking the Mac Vs PC propaganda battles with a pinch of salt but thanks for clearing that up.

      Damn you Steve Jobs…*drops to knees, camera zooms out* Damn YOU TO HELL!

      :lol:

Viewing 12 reply threads
  • The forum ‘General Discussion’ is closed to new topics and replies.