Curse

dark horni worm · Jul 27, 2008, 09:47 AM // 09:47

closed thanks

Evil Genius · Jul 27, 2008, 10:07 AM // 10:07

Hmm you live in England but have 800 euros to spend? What happened to the good old pound?

I did a quick check and found the Dell Inspirion 1720 is £629.00 which is 800 euros. It has these specs:
Components

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7250 (2.00 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1 - English
1 Year Base Warranty
Jet Black Colour with Matte Finish & 2.0mp camera
17.0" Widescreen WXGA+ (1440x900) TFT Display with TrueLife™
3072MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [1x2048+1x1024]
320GB (5.400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
nVidia® GeForce™ Go 8600M GT with 256MB DDR2 dedicated graphic memory
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including Software

Primary 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (56 WHr)

I'm no expert with laptops though so consider that as a "baseline" and look around for something better (if there is anything better). Centrino 2 has just been released and may be a good idea?

imnotyourmother · Jul 31, 2008, 07:42 PM // 19:42

that is the one I just bought! only green

P A L P H R A M O N D · Jul 31, 2008, 07:48 PM // 19:48

That is an extremely nice laptop . . . more than enough to play our ole prehistoric GW!

Elder III · Aug 01, 2008, 05:45 AM // 05:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by dark horni worm

new question: if i buy a laptop on say ebay, but the laptop is american, will it work in europe?

Yes.

I believe that it is standard for laptop power adaptors to take a range of 105V - 230V (or something similar, ie 100 - 240). At least the last 5 I bought did. lol All you will need is a plug adapter, which you can pick up for -$10 in the USA at least, and they last for decades.

*note: I would be that "American" laptop was designed in Japan, and assembled in China hehe*

Malice Black · Aug 02, 2008, 09:33 PM // 21:33

Quick answer - yes

However - Look to get a better CPU. A 2.2 C2D is a little on the weak side these days. The screen res is pretty shocking for a 17' notebook.

Alexandra-Sweet · Aug 02, 2008, 10:36 PM // 22:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malice Black

Quick answer - yes

However - Look to get a better CPU. A 2.2 C2D is a little on the weak side these days. The screen res is pretty shocking for a 17' notebook.

Wait wait wait what are you doing here? o.o

Got tired of Age of Conan already, or did you got unbanned?

Welcome back I guess~

Malice Black · Aug 03, 2008, 12:29 PM // 12:29

OT - Haven't played AoC since a week after release. Was only banned for 4-5 weeks I think lol too much trolling apparently.

On topic - OP, price range? I could help a lot more if I had one. Any reason for a 17'?? Getting a 15' could drop the price tag a little while still getting similar performance. Can get the 8800GTX in 15' notebooks now. With the new 9xxx series being released the price of the 8xxx should drop significantly.

Any prefered brands?

Lord Sojar · Aug 05, 2008, 05:53 AM // 05:53

The laptop gods have heard your plea, and are here to help.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834147749

Buy that, be happy for 4 yrs. It has a blu ray disk drive, m9600 GT, 4GBs RAM, and a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo

dark horni worm · Aug 05, 2008, 09:00 AM // 09:00

@ rahja: thx, but i do not intend on playing blu-ray movies on this laptop

besides, isn't the 8800 gts better then the 9600 gt? and the gateway one (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...665&CatId=1891) has a 2.2ghz dual core.

oh and i don't need more then 200gb hdd (at 7200rpm if possible) cause this laptop isn't ment for storing movies.

Malice Black · Aug 05, 2008, 10:55 AM // 10:55

4 years??

Mine is a little over a year old, and sinking fast into mediocrity.

OP - You're expecting too much for your $. Laptops are expensive, and to get one that'll play the newest games for 2 years will cost $2k+. Mine was £1300 which works out to roughly $2.4k, and it struggles with the new high tech games on medium. When I bought mine it was top of the line pretty much, one year on there has been 2 new gfx card series, and 2 new chips. In 4 years it'll be a doorstop because it will have no value.

Try here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/

Those guys live and breathe laptops.

To get what you're after you'll need to buy from a notebook boutique. This is where I bought mine: www.rockdirect.com. They're is similar US sites, but they have matching price tags.

