[Tech] WTB Laptop

[Tetsuo_Shima]

There're a lot of these 'I want to buy x hardware, and I have x to spend on it' threads going about at the moment, so I thought I might as well join the trend. It's about time I bought a laptop, and since I'm going down to i40 and want to avoid the hassle of humphing this (taps PC) ma-hoosive tank of a thing, I reckon this is the perfect time to buy one. Unfortunately, since I've never owned a laptop before, I'm completely clueless about what to buy. I was hoping that some of you tech-happies would be able to point me in the right direction.

I shall now give you an idea about what I'm looking for! I'm not looking for anything extreme, as this PC is still going to be my primary platform for playing cutting edge games and such. That said, I would like it to be able to play current and soon-to-be-released games (huge nod and wink given to Guild Wars 2, here) in some sort of acceptable fashion - say, smoothly on low/medium graphical settings.
I don't want a huge hulking monstrosity of a thing; a 15.6" screen size would be nice, but I'm also equally partial to one of those mini netbook type things which look quite cute and portable. Keeping weight and battery life to a minimum and maximum, respectively, would be ideal.
I'm talking about an upper price ceiling of about a grand or so (was originally not hoping to spend over 600, but that seems unrealistic given the premium on performance in laptops), cutting down from that as much as possible.

One thing I saw D talking about in the shoutbox which interested me is the Alienware M11x netbook. It seems underpowered in its most humble incarnation (shoddi Pentium CPU, only 2GB of RAM), but after adding the Core2 Duo CPU and upping the RAM to 4GB it seems to have a bit more of a kick to it. It's totally redlining my upper price limit at £999.9999999999999, but it seems to be getting a lot of good press so I wouldn't mind splashing out if I knew it was a good product. The only thing that I'm apprehensive about is the lack of optical drive - I suppose I'd have to buy an external thing if I wanted to install my old (CD-based) games onto it? Or maybe I can somehow use my main PC's CD drives and a USB cable to the same effect, I don't know.

Well, that's just an idea. It being an Alienware, there's probably some kind of price premium for the 'badge of honour' thing. Maybe there's a company out there who make a laptop with similar specs, but cheaper.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

 

[DeZmond]

On the subject of the Alienware, here's a review from NotebookReview which I reckon is one of the better review sites out there.

The HP Envy looks to be pretty good from what I've read online, although its at the upper range of your budget.

 

[Haven]

If you are going to be using this a lot and possibly as your main computer I'd urge you to reconsider 17" laptops. If thats not the case and you want to stick with 15" then as you've already mentioned Alienware (I use the XPS equivalent of the M17 series for all my gaming) do very nice kit although there is a price premium for style.

http://www.alienware.co.uk/main.aspx

The alternative is Asus who do some very high end kit such as the G73h but also do a 15" version (I think its the g51). All this kit is pricey but should last you 3 years so make sure you get a decent warranty if you go that route.

http://www.asuslaptop.co.uk/products.php?cat=180

If all of the above is too rich then check out Acer, they do some good value laptops that are not generally as solidly built but do have good components inside them:

http://www.acerdirect.co.uk/acer-gaming-laptops/page.asp

 

[Haven]

Ignore everything else and just get this.

Sod the budget

 

[Tetsuo_Shima]

Thanks for the help, chaps! I was looking at the Acer website today, and the Timeline X series caught my interest. More specifically, the 4820TG. It looks to be a very reasonably priced range, and quite popular on the Notebook Review forums. However, I can't seem to find any outlets that sell the configuration I want (i5 CPU, Radeon 5650 1GB) It's a tough business, this.