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Does this exist?

Oldie

Oldie

Mean Old Administrator
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Joined
Jan 12, 2004
Messages
21,915
I've been looking hard for a laptop. This is what I want:

  • 15-16 Inch Screen
  • At least an i5
  • Mid-Range Video Card
  • 3 hours + battery life
  • Less than 6 lbs
  • Vertical res greater than 768
  • HDMI
  • Blu-Ray Drive
  • Not made by Asus

I honestly don't give a crap what it costs. I'm anti-Asus because they have shitty shitty warranty support, at least they have every other time I've dealt with them. They make some fantastic products, but lord help you if they break.

I've been looking everywhere, I find a lot that gets close, but nothing so far meets those specs. :(

If someone can find this, I'll bear their children.
 
sounds like a sony vio, or a buisness machine you would be interested, dont have specific model's atm(just got off 7 hr shift and need sleep), someone else chime in :D maybe that will give ya a start though
 
My girlfriend was looking for a laptop with those specs, and you are correct that they are hard to find, at least for cheap. It seems that the online configurators for Dell, HP, and Toshiba either allow core i3/i5 and integrated with blu ray or dedicated graphics and AMD w/out blu ray.

Personally, I think it's a bit suspicious that they require one to have a core i3/i5 and 4 GB of RAM before they will even let you add a blu ray drive to begin with, much less why they lock you out of a dedicated video card when that is more powerful than integrated video and so it's more than capable of playing back blu ray regardless of what they think/what to sell people. If you do find one, let me know! :D
 
Seriously, there are SO MANY notebooks out there that would be pretty damn near perfect if they didn't have that horrid horrid horrid 1366x768 screen everyone seems to think is just so awesome now days.
 
Oldie said:
Seriously, there are SO MANY notebooks out there that would be pretty damn near perfect if they didn't have that horrid horrid horrid 1366x768 screen everyone seems to think is just so awesome now days.
Click to expand...

Finally, I see I'm not the only one who hates that resolution.
 
Assuming money is no object


http://h71016.www7.hp.com/dstore/Mi...=3156&BaseId=32109&oi=E9CED&BEID=19701&SBLID=



you can get blu ray and up to a 1080p dreamcolor ips panel, base option is 1600x900, if you can spring for it, go for the ips panel as I think it performs similarly to the version on the 17" elitebook 8740w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIBg_4DGfNY&feature=related


Not sure about the battery life, but with the 73 Wh battery I would assume you could make 3 hours, but maybe not. The ips screen draws more power I think, and the graphics are not switchable as far as I can tell.
 
tybert7 said:
and the graphics are not switchable as far as I can tell.
Click to expand...

And a quaddro is the only option. That's another problem, every time you find something from Dell/Lenovo that looks like it could work, it's got a friggin Quadro/Fire card in it. It's as if notebook makers have all gotten together to make sure I never get the laptop I want. :p

I guess they've just given up on catering to educated consumers in the hopes we'll spread the word about their products.
 
Quadros are the same GPUs as the standard Geforce, yanno... it's the same hardware, with a few more features unlocked for the Quadros, but the performance aspects are/should be pretty much exactly the same with a Quadro as the Geforce GPU it's based upon.

Is it that you don't want a Quadro because of the increased cost, or are you of the impression that a Quadro somehow means less performance in gaming, because it doesn't... it might be a few percentage points different (plus or minus, could go either way), but it's the same hardware.
 
Joe Average said:
Is it that you don't want a Quadro because of the increased cost, or are you of the impression that a Quadro somehow means less performance in gaming, because it doesn't... it might be a few percentage points different (plus or minus, could go either way), but it's the same hardware.
Click to expand...

My understanding has been that they're intentionally nerfed for gaming performance. There have been a few hacks out there to get their gaming equivalent drivers working on them, but it's hit or miss. Granted that was a few years ago, has this changed...or did I just make it up? :p

When I say I don't care about cost, I mean it. Granted, I don't want to spend extra money just for fun, but I have no problem paying for what I want.
 
Oldie said:
My understanding has been that they're intentionally nerfed for gaming performance. There have been a few hacks out there to get their gaming equivalent drivers working on them, but it's hit or miss. Granted that was a few years ago, has this changed...or did I just make it up? :p

When I say I don't care about cost, I mean it. Granted, I don't want to spend extra money just for fun, but I have no problem paying for what I want.
Click to expand...

Nope, they just don't have the driver optimizations for games. It's not done specifically to hamper gaming performance, it's because they figure there's no need.
 
So basically if you want any mid-range gaming performance at all, my current understanding is that a Quaddro isn't really compatible w/that goal.

