Laptop Talk

[jonesy]

I think my gameplaying will be casual, at best. There's some noise among my friends that I might want to play Diablo III with them, but that's not enough to shell out the really big bucks. But, since this is in part a present to myself, an XPS-grade machine isn't out of the question.

If you search for sample laptops here:
Notebookcheck.net
All of their reviews include talk about the sort of games they can run and how well.

 

[GSHamster]

I think my gameplaying will be casual, at best. There's some noise among my friends that I might want to play Diablo III with them, but that's not enough to shell out the really big bucks. But, since this is in part a present to myself, an XPS-grade machine isn't out of the question.

Here is the D3 system requirements: Diablo III Beta System Requirements - Battle.net Support

Here is Blizzard's info on Video card support: Video Card Support for Diablo III - Battle.net Support

I'd hit or exceed the recommended specs, get a non-integrated video card from the high performance list, and jack the RAM as high as you can afford (will need a 64-bit OS if you go past 4 GB).

 

[Deset Gled]

My company uses the Dell Latitude as our standard laptop. I have been using an E6500 that was new in 2009. It is a solid workhorse without a lot of special bells and whistles, and has survived my ~30% travel schedule well. The size is small enough to not be overly bulky, but large enough to actually be useful. I'm particularly fond of the fact that it has both a trackpad and a pointer mouse, because I (dis)like both equally when I don't have a USB mouse handy. I have the extended battery, which is nice but doesn't fit in some smaller laptop cases, and the life on it is decent (and highly variable based on what you're doing).

If it's going to be your primary computer, make sure it's got enough expansion slots and connectors for what you want. I have 3 USBs, which isn't really enough for a true desktop replacement, but I can get by with a USB hub. Make sure you have at least one swappable drive in case you want to make adjustments. A 64-bit OS and more than 4GB or RAM should be a base requirement. In a desktop I would recommend a true multi-core system, but on a laptop hyperthreading is a fine alternative; the extra processor won't be worth the financial cost or battery drain, and it's extremely unlikely you'll have any hardware compatibility issues.

 

[Kzach]

As far as I can tell, the Mac superiority in hardware reliability is mythological. I had been curious, and asked in the IT shop of a place I worked last year - the company used a mixture of Mac, Dell, and Lenovo hardware for desktop use. The Macs had a one-third *higher* rate of hardware complaints, per user.

Anecdotal evidence. Really? I thought you were a scientist?

 

[delericho]

I'm looking at laptops, but I'm not really worried about size and weight. This machine's going to basically live at home, move room to room occasionally, but that's about it - think more "desktop replacement" than "ultra-mobile".

I took this approach with my last PC, and now consider it a mistake. By going for a laptop, I found I had to compromise on usefulness (and especially as time went on and it wasn't practical to upgrade), while in order to get a big enough screen and keypad to be comfortable as a desktop replacement, I found I was compromising so much on weight and battery life that it performed poorly on those occasions when I did go mobile with it.

Bottom line, if I were doing it again, I think I'd be inclined to go for a much smaller and lighter laptop for travelling, and pick up a 'proper' desktop machine for use at home.

YMMV, of course.

I am not really a power-user. Office applications, web browsing, and a little bit of media and game playing.

Sounds like pretty much any modern computer should be able to meet your needs. I would guess that the major question is over screen size/resolution, since I've found that to be the #2 issue in how comfortable I am with a given PC. (#1 is speed, but that seems to be tied to physical memory, which is quite cheap, and easy to upgrade.)

I'm more interested in reliability and good customer support than cutting edge performance.

I haven't had any notable experience with customer support from any supplier, so can't really help here. I've found that if I take care of my PC (good anti-virus, regular scans, regular backups), it takes good care of me. But I've been extremely lucky - only one significant issue in 5 years (running Vista, no less), and that happened a month after I started doing regular backups.

 

[Umbran]

Anecdotal evidence. Really?

No, not really. You'd have to ask me how the IT group came by that conclusion before you could come to a valid conclusion that it was anecdotal.

I thought you were a scientist?

Dude, please either take a constructive part of the conversation, or go find something else to do.

 

[Janx]

One of the important things to remember is that nowadays, all the computers are built at Foxconn and Inventec (or some competitor).

Each vendor's boxes come down the conveyor belt in waves, where they clear the floor of one vendor's gear, then the next vendor's gear comes in. I've seen it done during an inspection of our hardware at the final boxing plant in Houston.

