OK, so I've (finally) convinced my parents to share the cost of a new laptop as a present for my 21st.

I'm currently looking at the Asus G72GX as my main choice - essentially, I want great performance on the cheap (don't we all?). I've found it for around $800 refurbished and $1100 new and am looking to buy for around that price. I live in the UK and so will be getting friends to ship it over and will therefore have to pay import tax, knocking the overall cost up by around another $250 so can't really afford to get a $1500 laptop. Would you guys recommend it over something like the ASUS G60Vx? Or anything else for that matter?

I've been away from the PC gaming scene for too long and am really looking forward to getting back into it (Dragon Age, Stalker, The Witcher here I come!) - would love a major gaming desktop but will be in Japan for all of next year as part of my university degree so need something vaguely portable...

I wouldn't buy a laptop for any purpose. It's basically a slimline version of a tower PC, not to mention less powerful. You also need a case to carry it around. If you need an on the move source of internet and don't care to carry a suitcase where-ever you go, buy an iPhone or a netbook.

" I wouldn't buy a laptop for any purpose. It's basically a slimline version of a tower PC, not to mention less powerful. You also need a case to carry it around. If you need an on the move source of internet and don't care to carry a suitcase where-ever you go, buy an iPhone or a netbook. "

" @Kblt said:

" I wouldn't buy a laptop for any purpose. It's basically a slimline version of a tower PC, not to mention less powerful. You also need a case to carry it around. If you need an on the move source of internet and don't care to carry a suitcase where-ever you go, buy an iPhone or a netbook. "

What?  It's called a backpack and an optional slipcase.  "

" @MAN_FLANNEL said:

Duder - get back on topic! The fact is that this laptop can run Crysis on high with a stable 30FPS +, Batman: AA on Ultra and Dragon Age Origins on Very High - all I could possibly want. No way I can get that kind of performance off an iPhone... Plus mobile internet isn't something I'm desperate for.

I just want to know if I could get more bang for my buck with a different model or if I should try to find it refurbished (no idea where to look for that though)

I spent £2,000 on a laptop in 2007 that I thought would be able to run Crysis on the higher settings. Boy I was wrong. And now I sincerely regret it. I wanted a laptop because I generally share my time between two houses, and wanted a single device for games and other stuff, but in hindsight the thing to do is always get a expensive PC for playing games and cheap-ass laptop that can maybe run simpler or older games. I use my crummy old PC to play old games like Age of Empires II, SimCity 4 and Morrowind. Ideally this should be reversed.
 
Still, my '07 rig, a Dell XPS M1710 with an nVidia card, 130GB of hard drive space and 2GB of RAM, is pretty rubbish at running games. It did alright with Oblivion and Half-Life 2, but struggles running Torchlight, as the framerate drops when a bunch of characters are on the screen, which happens, you know, a lot. Also, it produces shit loads of heat and noise, and if you use it on your lap, it will cook your sperm. In fact, it's because I was so disappointed in my laptop's inability to run Crysis that I bought an Xbox 360 six months later. Well, that and Oblivion stopped working on my laptop and I needed my fix. I think BioShock's DRM also had something to do with it.
 
I have learnt a valuable life lesson - NEVER buy an expensive gaming laptop, unless you absolutely have to.

" I spent £2,000 on a laptop in 2007 that I thought would be able to run Crysis on the higher settings. Boy I was wrong. And now I sincerely regret it. I wanted a laptop because I generally share my time between two houses, and wanted a single device for games and other stuff, but in hindsight the thing to do is always get a expensive PC for playing games and cheap-ass laptop that can maybe run simpler or older games. I use my crummy old PC to play old games like Age of Empires II, SimCity 4 and Morrowind. Ideally this should be reversed. Still, my '07 rig, a Dell XPS M1710 with an nVidia card, 130GB of hard drive space and 2GB of RAM, is pretty rubbish at running games. It did alright with Oblivion and Half-Life 2, but struggles running Torchlight, as the framerate drops when a bunch of characters are on the screen, which happens, you know, a lot. Also, it produces shit loads of heat and noise, and if you use it on your lap, it will cook your sperm. In fact, it's because I was so disappointed in my laptop's inability to run Crysis that I bought an Xbox 360 six months later. Well, that and Oblivion stopped working on my laptop and I needed my fix. I think BioShock's DRM also had something to do with it.  I have learnt a valuable life lesson - NEVER buy an expensive gaming laptop, unless you absolutely have to. "

friends to ship it over and will therefore have to pay import tax.

 

" @Vitor:

friends to ship it over and will therefore have to pay import tax.

 

Get your friends to mark it as a gift. Gifts don't get charged import tax. "

Just checked - apparently you'll pay brokerage & customs on anything over $60. And if I say it's worth less than the full $1150, that's all they'll pay back in insurance if something happens on the way over...

My suggestion is if you go for a laptop, stick with a netbook or a tablet laptop. Most "high performance laptops" (anything meant for "gaming" and weighing more than 5 pounds) aren't very portable and have terrible battery lives, and will end up just sitting in one place as a gimped, overexpensive desktop PC. I got a gaming laptop last year and I'm already replacing it with a true desktop PC.
 
@Vitor said:

" @Atlas said:

" I spent £2,000 on a laptop in 2007 that I thought would be able to run Crysis on the higher settings. Boy I was wrong. And now I sincerely regret it. I wanted a laptop because I generally share my time between two houses, and wanted a single device for games and other stuff, but in hindsight the thing to do is always get a expensive PC for playing games and cheap-ass laptop that can maybe run simpler or older games. I use my crummy old PC to play old games like Age of Empires II, SimCity 4 and Morrowind. Ideally this should be reversed. Still, my '07 rig, a Dell XPS M1710 with an nVidia card, 130GB of hard drive space and 2GB of RAM, is pretty rubbish at running games. It did alright with Oblivion and Half-Life 2, but struggles running Torchlight, as the framerate drops when a bunch of characters are on the screen, which happens, you know, a lot. Also, it produces shit loads of heat and noise, and if you use it on your lap, it will cook your sperm. In fact, it's because I was so disappointed in my laptop's inability to run Crysis that I bought an Xbox 360 six months later. Well, that and Oblivion stopped working on my laptop and I needed my fix. I think BioShock's DRM also had something to do with it.  I have learnt a valuable life lesson - NEVER buy an expensive gaming laptop, unless you absolutely have to. "

The thing is, I'll be spending £850 for one that DEFINITELY runs Crysis on high and gets 60 FPS + on Left 4 Dead/TF2 and other older games. I've checked reviews and everyone loves the Nvidia gtx 260m card in this thing and with 6GB of Ram and a 2.53Ghz Core Two Duo, I should be fine with all current gen games for the foreseeable future (I'm looking at you Rage - if you can run on 360, you can damn well run well on this rig). "