I like Lenovo a lot, I may talk to them on Monday and see if one of their reps can find something we can customize, and getting a consumer level graphics card w/one of their higher res 15.6 touch screens would be awesome. I really don't think what I'm looking for is unreasonable, since there are about a billion laptops out there that do everything I want, with the single exception of having a craptastic video resolution.
 
They still perform like their geforce counterparts, it's just you don't get the little driver optimizations for certain games, so you might lose 5-10% here or there, it's not like you're taking a 50% hit just using a quadro over the same model geforce.
 
I love my Dell XPS 15, and it fulfills all of your requirements except for weight (it is just barely above 6lbs). I'm typing on mine now. i7, 8gb ram, 2gb vram, blu-ray, 1080p and it was about $1100 (bought about Christmas when they were having some special offers). I get about 4.5 hours of battery life on it when I turn the brightness down (and it is still an acceptable brightness) with wireless on and the i7 doesn't even have Optimus.
 
Oldie said:
So basically if you want any mid-range gaming performance at all, my current understanding is that a Quaddro isn't really compatible w/that goal.
Click to expand...

That's simply not true. You're making it sound like having a Quadro means you're going to get 50% slower framerates, and that's just not the case. I did specifically mention "it might be a few percentage points different (plus or minus, could go either way)" but that is a far cry from massive performance hits when dealing with gaming tasks specifically.

In the past, I've owned laptops with Quadros in them and when I did a "gaming benchmark" on it the difference between the Quadro's score and the GPU the Quadro was based upon was like 6% max; most of the time the scores were less than 3% different so, a Quadro can most certainly game. ;)

ND40oz said basically the same thing in the post above: there's nothing wrong with a Quadro, it can handle gaming just damned fine.
 
Gotcha, my impression had always been that gaming just wouldn't work well due to the driver tuning towards production tasks. At any rate, I got hold of a Dell rep I've worked with before and we managed to get this built, I think I like it:


224-9506 1 XPS 15
317-5722 1 Intel Core i5-560M 2.66GHz / up to SC 3.2GHz / 3M
317-5423 1 6GB,DDR3,2 DIMM
331-0481 1 Backlit Keyboard (Internal) - English
320-1665 1 NVIDIA GeForce GT 420M 1GB graphics with Optimus
342-1682 1 500GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
318-0152 1 Metalloid Aluminum (WLAN) L501X
320-1673 1 15.6FHD TLF B+RGLED LCD L501X
421-1737 1 Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
430-4038 1 Integrated 10/100/1000 Network Card
318-0151 1 Tray Load Blu-ray Disc BD-Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)
318-0138 1 JBL 2.1 Speakers with Waves Maxx Audio 3
430-3889 1 Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1000
312-1113 1 56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
430-3894 1 Dell Bluetooth 3.0
312-1123 1 56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery, CUST $149.99

Subtotal: $1,439.98
Shipping & Handling: $0.00
Tax: $100.81
Total Price w/Discounts: $1,540.79

It's got a 1920x1080 res. :)

It's a bit heavier than I wanted but I think I'm just going to resolve myself to a big heftier laptop. Still beats the crap out of my 16lb Sager. :p

Step 1 will be to toss in the 120GB X-25 I've got sitting here and getting rid of all of the software crap though. I hate OEM windows installs....thankfully I've got a nice pile of Ultimate Licenses sitting here. :)
 
Seems a bit pricey for what it has, might be just me. I'd definitely scope out one of those 20% Dell coupons floating around and try to use one to knock it down further. Nice build, just looks a bit too expensive in my opinion. Based on the specs I see that's a $1K machine off the bat, even with the BD combo drive in it - can buy those for under $100 these days from places online. Wonder how much that drive itself is affecting the price - you might consider getting that machine and then dropping it down to the bare DVD burner and seeing about adding a BD combo from another source, could end up cheaper in the long run.

And yes, I noted the second battery and the insane cost of that. Companies love reaming people on battery costs... :D
 
alienware has come a long way. i'd recommend browsing local computer shops that overbought and aren't selling. i picked mine up for 700, 8gb of ram included.
 
I'd probably go with something like the Sager, sandybridge is a major step up in laptops because the quadcore parts are fast enough not to suck and power usage is much better at idle.
 
Oh snap...looky here:

http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np5160-clevo-w150hn-pre-order-p-2999.html

I wonder if they have the same delay as Sager proper...Oh well, even if they do I went ahead and ordered. Came out to $1169 w/blu-ray and a 120GB Intel SSD (I have some here already, but it was a good price so I nabbed it). Unless there's some unearthly shipping delay I think I'll stick w/it.
 
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i know you said no Asus but the Asus N53SV fits that description exactly

Core i7 Sandybridge 2.0GHz
16GB of ram
1080p 15.6" screen
less than 6lbs
nVidia GT540m
costs $1200

if asus isnt giving you warranty support just go back to the store you bought it from (or get instore product replacement)
 
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