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Hardware

Dell's Gaming Monster 478

Posted by michael from the luggables dept.
Carpoolio writes "TechTV has a good first look at the new Dell Inspiron XPS -- the company's first foray into portable gaming systems. The notebook -- a beast at 9 pounds -- puts the company squarely against the likes of Alienware. The price tag is steep, too, at $3,350. Are you buying?"
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Dell's Gaming Monster More

Dell's Gaming Monster

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  • Heh, a beast at 9 pounds (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:46PM (#8273464)
    I remember back when that would've been a super lightweight notebook.

    • Re:Heh, a beast at 9 pounds (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Clover_Kicker ( 20761 ) <clover_kicker@yahoo.com> on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:02PM (#8273726)
      Here, take a walk down memory lane: http://www.firstibmclone.fsnet.co.uk/ [fsnet.co.uk]

      • Re:Heh, a beast at 9 pounds (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Wow. It says "not an official Compaq site!" on the front page. With that professional design, who would've thought...

  • Clever. (Score:5, Funny)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) * on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:46PM (#8273474) Homepage
    Aaah...it seems Dell is going after the coveted gamers-who-leave-the-basement demographic...

  • 9 pounds?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:47PM (#8273486)
    At nine pounds thats the cheapest machine I've seen in ages - or are we not all talking British?

  • Ouch (Score:5, Funny)

    by ikewillis ( 586793 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:47PM (#8273495) Homepage
    For that much money, I think I'd rather own a car

    • Re:Ouch (Score:5, Funny)

      by WankersRevenge ( 452399 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:05PM (#8273768)
      just remember, unlike gta3 - you stay in jail after being arrested for running down pedestrians.

      • Re:Ouch (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @06:19PM (#8274764) Homepage
        You know.....its funny you should mention GTA3, because the other day I was driving in the parking lot outside of the grocery store when a woman and her child started to walk past the front of my car (no crosswalk or stop sign, I swear!) and while it was near impossible for me to hit them, I came much closer than the lady thought comfortable and she proceeded to give me a salty look and say something which I didn't hear. Later on I realized that I have developed such a mentality from driving games where:

        "You can come as close as you want without bad things happening as long as you don't actually touch it. You could even be a pixel away."

        Unfortunately, people in the real world have larger "personal spaces" than people in GTA3. Whoops.

    • Ouch indeed (Score:4, Informative)

      by rsborg ( 111459 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:53PM (#8274444) Homepage
      Not to mention, there are many other respectable [emachines.com] gaming class laptops [alienware.com] available, for much LE$$.

      Besides for that much, I'd go for something with better ruggedness, like a thinkpad, or a powerbook.

      • Emachines???? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @06:17PM (#8274737) Homepage
        "Not to mention, there are many other respectable [emachines.com] gaming class laptops available, for much LE$$.

        Emachines? Respectible? Good lord! You must be kidding. Put down the crack pipe!

        • Re:Emachines???? (Score:4, Informative)

          by IndependentVik ( 582582 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @08:48PM (#8275981)
          You obviously haven't used an emachines product lately. They've been under new management for awhile now, and the last few models of their laptops have been reviewed as good machines from most of the usual suspects. Check out epinions, for one.

          I just bought the M6807 [emachines.com] about a month back, and I was very impressed with the raw speed and quality of the display for the price.

          They've completely fixed up their support, too. I called once about a minor issue (turned out to be a weird power management setting) and the hold time was about 5 seconds--I was extremely impressed. I heard they just got bought by Gateway, though, so who knows how long the good times will last :(

  • Marty! This thing must take One-point-twenty-one-Giga-watts!

  • No, it's too much (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PotatoHead ( 12771 ) * <doug.opengeek@org> on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:48PM (#8273505) Homepage Journal
    money.

    Part of the joy in high-end PC's (and that is an oxymoron for me) is building them.

    If I have that kind of money to blow, then its going to be a trip to FRY's hands down.

