sgjackson

Remember that dude who played Finch in American Pie?

Yeah, him.

@MikkaQ said:

@sgjackson said:

"Shouldn't exist" is pretty harsh. I'm more than happy to admit if you're a more traditional PC gamer a desktop makes significantly more sense (and I hope I was clear in saying as much). You can build a quality desktop for 1000 dollars or so that'll beat the shit out of almost any gaming laptop in performance and longevity and you'll have a nicer, larger screen. However, there is merit in portability. It makes going back and forth from college significantly easier, and I really can't undersell how awesome it is to PC game from the couch, which is great for console ports.

An example: I've been playing a lot of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit recently. My laptop (an Alienware m14x) runs it at native rez (1600x900) with everything turned on at an average of 50 or so FPS and doesn't dip below 30. I do this often sitting on my couch with the machine in my lap, for an hour or two at a time. It's far from uncomfortable.

The tech used to power laptops now has improved by a pretty fair margin, and being dismissive of the concept because it doesn't fit your own needs is short-sighted. Like I said, it makes more sense to ask yourself why you want one, and make an educated decision based on benchmarks and reviews from there.

Yeah but if you just use the laptop to game on the couch for console ports... why not just play a console?

I believe in using the right tool for the right job. Couch gaming on a laptop sounds weird and defeats the purpose of leaning back and enjoying a nice TV. Like yeah it's nice that you can sit on the couch and run Hot Pursuit at 1600x900 at 50-30FPS, but I'd rather do the exact same thing on a 40" TV at 1080p at 60 FPS off my desktop, and just deal with hiding the long HDMI cable from the TV to the office, or you know.. play a console.

Anyway, I'm done with laptops at this point. They feel archaic and slow compared to the iPad. There's nothing I need a laptop to do that an iPad + Keyboard case can't, and it's lighter, has a longer battery, doesn't run hot and the resolution on the display is so high that text editing is like using a typewriter, I don't see a single pixel. It's the perfect portable experience. I keep the "real" work (as in not writing and not-emails) to my desktop, since no laptop is going to be able to handle or come close to the experience of editing uncompressed video across multiple monitors.

The reason I say "shouldn't exist" is because the technology just isn't there between the batteries, the gimped hardware and the sheer heat and weight of the machine to deliver a good gaming experience on the go. And even if we could deliver that perfectly, that is to say a laptop that runs cool, can play games for like 6 hours off the batteries and run them all on max, why would you need to? Just play with a phone or gameboy until you get home, I don't feel the need to have the latest greatest games at college or work, I can just wait until I get home.

This is where I shrug and say we'll have to agree to disagree. I play WoW on my couch (a game that looks like shit on a TV no matter how nice the PC because of the reliance on text and crisp UI elements). That owns. You don't see the point. There's a market for it, and it isn't you, which is totally cool. But I think being dismissive of an idea just because it doesn't fit your personal usage patterns is short-sighted.

@StevieQ said:

I'm also interested in getting a gaming laptop. I want to be able to play games, but as a student I need a laptop I can lug between school and home. So either I get a crappy laptop for portability and a decent gaming PC, or try and combine the two. Which would be cheaper? Probably buying a good gaming laptop. Basically, thanks for all the advice available here.

what's your budget?

@MikkaQ said:

@Wallzii said:

sgjackson pretty much nailed it with his post, and it contains some great points and advice. With your budget, it is really hard for me to recommend anything to you. If you are able to give me the smallest screen size you are willing to have, I may be able to make a few sugestions if you are set on a laptop.

I really don't understand all the hate people are giving gaming laptops. Of course a similar performing desktop will always cost less, but sometimes the ease of mobility makes it worth it. I love being able to unplug my laptop, pack it up, and bring it to a friends house for some gaming, or into another room of my house, or a hotel on the road with ease. Doing this quite often, it would be hard for me to go back to a desktop, but those are my needs and they suit me. If you don't care about mobility, I'd never suggest a laptop for gaming. If you are like a lot of other people out there who do however, there are some great options out there.

Mobile GPUs have come a long way over the last few years, the most recent flagships from team red and green on par with GTX 570 performance. That will definitely not be obsolete in a year or even two, and upgrading is always an option in any quality gaming laptop.

I think it's more than it's a category of computers that just shouldn't exist. Battery life is laughably bad when playing games to the point where it's almost useless, 3 hours of a game isn't much. Plus there is the ungodly amount of heat that comes out of these things, combined with cheap building materials and you get a laptop that is not really built to last. Plus they're so thick and heavy that they completely defeat the point of them being mobile anyway. Basically, the technology just isn't there.

The only reason I'd get one is if I'm travelling abroad for over a year and want something beefier than an iPad. I don't feel the need to lug around the latest PC games around, because I'm know my desktop is going to be there at the end of the night, and I don't really need to play games when I'm travelling anyway. Coulda stayed home for that.