Furthermore, more of the designs are done over there as well. So you can't brag that one company's design is better than the other, because Inventec is selling the vendor a computer of X form factor and Y specs and both Dell and HP buy them with a different skin applied.

Basically, my finding is that it's a wash on hardware quality. Everybody's boxes are the same inside, made by the same people, so there's no advantage that Dell's hardware is made by dumber/sleepier people than HP's.

On the Mac hardware thing, their prices are much higher than PCs. I can get a PC laptop for $300-$500 from Best Buy. You'd be lucky to get a Mac for $1500. As for reliability, I saw a great Macintosh documentary on Netflix a while back. One of the engineers pointed out how on one model, they put the harddrive right next to the speaker. And they had intermittent hard drive crashes because of it. Apple screws up designs, too.

If Umbran didn't care about video games, I'd say grab whatever falls into your cart for $500 and buy the warranty.

Laptops take more abuse as they get opened/closed and moved around. I almost got screwed on my Cylon (Toshiba black with red trim 18" gaming laptop) when the video just died. It had the stock warranty and was 9 months old. On the phone Toshiba rejected it as a warranty claim. I took it to Fry's where I bought it and they inspected it and noted that it was in MINT condition and called Toshiba and got them to accept it as a warranty repair.

I only got lucky because I never moved the dang thing, so it stayed pristine.

My wife has just gotten into PC gaming with the Dragon Age series and now it's update driver this and game crash that.

Games are for consoles. It's cheaper and less hassle that way.

If you do want higher resolution, here's my work laptop spec:
Lenovo T510
128GB static hard drive + 500GB secondary SATA drive
Screen resolution = 1600 x 900
Intel i5 M 540 2.53 Ghz
4GB ram
64-bit Win7 Pro

I find that my laptop has higher resolution than anybody else I run across. I haven't bothered looking up specs to see what's even better, but mine is pretty good.

 

[Umbran]

Furthermore, more of the designs are done over there as well. So you can't brag that one company's design is better than the other, because Inventec is selling the vendor a computer of X form factor and Y specs and both Dell and HP buy them with a different skin applied.

That may be, but each company can (and while my understanding may be wrong - each company does) have different QA standards on that hardware. Dell could say, "make our machines with chips from lots with a failure rate under X," while Acer may use chips from lots with a higher failure rate Y. The same can go for other components, or failure rates on the final assemblies.

Games are for consoles. It's cheaper and less hassle that way.

Well, that depends on your use. You're correct that, in general, a purpose-designed tool will generally do better at it's purpose than a generically designed tool. A screwdriver is better at driving screws than the screwdriver on your swiss army knife.

On the other hand, I'm going to get a laptop, one way or the other. I am only a casual gamer - I am *not* going to buy purpose-specific hardware for gaming. For me, it is likely cheaper to spend a little bit more on my laptop to get one that will occasionally play a game (to my admittedly lower standards of quality of experience), than to buy an entire separate console I'll rarely use.

 

[Umbran]

Bottom line, if I were doing it again, I think I'd be inclined to go for a much smaller and lighter laptop for travelling, and pick up a 'proper' desktop machine for use at home.

YMMV, of course.

Yeah, use cases vary. For me, at this time, a proper desktop is a non-starter. The only good place for such would be in the office, upstairs, isolated from the active living part of the house, which is downstairs.

Isolation can be good for getting work done. It'd be good if I frequently wanted to play games so intensely that I didn't want to be disturbed. It isn't so great if I want to chat with my spouse at the same time as I am futzing around online, though.

A laptop would allow me to do most of my computing down in the living areas, but allow me to close it up and clear it away when company's coming. I can, if I really want, get a monitor for the office if I want to play a game more intensely on occasion.

Sounds like pretty much any modern computer should be able to meet your needs.

Probably correct. But, you know. Geeks. Even the midrange of computing has things to talk about

 

[Deset Gled]

A laptop would allow me to do most of my computing down in the living areas, but allow me to close it up and clear it away when company's coming. I can, if I really want, get a monitor for the office if I want to play a game more intensely on occasion.

If that's really all the portability you need, have you considered something like this: Portable Computer (PC) Workstation, Desktop Computer Racks by Rackmount Solutions It would allow you to upgrade to a small footprint desktop.

It wouldn't work if you planned on browsing the web in an easy chair, and you lose the battery power option, but the computer would probably be a lot cheaper, more ergonomic, and easier to fix or upgrade down the line.