Small but powerful

Tute · 22 Sep 2008 at 12:09

Hey all.

Looking for a laptop that's small but has some good gaming power behind it - nothing serious, but good enough for some C&C3, WoW, UT3 and the likes at good frame rates.

I wanted to stay 13" if at all possible, but this obviously limits what I can put in it graphics wise. I was looking at the Dell XPS 1330 range but they all seem to only come with 8400M GS chips that don't look too good for games.

What would people recommend? The budget is in the region of £750, can probably go even higher than that if it's worth it.

I also need it to be reliable.

Thanks.

dakaiez · 22 Sep 2008 at 12:21

I don't think you can get any of the above on a 13" - may i suggest the Ultima Mobile. It's out of your price range, but it's a good bit of kit. I can run WoW, UT3, Warhammer etc all at top with no slowdowns.

It's a 15.4" aswell which is not what you want but it will play them games well and also costs a good couple of hundred if not more but it does the job really well. Mine can go in my backpack easily and i can carry it around without any bother, it's not that big/heavy.

Tute · 22 Sep 2008 at 13:15

After looking through some of the threads on here, I saw that one recommended.

As you say though, it's quite higher than my budget.

Also it's a fair bit more powerful than I wanted. I don't need it to be a "desktop replacement" type machine - just something that I can work on and play some games. I don't expect to be pushing every detail slider to full!

dakaiez · 22 Sep 2008 at 13:28

Tute said:
After looking through some of the threads on here, I saw that one recommended.

As you say though, it's quite higher than my budget.

Also it's a fair bit more powerful than I wanted. I don't need it to be a "desktop replacement" type machine - just something that I can work on and play some games. I don't expect to be pushing every detail slider to full!

Yeah mine isn't a desktop replacement, just thought it would last me longer rather than spending £700+ on a XPS1530 and it struggling on some of my current games when i could spend a few hundred more and get one which lasts a bit longer.

I have to admit, it's pretty much on par with my desktop, not for long though as i am due an upgrade. It should last me a good few years even after it starts struggling with games etc as i'll just use it as a silent downloader, something to browse the internet and do work on.

[DOD]Asprilla · 22 Sep 2008 at 15:12

Have you seen the Samsung Q210? It's a slightly smaller screen that you want, but it should be powerful enough and it falls within your budget.

Tute · 22 Sep 2008 at 16:06

[DOD]Asprilla;12552431 said:
Have you seen the Samsung Q210? It's a slightly smaller screen that you want, but it should be powerful enough and it falls within your budget.

It's a nice little machine indeed, and I don't mind the size at all.

I'm not sure about the 9200M GS it has though. What kind of performance would that give?

[DOD]Asprilla · 23 Sep 2008 at 10:49

Tute said:
It's a nice little machine indeed, and I don't mind the size at all.

I'm not sure about the 9200M GS it has though. What kind of performance would that give?

Not sure, but it's about the best you are going to get out of a small and light machine, next step is a full on dedicated gaming rig.

Here are PC Mark scores from Trusted Reviews if you want to compare them to elsewhere:

And from another review:

Don’t expect the graphics to power anything more than casual gaming, though, as the Nvidia Geforce 9200M GS with 256MB of dedicated memory isn’t about to set the world alight. This is something amply proved by its 3Dmark06 score of just 2,368 if that doesn’t convince you, the average frame rate score of just 4fps (frames per second) in World in Conflict should.

Still, it's got to be better than the Dell XPS1330 and that machine seems to be pretty popular for on the go gaming.

Moeks · 23 Sep 2008 at 13:41

I have an HP TX2530ea 12" tablet/laptop with the new ATi HD3200 M integrated (I know, bear with me

) solution in it with a 2.1ghz AMD Turion Ultra*, 3GB of memory and a 250GB hard drive. It cost me £699 and was the most powerful machine I could find in that size bracket (also the fact that you can flip the screen and use it as a tablet just sold me on it, as I've fancied one for a long time tbh) and it plays quite a few older games just fine, certainly it'll play WoW, I've raided on it several times, I've played Civ 4 on it and also Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, although that didn't really run too great, still, you can play it on a smaller map with a lower unit count and all the graphics set to low except the fidelity (or it looks crap) ...which quite frankly speaks volumes about just how much power this little notebook really has. It'll play Source gams and such perfectly well also. It might be integrated but this chipset is faster than the 8400gs it seems.

Worth a look maybe? ...also ...just imagine, sitting on the sofa using it in tablet mode to browse the forums whenever the fancy takes you

...it's a lot of features and flexibility for the money.

*The new Turion ultras use some Phenom technology apparently so are faster clock for clock than the old ones, and use quite a bit less power.