Light Use Gaming Laptop

[Skilty]

Hi,

I am looking for a light use gaming laptop, mainly for SWToR, some Lord of the Rings Online. Just wondering what recommendations people have? I don't have a set budget, this is more for gam playing on my travels or sitting on the couch.

Originally I was looking at a 15" MBP but I can see from PCS I can get a better spec substantially cheaper, I just can't run OS X but I run that on my desktop so it is not the end of the world

Current spec I was thinking of (I have a retail copy of Windows 7 Home Premium):

Chassis & Display
Vortex II: 15.6" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2670QM (2.20GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
1.5GB nVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560M - DirectX® 11 (15.6" Vortex II)
Memory - Hard Disk
500GB SEAGATE MOMENTUS XT HYBRID, SATA 3 Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N130 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 180W AC Adaptor
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Price: £1,082.00 including VAT and delivery.

Cheers

Skilty

 

[Music Guy123]

Ok, my recommendation would be to get a 17.3" vortex. That way you can drop the hybrid and get a Scorpio black and a ssd if you can afford it. Whatever screen size you get I would highly recommend getting the matt screen. They are just so much better. Otherwise, it looks like a solid spec, enjoy it.

 

[Skilty]

Ok, my recommendation would be to get a 17.3" vortex. That way you can drop the hybrid and get a Scorpio black and a ssd if you can afford it. Whatever screen size you get I would highly recommend getting the matt screen. They are just so much better. Otherwise, it looks like a solid spec, enjoy it.

After playing around a little I now have the following for £130 more:

Chassis & Display
Vortex II:17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080) (£69)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2670QM (2.20GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
1.5GB nVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560M - DirectX® 11 (17.3" Vortex II)
Memory - Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 320 SERIES SSD, SATA 3 Gb/s (upto 270MB/sR | 130MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N CARD INC. BLUETOOTH 3.0
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Price: £1,210.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[Music Guy123]

Are you sure that 120GB is enough space for you? If you can afford it, I would get a kingston 6GB/s SSD and a 500GB hard drive (preferably a black scorpio). Otherwise looks like a solid spec, enjoy it!

 

[Skilty]

Are you sure that 120GB is enough space for you? If you can afford it, I would get a kingston 6GB/s SSD and a 500GB hard drive (preferably a black scorpio). Otherwise looks like a solid spec, enjoy it!

Yeah, am pretty good on storage, OS, 3 or 4 games, office and that is about it really.

Question on the screen, does the matte screen lose any vibrance in colour? I guess the trade off are less reflections from the screen.

I did think about losing the matte screen and upping it to a 6990m and the 120gb Kingston SSD increases the price by £100 but I figure I then have a laptop good for at least 2-3 years.

 

[Music Guy123]

I would go for the performance stuff over the screen but the screen is supposed to be very good.

 

[Skilty]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I have managed to spec an Alienware m17x R3 for £1303.88...

Intel i7 2670QM
4GB Memory
Killer Wireless N-1103
500GB XT Momentus Hybrid
Windows 7 Home Premium
2GB DDR5 GTX580m

Have to say it is a pretty good deal...

 

[lemunk]

yeh good spec for the price , just a shame its alienware xD

 

[Skilty]

The Alienware includes a GTX580M not the GTX560M

Agree about it being a shame it is Alienware but it is a top notch spec

 

[Music Guy123]

Ok, admittedly, that isn't too bad, but, you can tell pcs and they can possibly give you a better quote. However, before you buy that, think of a couple of things, that is £200 less than the pcs one. For that, you aren't going to get the customer service of a local person who actually builds the pc, you will get some call station in India that doesn't have a clue what they are on about. The warranty from dell won't be great,if they have to replace something, they will take the laptop away and it will probably take them at least two weeks. Also, Alienware's are reknown for over heating and frying the gpus. So you will have to buy a notebook stand and are likely to have a shorter lifespan out of the laptop. Also, PCS buy top quality parts, Dell don't buy quite as good parts, have a look at this page: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/about-service/

 

[Skilty]

Ok, admittedly, that isn't too bad, but, you can tell pcs and they can possibly give you a better quote. However, before you buy that, think of a couple of things, that is £200 less than the pcs one. For that, you aren't going to get the customer service of a local person who actually builds the pc, you will get some call station in India that doesn't have a clue what they are on about. The warranty from dell won't be great,if they have to replace something, they will take the laptop away and it will probably take them at least two weeks. Also, Alienware's are reknown for over heating and frying the gpus. So you will have to buy a notebook stand and are likely to have a shorter lifespan out of the laptop. Also, PCS buy top quality parts, Dell don't buy quite as good parts, have a look at this page: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/about-service/

Also just noticed quidco are doing 10% cashback which takes it to around £1,200, by upping the warranty I can get next day in-home service... That is £250 under PCS at the moment.

Will speak to PCS and see what they can do.