    • Re:No, it's too much (Score:3, Insightful)

      by *weasel ( 174362 )
      Not having a Fry's around my location, pardon me if I'm missing something.

      But rolling-your-own laptop is not exactly something you can do with a trip to the enthusiasts store.

      I'd love to roll my own laptop or PDA the way I can with a desktop - but that's just not the way the bits are sold.

    • Re:No, it's too much (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Awptimus Prime ( 695459 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:33PM (#8274163)
      Agreed. My friends and I all build all our own systems, and most take some sense of pride in having a nice, custom system once it's done.

      I tend to update some components at times when I need to squeeze every bit of power out of the system. For instance, I will often buy a next-generation graphics card when it's line is brand new, but hold off replacing the CPU, Mobo, and RAM. This way, there's a constant rise in FPS and system speed, without having to throw down a big chunk of change for a new system every year.

      There is also the visual appearance of your machine. There's no point in replacing a stylish Lian Li case you spent a lot of time working on with a dremel or adding sound dampening materials to. If the case looks good, functions well, etc -- then it can remain a fixture on your desk until the ATX standard is no longer used. The same goes with your PSU, assuming you get one that is of premium quality and has enough wattage to safely power a system for several more years.

      I often refer to the cost of upgrading my gaming system to upgrading my secondary computer, which will inherit all of the main system's components. Any parts that aren't immediately used go into the closet as spares, loaners, or freebies for friends.

      None of this is possible with a $3300 laptop. When you want a better video card in 2 years, then you have to go spend another $3k for a whole new laptop. None of the parts, except for the HDD will likely be useful. Even then, a 7200 RPM 60GB drive won't be something you will want to put in a brand-new laptop in a couple of years. You could stick it on Ebay and hope some sucker bids more than it's worth.

      • Re:No, it's too much (Score:5, Informative)

        by Rude Turnip ( 49495 ) <valuation.gmail@com> on Friday February 13, 2004 @06:13PM (#8274701)
        You can upgrade the graphics chipset on Dell laptops.

      • Re:No, it's too much (Score:3, Informative)

        by RugbyHoe ( 678963 )
        All valid points but the article indicates that they are at least trying to address the laptop vid card issue. "Dell also takes the step, for the first time in its notebook line, of offering upgradeable graphics for people who need the latest and greatest." My job forces me to spend way too much time in airplanes and hotel rooms - I would love to have the option of replacing the Radeon 7500 I have in my current laptop.

      • When you want a better video card in 2 years, then you have to go spend another $3k for a whole new laptop.

        At least Alienware is offering a video module that you can change yourself [alienware.com].

        I'd love it if an OEM produced a standard form-factor laptop that could swap all (or most) of the components, even if it was bulkier/heavier. More people are using laptops as desktop replacements (or 2nd computer) and would like this (I've counted 10+ at our office who would buy something like this if it were available and so

  • I'm not buying... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by irc.goatse.cx troll ( 593289 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:48PM (#8273509) Journal
    ..But I'm open to donations.

    Personally, if I get a laptop I'd rather get one that isn't wasting cpu cycles on a >ghz cpu and crazy graphics card. I'm a gamer, sure, but thats not what laptops are for. LCDs suck for gaming, as does laptop keyboards, and requiring a real usb mouse.

    • LCDs are fine for gaming (Score:4, Informative)

      by ikewillis ( 586793 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:51PM (#8273547) Homepage
      Check out the Dell 2001FP [anandtech.com]. With a 16ms response, it's more than adequate for gaming.

    • Re:I'm not buying... (Score:5, Informative)

      by hobbesmaster ( 592205 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:53PM (#8273591)
      I have a friend that plays exclusively on his Sager 4080. Hes far better at using a touchpad in FPS's than a mouse, and is one of the better gamers I know. Just because you can't beat Half Life on hardest difficulty in the back of your physics class doesn't mean that everyone can't.

