fatcat wants a new laptop

fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
edited December 2011 in Hardware
I'm done with netbooks, I need a laptop for the road.

Here are the rules:

Must be able to game on it. (that means 1920x1080)
Must have awesome battery life when not gaming. (5+ hours)
Must be aluminum or as little plastic as possible.
Must not be stupid glossy fingerprint magnet casing or screen.
Budget $900-$1100

What you got icrontians?

<3
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Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    What are you expecting at 1080p? What games, detail settings, etc?
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    This is @fatcat we're talking about.. Skyrim at 60FPS on ultra, of course :p
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited December 2011
    1080p is more so for the desktop I guess (I want to me able to somewhat multitask on it)

    I would be fine with gaming at 1600x900 or whatever 1080p will scale down to properly.

    Gaming is the lowest priority on that list

    But I don't want to have set all the settings to low either. A good balance with the FPS will be fine on a laptop

  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    Avoid a Quadro mini-card, at that price range you will get merely a 1000M at most with 900 core and 700 GDDR3 rates max and if you try to OC it it will just slow down (M = mobile, meaning variable rates). Avoid like the plague an Intel Processor Graphics graphic system unless you upgrade to 16 GB of RAM - and then it will be slower than hades.

    The 3000 Intel graphics are better than the 2000 though in terms of quality and speed. Neither textures quickly, only when software textures will you get speed. The physics of motion both can do if you do not mind rough edges and poor textures and almost 0 hardware Tesselation. So, avoid a Lenovo laptop for gaming if it is a Thinkpad.

    The Thinkpads have nice textured metal (mine came textured and black anodized rather than glossy or brushed). So on that point it wins. It has Bluetooth, Wifi b/g/n and a NIC that is 10/100/1000 from the Intel chipset. I chose not to have a 4G or 3G wireless Internet with it, though that was an option. Networking, it wins.

    It has 1600 x 900 graphics in a 15.6 panel. 32 bit colors. Beautiful non-motion graphics.Win for business.

    Benchmarks for a Lenovo W520 (Top of Thinkpad line) :

    PCMark 7 2241.

    PCMark Vantage 64 bit 9111.

    #DMark 11 I forget, but notat all good. The Intel Graphics were not recognized, so it benched with VGA card with NO onboard RAM settings and crawled.

    Thinkpads are great for business, very poor for gaming. Lenovo Ideapads are more for entertainment and are lower price point, but might not have metal cases unless very high end.

    So, lessee - Acers are decent all-around laptops, but set no records. I have little experience with Toshiubas of recent vintage, nor Panasonics, so will let others hold forth on those.

    Dells are too expensive. Dell Alienware laptops might suit your specs, and if you look might be on Holiday specials that might bring one down to $1500 to $1800 or so.

    The Dell Outlet also has some lower prices, case scratched, leased and returned after ;lease, rejected as defective and Dell refurbished, that kind of thing. Dell warrantees its refurbished laptops about same as new are warranteed. The outlet will many times let you configure up a refurb to custom it, also.

    Do you want a business laptop, durable etc, or a gaming laptop??? At the price range you are shooting for you will be hard-put to find best of both worlds and compromizes will suffer for both.

    John.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    are there not laptops that come with decent graphic cards for gaming, and then when not gaming switch to the integrated gpu on the cpu?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    There are, but the configurations with the CPUs that would give you the battery life you're looking for don't come with the gaming GPUs you're looking for.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    okay so what are we looking at for 5 hours of battery?
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    Something like a Core i5 or an AMD A8. A low to mid-range GPU.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited December 2011
    what is midrange gpu in laptop land?

    i know a 6850m is slower than a desktop 6850
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited December 2011
    Mobile land is more or less one step down from the desktop. E.g. a GTX 580M is probably a desktop GTX 570. And a mobile 570 is probably a 560.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    Lenovo maybe. Mine has an extra video adapter(beyond the Intel Processor Graphics which it uses auto-dimmed when on battery), a Quadro 1000M, but it only will work when the external monitor or TV I plan to get is plugged into the mini DisplayPort (female) out port or an older monitor is plugged into the VGA port(the W520 has both). Usually, the laptop would then be plugged in, so power would not be an issue any more.

