Gaming laptop for £1500

voodoo172 · 1 Oct 2009 at 10:48

Hi, Im currently looking for a new laptop to play games on aswell as do all of the mundane word processing etc. The laptop i have at the moment is a Dell Xps M1530 which ive had for around 2 years its specs are:
c2d t7250 processor
4gb ddr2-667 (original was 2gb)
250gb hdd
m8600gt graphics 512mb
dvd RW etc.

So far ive seen two laptops that i think are suitable; The alienware m15x customised to equal £1549ish
core i7 720
4gb ddr3 1333mhz
gtx m260 1gb
bluray
500gb hdd

or the MSI GT729 which is a 17" rather than a 15", though ive heard it is a good laptop with a few nice extras:
c2q Q9000,
4gb ddr3 1033 i think
500gb hdd
4850 1gb
bluray.

any other suggestions and advice would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance

JonJ678 · 1 Oct 2009 at 14:13

Can we tempt you to keep the current one, and buy a desktop? £1500 on a less portable machine will thrash any £1500 laptop. If not, someone else probably knows of a good one

voodoo172 · 1 Oct 2009 at 14:31

lol unfortunatley not because ive just built a desktop machine with these specs
8gb ddr3
amd phenom 2 x4 955 black edition,
liquid cooling,
500gb hdd,
2x 4850 512 crossfire,
bluray drive
and that only cost me 800 quids lol. i just wanted to get a better laptop while i can afford it, lol im going back to being a student next year so i cant then.

JonJ678 · 1 Oct 2009 at 17:24

You'd be surprised how many students have desktops. I'm one, just getting a netbook to carry around and using the desktop most of the time. The laptop you've got now isn't going to play particularly impressive games I agree, but how often do you need to play games away from your room?

Last time I tried this reasoning the OP got very angry at the suggestion of putting his computer in a car for a couple of hours, so I'll back off if you're convinced. I'd spend the 1500 elsewhere though, a netbook with an 8 hour battery can't play games but it's a lot more useful for typing and browsing away from home. Would leave you with 1200 in change, which is a car or a motorbike. A third computer might be considered excessive for a student

voodoo172 · 1 Oct 2009 at 19:20

lol thought it may be considered excessive, ive already got a netbook

and a car

.

queen13 · 2 Oct 2009 at 21:51

For £1500 you should be able to get i7 820, GTX 280m, 4GB ram

voodoo172 · 2 Oct 2009 at 21:56

right, where from? bartering over the phone with alienware? or sumwhere else?

KingZeddy · 2 Oct 2009 at 23:10

what about this http://www.kobaltcomputers.co.uk/mojave_overview.php though I do like the MSI one, dont go too far away from your mains plug as a lot of these will only give an hour or so gaming on the battery

Alexrose1uk · 3 Oct 2009 at 00:40

Look at the 860 from the above place, basically a cheaper, cheaper to upgrade m15x. Also dont start me on alienware customer service.

Moeks · 3 Oct 2009 at 11:20

King Zeddy, you might want to remove that competitor link before a Don sees it.

I have a slightly different suggestion regarding the laptop, you say you want to get one now 'while you can afford it' ...ok, but it wont really see serious use until next year if I understand right? ...why don't you take the £1500 you want to spend on a laptop and put it in a savings account/ISA and leave it until you actually need this laptop, you will have accrued a bit more money simply through interest earned by then and you will no doubt be able to buy something a bit better for the same amount of money, there are quite a lot of changes coming in the mobile market over the next year, we're about to go through a mobile chip change etc.

My point is, just becuase you have the money now doesn't mean you should spend it now, this is especially unwise in the technology market where stuff changes fast, unless you actually want the laptop now, I would put the money aside so that you can afford it when you actually want/need it. You will come out better off in the long run this way I am sure.

Tobeornottobe · 3 Oct 2009 at 11:34

I just ordered this. Came to £1,500.24 (pre-order) including VAT and shipping. Quite excited now! I don't think there is anything faster for gaming in a 15.4 " format.

G860 1
Chassis - :: Clevo W860CU 1
Black/Silver
Screen - :: 15.6" 1600x900 1
HD+ X-Glass
Processor - :: Intel® Core i7 1
820QM Quad Core Processor
1.73GHz 8MB Cache
Video Card - :: NVIDIA® 1
GeForce® GTX 280M 1GB GDDR3 :eek:

Memory 1 - :: 4GB DDR3 1
PC3-10600 1333Mhz CAS9 2x 2GB
DIMMs
Hard Drive - :: 320GB 1
7,200rpm SATA-II with 16MB
Cache
Operating system 1 - :: 1
Windows Vista Home Premium
SP2 64-bit With Free Windows
7 Upgrade Voucher!
Optical Device 1 - :: 8x 1
DVD±R/W
Bluetooth - :: None Selected 1
7 in 1 card reader - :: 7 in 1
1 card reader
Keyboard - :: English UK 1
Soundcard - :: Integrated 1
High Definition Audio

Tobeornottobe · 3 Oct 2009 at 11:38

[why don't you take the £1500 you want to spend on a laptop and put it in a savings account/ISA and leave it until you actually need this laptop, [/QUOTE]

The most you will get is 3% per annum or £3.75 a month. Wow!

Moeks · 3 Oct 2009 at 12:00

Tobeornottobe said:
The most you will get is 3% per annum or £3.75 a month. Wow!

Yes but that is not really the main point, the point is, if he saves the money and buys something next year instead, he will get more for his money, the Arandale and Clarksfield cpus will be out buy then, I have no doubt there will be some changes in the mobile graphics market too, and SSD's will probably be larger, better and cheaper.

It makes sense not to buy now, if you don't need it now, buy for the time, things change fast in this market.

If he buys now, in 10-11 months time when he actually needs to use this laptop for it's intended purpose, he'll no doubt be looking around at what is available then and thinking, "I wish I had waited to buy it, because I didn't need it last year and I do now and I could have bought something better for the money now"

Tobeornottobe · 3 Oct 2009 at 13:13

But there is always something new around the corner in IT. Capella/I7 are the latest, next year there will be another 'new thing'

Moeks · 3 Oct 2009 at 17:44

Tobeornottobe said:
But there is always something new around the corner in IT. Capella/I7 are the latest, next year there will be another 'new thing'

Which is perfectly fine if you are going to use it now, but from what the op said, he wont really make real use of it until next year, and is looking at this now because he reckons he wont be able to afford it when the time comes, hence I suggest that he keeps the money aside until then, so that he can afford it.

I don't mean to be rude, but I am failing to see how you are having so much trouble grasping this, what I am saying is pretty obvious and self evident really. Your argument is perfectly fine if the machine were to be used now, but if it isn't, then you might aswell wait until nearer the time that it will be, becasue you will be able to buy something faster then. Would you not agree ? ...it is fairly logical.

I don't subscribe to waiting for every next 'big thing' though, that'll never get you anywhere, but if you don't need something for half a year or more, I don't think it's a good idea to buy now and store it until then, that's also rather silly. At least in this market it is anyway.