New Gaming Laptop Aprox £800

[beanruz]

Hi all,

New to these forums so Hi

most likely your tired of looking at peoples posted speccs and asking for advice but where better to go eh?

Looking for a gaming laptop of approx £800 prefer 15inch over 17inch (got 17 currently but its big and not very portable)

Games i want to play on highest possible Graphics etc. are as follows -

i know that with a Gt555 its pretty much impossible to do this but im after the best i can get in my price range. unless of course you can suggest something better!

WOW
SWTOR
D3 upon its release

i was originally looking at buying a Novatech laptop (Nspire 2760 Black) - pretty much the same set-up however it has a i7 2760QM Processor but only a 1366 x 768 Resolution screen - but after reading some reviews about Novatech itself I've decided i don't want to invest that amount of money (£805) into a company which has a hit and miss reputation. - I presume PC specialist is a lot better looking at its site/reviews/community. - feel free to comment on this too

Been looking at the OptimusII - what do you think?

Chassis & Display
Optimus 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
nVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M - 2GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
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
Optimus/Voyager Series 6 Cell Lithium-ION Battery (48.84WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 90W Adaptor (GT 540M) / 120W Adaptor (GT 555M)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
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 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days

£817 inc VAT and Delivery.

One Final question.

GT555 has the Optimus technology - Ive read that a lot of people have problems with this technology with it not correctly changing between the GPU & i7 Graphics.

anyone got any more knowledge on this?

 

[javthrower]

think you should wait a few months for the skyfire, try and save a bit more for it

 

[PCS]

Welcome to our forums

Great spec you have configured there, well balanced. Given that you'd like a 15.6" screen this is a good choice.

As for Optimus technology, I've not heard about any problems with it not correctly changing between the Nvidia and onboard graphics and we've been offering chassis with Optimus technology for quite some time now. Perhaps if any of our forums members have had any problem they will report here.

 

[PCS]

think you should wait a few months for the skyfire, try and save a bit more for it

The SkyFire is 17.3", not 15.6".

 

[AndyL]

If £800 is your absolute maximum then the Spec you have configured is about as good as you can get. You have got the best possible GPU & CPU for your budget.

The 8GB of RAM will add an element of future proofing and the Hybrid HDD should make loading times quicker.

 

[javthrower]

ahhhh, didnt notice that he wanted the 17"
just thought, for a gaming laptop, the GT555M isn't going to be amazing but will do a decent job

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-555M.41933.0.html

 

[beanruz]

HI guys,

thanks for the advice - sorry taken me so long to reply, had issues with logging in!

been looking at this "skyfire II" however i see its getting new speccs? and therefore new prices? would be interesting to see its costing etc.

is a been messing about configuring the differnt speccs again.

i was wondering if a the i7 2630QM is really worth an extra £50 over the i5 2450?

i know obiovusly the i7 is better however was wondering if youd be able to notice a big difference?

anyone have an idea pricing wise for the Skyfire 2? same specc as above just with the GTX GPU instead

 

[El Wayneo]

I was wondering too about the 2450m but i went with the 2670m instead as a quad core is going to last you longer and although most games benefit from beefier graphics cards alot are starting to use more than 2 cores, those ported from the xbox onto the PC, alan wake and LA Noire all prefer 3 cores.

I would stick with the quad, 2.2ghz is good enough and all 4 cores turbo upto 2.8 anyway.