    I have not tried to run the battery out, but I opted for the 9-cell battery instead of the 6-cell battery. It is rated at 28 Amp-Hours at 12 Volts. Looks like about 4.5-5 hours on battery alone is what it should do, not average for laptops. Average is 2.5-3.5 hours.

    Looking at $1500 roughly for that option.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    A quadro is not going to solve any of his issues. It's not a gaming card, and it's higher TDP than a gaming GPU.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited December 2011
    okay lets use this as a base

    2nd generation Intel® Core™ i5-2430M processor 2.40 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 2.90 GHz

    NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 525M 2GB graphics with Optimus

    8 Cell Battery.

    what are we looking at battery and gaming wise?
  • NiGHTSNiGHTS San Diego Icrontian
    edited December 2011
    I used this chart when deciding what GPU/CPU combo I wanted, ended up settling with that m11x.

    Notebook Check GPU Charts
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    I have a Vostro 3450 with the same CPU and a Radeon 6630 switchable graphics (HD 3000 base) and with the standard battery it lasts about 3 hours. I think with an 8 cell you could get 5 hours on a similarly spec'd laptop. My work laptop has an i7 and without discrete graphics it lasts almost 8 hours on the 9 cell battery.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    Remember too that during gaming, your battery is going to drain way faster. I don't think a battery exists that will really allow gaming for more than an hour or two at most.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    Good point - I was making the assumption gaming would be while plugged in. The 8 hours I get on the work laptop is all Office/email/web tasks.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited December 2011
    OK, Fatcat, look here. About $1549 gets you an Alienware gaming laptop with a 17.3" screen. Yes, Dell owns Alienware but they run it as a semi-independent division.

    http://www.alienware.com/Landings/laptops.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&ST=Sitelink&dgc=ST&cid=42319&lid=1546250&acd=sl_dhs_alienware,,901pdb6671
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    Remember too that during gaming, your battery is going to drain way faster. I don't think a battery exists that will really allow gaming for more than an hour or two at most.
    it will be plugged in gaming. I want the 5 hours battery life for everything but gaming ;)
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    fatcat wants a new laptop unicorn

    ftfy
  • NiGHTSNiGHTS San Diego Icrontian
    FWIW, the larger the screen, the greater the likelihood of a shorter battery life. Something to keep in mind.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    FWIW, the larger the screen, the greater the likelihood of a shorter battery life. Something to keep in mind.
    they make 15" that do 1920x1080 now, so I don't need a 17" monster
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    And they're quite expensive. Doubt you can find one that meets your other requirements for under 1300$
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    And they're quite expensive. Doubt you can find one that meets your other requirements for under 1300$
    the Dell 15 XPS 15z I linked earlier has 15.6" 1920x1080

    I'm just not sure a 525 can game. and the battery seems non replaceable
  • RyderRyder Kalamazoo, Mi Icrontian
    the Dell 15 XPS 15z I linked earlier has 15.6" 1920x1080

    I'm just not sure a 525 can game. and the battery seems non replaceable
    The battery is removable, but you have to take the whole bottom of the laptop off.... to do ANYTHING inside.

    That said, once you get your SSD or whatever in there, it works very nicely.

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    The 525 is not a gaming GPU.
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    The 525 is not a gaming GPU.
    figured as much. time to do some searching.
  • NiGHTSNiGHTS San Diego Icrontian
    edited December 2011
    In to recommend the oft-forgot but fairly useful: http://www.powernotebooks.com
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    Please fix link. :http just loops back to Icrontic while : http would not. Interesting stuff you linked to, though.
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    http://www.system76.com/laptops/model/gazelle

    Here you go, but you'll have to buy a Windows license separately.
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