"Shouldn't exist" is pretty harsh. I'm more than happy to admit if you're a more traditional PC gamer a desktop makes significantly more sense (and I hope I was clear in saying as much). You can build a quality desktop for 1000 dollars or so that'll beat the shit out of almost any gaming laptop in performance and longevity and you'll have a nicer, larger screen. However, there is merit in portability. It makes going back and forth from college significantly easier, and I really can't undersell how awesome it is to PC game from the couch, which is great for console ports.

An example: I've been playing a lot of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit recently. My laptop (an Alienware m14x) runs it at native rez (1600x900) with everything turned on at an average of 50 or so FPS and doesn't dip below 30. I do this often sitting on my couch with the machine in my lap, for an hour or two at a time. It's far from uncomfortable.

The tech used to power laptops now has improved by a pretty fair margin, and being dismissive of the concept because it doesn't fit your own needs is short-sighted. Like I said, it makes more sense to ask yourself why you want one, and make an educated decision based on benchmarks and reviews from there.

Quite a bit of laptop hate here, but as a convert to laptops for gaming I'm going to ask a couple of questions.

1. What is "mid-priced?" Your budget is going to have a pretty large effect on what's viable here.

2. Why do you have a significant preference to laptops from desktops? I made the conversion for two reasons.

-I didn't really give a shit about the difference in visual fidelity. I get a new computer every eighteen months to two years so the lack of longevity didn't bother me, and I've never really cared about the difference between, say, 1080p 2xAA on High and 720p no AA on High, especially because I don't play the most demanding games usually (shooters). My biggest sensitivity was always framerate - if I can keep it locked at 30 (and ideally 60) I'm happy staring at jaggies or blurry textures or whatever.

-I was going off to college and wanted a computer I could carry back and forth more easily than a desktop. This portability advantage manifested itself in other ways - it's way less of a pain in the ass to shift from a desk to a TV now, and I can take my machine to watch movies/fuck around with games at friends houses much more easily. Also playing games in bed is pretty sick.

Now I'm spoiled by easy couch gaming and portability, so I can't imagine going back. That said, your options shake out roughly like this -

-Ivy Bridge laptops with HD4000 graphics can run games on low at 1366x768 (I've seen this on video, with ME3, Skyrim, MW3, etc). I wouldn't consider this acceptable performance, but it's viable if you want a cheap option. Make sure it's an i5 - the i3 integrated graphics chip is underclocked and can't pull this off. If you just want to fuck around in indie games or something I'd go this direction.

-Mid-range "entertainment" laptops like the Lenovo y580 and HP dv7 series. I'd avoid these - they usually either have underpowered graphics cards for gaming purposes, or try to shove a decent card into a consumer laptop shell and run way too hot for me to be comfortable. The ASUS models that do this (the N series, I think) are usually OK so if you really want this kind of laptop I'd look at that.

-Gaming laptops. These start at like 1000-1200 bucks for laptops equipped with cards like the GTX 660m that run Battlefield 3 on high at 1366x768 at 40 fps up to laptops equipped with the 7970m that range from 1500-2000 dollars that can pull off basically anything at 1920x1080 on high/ultra settings.

tl;dr: Basically, if you can't afford the last option and the first option doesn't sound acceptable to you, get a desktop. If you're a weird fringe case like me who loves the portability a laptop provides and doesn't mind the shift down in visual quality going from 1920x1080 for a decent, relatively inexpensive desktop to 1280x720 for a similarly priced laptop, I'd consider your options there.

The warranty is sick because you get a year of accident protection for free, with two years of parts - way better than the other manufacturers. In terms of build quality, don't expect Apple, but I had an N53 and it wasn't bad by any stretch. My only complaint was the lack of a backlit keyboard, and mine was an old enough model they might have added one to the N series.

Obviously, you guys need to prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse with Hornady® Zombie Max™ ammo.

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As this gen winds down, I'd be really curious to see like a huge wisdom of the crowds type poll for this.

Echoing most people here on GiantBomb: I was tentative at first but once I saw the office vids/Binary Domain quicklook I knew things were largely OK. John Davison's a cool dude, and I had a hunch if he was running the show he realizes the appeal of GiantBomb and will try to keep the status quo as much as possible.

Tested I lost interest in not because it's a front for the Mythbusters dudes now but because it's not a dedicated tech site any more. I enjoyed it because I liked Will and Norm's personalities and it was an interesting take on the Engadget/Gizmodo-type blog, now it covers things I mostly am uninterested in (if the initial site push is any indication).

I feel bad for Screened, though. I enjoyed it a lot early on, but I think Alex leaving to be the east coast guy kind of chopped the legs out from under the site, and now it's an afterthought in a business deal headed by GB for CBSi and Tested for BermanBraun.

@Bwast said:

Accept - Heavy Metal Heart

Annihilator - The Fun Palace

Helloween - Dr. Stein

Iced Earth - Travel in Stygian

Manowar - Gloves of Metal

Tell what you did and didn't like and I can recommend some others if you'd like.

This dude owns you should also listen to him