Considered the idea of buying a cheap laptop, and then building a gaming rig? You'll be giving yourself more flexibility. You can upgrade notebooks despite common belief, but it's very expensive, and a quite tricky. A notebook the same as mine but with a 7900 can be upgraded to a 7950gtx, but even today the 7950gtx will set you back £400. I could update my CPU to a 2.8 C2D, but again that'll cost me £300+.

moriz · Aug 05, 2008, 12:31 PM // 12:31

you're better off buying a cheapie laptop for work, and using the rest of the money to build a quality desktop.

Elder III · Aug 05, 2008, 01:29 PM // 13:29

yeah, I bought a 2k laptop less than 2 years ago and it's almost obsolete now, at least for gaming purposes. Get a cheap laptop to take to work or school and buy a nice desktop that you can easily upgrade over the next 5-10 years (depending on your needs).

Lord Sojar · Aug 05, 2008, 05:31 PM // 17:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by dark horni worm

@ rahja: thx, but i do not intend on playing blu-ray movies on this laptop

besides, isn't the 8800 gts better then the 9600 gt? and the gateway one (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...665&CatId=1891) has a 2.2ghz dual core.

oh and i don't need more then 200gb hdd (at 7200rpm if possible) cause this laptop isn't ment for storing movies.

In that case...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834147750

You can't get much better than that for the time being.

Brianna · Aug 05, 2008, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Personally I'd go with the laptop in the OP.

Sure it's 2.2ghz, but that's about normal as it seems. Most lapops for sale at the moment are anywhere from 1.6ghz to 2.5 or some odd above. I think my Ideal laptop would have a 3.0ghz or at least close, but due to limitations.. not really seeing much of those.

Like with everything electronic, you have to cut your loses. You cannot ever expect a laptop to be able to play cutting edge games with bleeding fast performance, they are simply not as fast as desktops and they never will be. I think that the mindset should be ''can I at least play a game with acceptable frames and settings'', not max settings on everything.

I also see that a lot of people are itching for 60 FPS in everything, when 30 is perfectly acceptable. I play a ton of games on 30 FPS and I always think to myself that I am running 60 until I load up FRAPS, then I am surprised. I don't know about anyone else, but if you have at least 30 frames then it is acceptable.

That laptop will probably play Guild Wars 2 when it comes around, and many games to come. Maybe not on max settings.. but like I said.. 30 can be plenty enough. Just cut your loses.

Thus I would buy the OP's laptop. The things I like about it are the 7,200RPM hard drive, which I don't see in a lot of laptops either. The 8800GTS-M should suffice for anything for quite a while, and the 4GB of RAM should toss Vista around fine without problems.

Also not that it would matter to a lot of people but that laptop is stunningly beautiful, I would be proud to bring that out anywhere.

Lord Sojar · Aug 05, 2008, 10:03 PM // 22:03

Brianna, the one I just linked to is more balanced.

Reason? Screen resolution vs total power.

The m8800 GTS can support higher resolutions. Essentially, the OP's laptop posted is powerful, but the display won't use said power. Would be a waste of power.

The one I posted has the monolithic screen and the power to back it up.

Brianna · Aug 05, 2008, 10:56 PM // 22:56

I just don't see whats wrong with the OP laptop resolution, I mean I had my 8800GTS on 1280x1024 with my 19'' monitor a while ago and I think the only difference I have now on 1680x1024 on my 22'' is lower frames in really intense games.

And I guess I am more partial to the OP laptop because of the faster hard drive and the looks. I think my mom's laptop runs that resolution and it seems fine, don't really see the need for higher.

I digress though! On a personal level I have been searching laptops for months and all the ones that had an 8600-M (what I was generally looking for) just didn't seem to fit right. I'd probably buy the OP laptop if I had money to, but then again it may be worth a wait because what if new laptop technology comes out soon? Like something to do with the new Intel platform.

Lord Sojar · Aug 05, 2008, 11:51 PM // 23:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brianna

I just don't see whats wrong with the OP laptop resolution, I mean I had my 8800GTS on 1280x1024 with my 19'' monitor a while ago and I think the only difference I have now on 1680x1024 on my 22'' is lower frames in really intense games.

And I guess I am more partial to the OP laptop because of the faster hard drive and the looks. I think my mom's laptop runs that resolution and it seems fine, don't really see the need for higher.

I digress though! On a personal level I have been searching laptops for months and all the ones that had an 8600-M (what I was generally looking for) just didn't seem to fit right. I'd probably buy the OP laptop if I had money to, but then again it may be worth a wait because what if new laptop technology comes out soon? Like something to do with the new Intel platform.

Centrino 2? It is full of fail.