laptop advice

[chipper]

this is an area i know little about basically lookin at after getting a gaming laptop dont really wanna spend over 6-700 quid have seen this one

Buy Acer Aspire 6930 Gemstone Blue 16in Laptop. at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for .

this is one thats caught my eye seems ok but im wondering if anyone knows any decent websites that specialise in laptops or custom builds ive checked out overclockers and a few others and they seem pricey.

im not looking for a beast of a laptop just something that can handle the likes of war/wow tf2 etc any advice greatly appreciated

 

[Cadelin]

im not looking for a beast of a laptop just something that can handle the likes of war/wow tf2 etc any advice greatly appreciated

There is a large difference between a laptop that can handle WoW and WAR though.

If you don't want to spend alot of money on a gaming laptop then you should really consider what you want to play on it. From personal experience I found that although the laptop I had could run the likes of DaoC and Quake without difficulty, I still found I wasn't as good in PvP because the screen wasn't as big and the keyboard/mouse setup wasn't optimal. Nowadays I just stick to mostly turn based stuff on my laptop!

 

[chipper]

ok then lets say wow its largely none pvp just want something for when im away from home which is most weekends these days and i have something to play stuff on it doesnt have to run crysis on full settings etc just let me kill the boredom in the day

 

[Zenith.UK]

I have an Acer 5920G Gemstone laptop and it can play TF2 and L4D without any problems, so this 6930G with a better spec should be able to play those games without breaking sweat.

My only advice would be to take out extended warranty on it. I'm not the kind to go with ex.warr usually but laptops are a special case.

 

[chipper]

thxs alot zenith nothing quite like a bit of first hand experience i might have a look at the laptop you have see how much cheaper it is i dont want to spend more if i dont have to

 

[Bodhi]

That Acer is a similar spec to my Samsung, and it plays UT3 fine.

 

[Bahumat]

I am gonna get one of these on saturday (hopefully). Dell have a Studio 17 with a 2.4ghz 3mb cache processor, although its got a ATI 3650. I checked a few sites and the 9600GT seems like its alot better.

Also the Dell is £70 more

 

[confused]

I am gonna get one of these on saturday (hopefully). Dell have a Studio 17 with a 2.4ghz 3mb cache processor, although its got a ATI 3650. I checked a few sites and the 9600GT seems like its alot better.

Also the Dell is £70 more

I have a Dell studio 17, I was going to get a 18.4" Acer, but after trying one in PC world (had no intent of buying it there) I decided against it as it felt very cheap and poorly built. In comparison my Dell feels very sturdy

 

[Bahumat]

I have a Dell studio 17, I was going to get a 18.4" Acer, but after trying one in PC world (had no intent of buying it there) I decided against it as it felt very cheap and poorly built. In comparison my Dell feels very sturdy

yeah and with dell you have the nice user friendly reload option via the partition they have setup. I dont know how good the Acer would be for this.

 

[inactionman]

Most manufacturers do this now, my old lenovo had it.

 

[nath]

Yup, hardly any manufacturers provide restore CD/DVD's anymore, it's almost always done via a partition.

 

[confused]

My studio has both the cds and the partition.. which was completely irrelevant as I wacked in 2 samsung 64gb SSDs into it instead

 

[confused]

If you're just wanting best spec / £ then head over to Overclockers, there custom builds are very good for the prices. There was somebody who was selling their second hand £900 17" one on the MM for about £550

 

[Bahumat]

Chipper - Acer Aspire 6930G 744G32Mn Laptop LX.AGA0X.002 - Laptops Direct

Ok it's not the exact same laptop (has P7450 instead of 6400 CPU) but the site displays this as 9600GT. When you click to see the full spec it's listed as 9600 GS. Someone asked a question on the Q&A section (see below)

Nobby: What Video card does this machine have, GS or GT ?

David J: This has the GS card


I can only assume the Argos one is infact a 9600GS, will go to the store and ask to look at the box, however I think the general lack of 9600GT cards in laptops under £600 means we should expect the worst

 

[chipper]

bah thats a bit shit i might try my luck anyway can always do em for false advertising if thats the case and hopefully get a laptop out of em with a GT card GS are generally as good or slightly better than a GT but im not sure with 9x series should probably look into it just incase

ive checked catalogue too and it also says GT so its not a spelling mistake.

 

[Bahumat]

bah thats a bit shit i might try my luck anyway can always do em for false advertising if thats the case and hopefully get a laptop out of em with a GT card GS are generally as good or slightly better than a GT but im not sure with 9x series should probably look into it just incase

ive checked catalogue too and it also says GT so its not a spelling mistake.

GS is not (to my knowledge) better than GT on any model. If you look on pretty much every website you'll see the GS card is cheaper than the GT.

9600GT
Notebookcheck: NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT

9600GS
Notebookcheck: NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GS

 

[Bodhi]

Just bear in mind that nVIDIA's laptop drivers are an enormous bag of wank. If you use an external display they are an absolute fucking nightmare, regularly refusing to switch the screen on if you bring it out of sleep mode.

 

[Zenith.UK]

For Bodhi's nVidia problems, you might want to take a look at NVIDIA & Laptop News | Latest NVIDIA drivers and related news | laptopvideo2go.com.

I've used the HDMI output at FullHD (1920x1080) and it was absolutely fine.

 

[Bahumat]

Right, I've ordered the bloody thing off their website! Went to 3 stores and none of them had any laptops!

If it's got the 9600GS then so bed it, it's good enough for that price

 

[Bodhi]

For Bodhi's nVidia problems, you might want to take a look at NVIDIA & Laptop News | Latest NVIDIA drivers and related news | laptopvideo2go.com.

I've used the HDMI output at FullHD (1920x1080) and it was absolutely fine.

The outputs on mine work fine as well. The problem I'm having is I use a second display at work for dual display bizness (reet pisses off the people stuck using thin client machines ), if I unplug it then put my laptop to sleep, when you bring it out of sleep I log in then am presented with a blank screen. It normally works if you put it back to sleep then turn it on again, but it's a pain in the arse all the same. I'm using the hacked desktop drivers you linked to and it's still a faff. Although I have just updated the BIOS as apparently some people were seeing some ACPI issues with Linux on my laptop, so it may be that.

 

[Bahumat]

Sticker on the actual laptop says 9600GT woo! Gonna check in device manager etc

 

[Bahumat]

Yep, it's the 9600GT woo!