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General discussion

Gaming laptop questions

by darkjediben Jun 7, 2009 1:15AM PDT

I'm looking to buy a laptop for college, but I want it to be a gaming laptop, my reasoning being that if it can run Crysis, it can run Microsoft Word. Portability is not a huge issue for me, as I'll be playing tuba in the marching band, so carrying heavy things around is sort of what I do. I have about 2300 dollars saved up for this, although I can probably swing 1000 either way, given that I have a job lined up for this summer. I'd like a little advice on what laptop I should be thinking about, including any that perhaps will; be released in july or early august if anyone has info.

Also, as I'm a bit new to owning and maintaining my own computer, is it possible to upgrade laptops as you might a desktop, with a new graphics card or something like that?

Thanks for any help.

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3 Posts
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Beware the 2 year laptop.
by r. proffitt Former Forum moderator Jun 7, 2009 1:20AM PDT

So far without fail I'm seeing gamers with failed laptops about year 2. Budget to replace it then.

Then again I see common laptops get to year 4 or 5 with the usual new battery along the way.

Are you budgeting for your 2 year laptop?
Bob

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try this
by JonTitor Jun 7, 2009 4:02AM PDT
http://www.pctorque.com/sager-5797-gaming-computers.php
its good for the price, the higher up model is a lot heavier and doesn't offer the 2nd SLI GPU anymore for some reason

as for upgradability; CPU, RAM, HDD, Disc drive, are all relatively easy, as for the GPU, it's modular but its just hard to come by them. This model uses the MXM IV form factor which is the latest, the included GTX 280 is the fastest right now, but if you look around in the future you might come across something better if you look around
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Hmmmm...
by Renegade Knight Jun 8, 2009 7:10AM PDT

My "Gaming" Laptop kicked the bucket amazingly right around year 2. I had an extended warranty, and there it sits just now waiting on some random part. I'm hoping they opt out of fixing it and send me my money which I'll use to buy a Thinkpad.

Personally I'd say take a look at the ThinkPad W500. You can equip it fairly nicly for your price range and you have fairly good odds of getting past that 2 year problem. If you want a larger one the W700 would be worth a look but the budget goes up quite a bit.

The tradeoff though is that the screen won't be nearly as nice as my now Dead Toshiba Qosmia was/is.

Personally I'm of the opinion that all the other "Gaming" Laptops are overpriced low quality things. You get great specs on the bleeding edge but the quality doesn't seem to be there.

As for upgrading. That's not really a laptop thing. You can do RAM, Hard Drives. Thinkpads give you a few other options, but upgrading the Graphics Card isn't one of them. If you are hard pressed for money save it by downgrading the RAM, and Hard Drive on most laptops and the DVD/CD ROM on a thinkpad (you can upgrade that later).

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