      There is a market out there for these notebooks, but I would rather have a clevo of some sort (sagers appear to be the best), but I guess some people would want to pay more for Dell...

      PS. LCDs are pretty good for gaming these days, the LCD gaming problems were with the older ones.

  • Would I buy it? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by heironymouscoward ( 683461 ) <heironymouscowar ... .com minus punct> on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:49PM (#8273516) Journal
    No. For entertainment, give me a cube PC and a projector. Just as portable, ten times the fun and cheaper.
  • For that much money, I don't really see how you could pass up an 17-inch Apple PowerBook G4. One of these babies could be optained for about 3000 USD. :-)

  • Size _doesn't_ matter. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by normal_guy ( 676813 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:50PM (#8273543)
    When pricing laptops, the executive types always pick the smallest size. You wouldn't believe the amount of thought that went into extra power vs. 8 extra OUNCES. The younger game-playing employees always price out the laptops with the most power, knowing that an extra few pounds means _nothing_ when you're rolling it down the concourse. To me, it's all about desktop replacement.
    • ...when you're rolling it down the concourse.

      The fact that you've got to roll the damn "laptop" down the concourse instead of carrying doesn't make it a desktop replacement; it makes it a fucking expensive desktop with inferior parts.
    • We stopped a lot of bitching by weighing the bags the whiners were using and replacing them with lightweight bags with almost no storage space beyond the laptop itself.


      Complaints stopped, and the execs had to carry more bags and more total weight to bring all the crap they brought before.


      Man, are people annoying.

  • ouchy (Score:5, Funny)

    by cubyrop ( 647235 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:51PM (#8273548)

    at that price point it had better come with a firewire vagina.

  • I'm sure it's going to be asked (Score:3, Insightful)

    by IWantMoreSpamPlease ( 571972 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:51PM (#8273553) Homepage Journal
    if it hasn't already by the time this question is posed, but:

    What kind of Real World battery life would you get?

    And I agree gaming on a laptop blows goats, squishy keyboard feel, odd layouts and (at least up to this point) iffy graphics cards put them firmly in the MAME, not DOOM3, category.
    • And I agree gaming on a laptop blows goats, squishy keyboard feel, odd layouts So attach a good USB keyboard and mouse.

    • Re:I'm sure it's going to be asked (Score:4, Insightful)

      by onyxruby ( 118189 ) <onyxruby&comcast,net> on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:21PM (#8274038)
      Hate to tell you this, but most people with laptops don't run them on battery power that often. Even on airplanes many seats come with power plugs for laptops. If you have a laptop it just means that your looking for a portable computer. In fact some laptops don't even come with batteries. This laptop is not marketed at somebody concerned with battery life any more than a full size truck is marketed for fuel economy. If someone wants that they'll just get one of dell's many other laptops that are lightweight and capable of good battery time. It's an apples to oranges comparison.
    • I've got a Sager (they compete with Alienware in the "custom" power laptop market) with a 3.2ghz P4 and ATI Radeon 9600 Mobility. The thing is definitely a desktop replacement when it comes to games - it's the fastest machine I've ever owned.

      But your question about battery life is a very important one. Maximum life doing minimal activities (firefox, ssh, e-mail) or a lightweight game (non-3d) it only lasts about 20-30 minutes on the battery.

      Now... most of the time when I take my laptop with me, I'm not ru

  • Mmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by foxtrot ( 14140 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:52PM (#8273570)
    WUXGA+ screen, which is 1920x1200 pixels.

    What I want to know is, why is it you can buy a laptop with that flat panel installed, but you can't buy an LCD monitor for your desktop PC that can do that?

    -JDF
    • I have an Inspirion with a 15" 1600x1200 display. For the life of me I cannot find anything similar in a stand alone display. When I can its large and unreasonably priced.

      There is a serious disconnect between LCDs on laptops and desktop in regards to pricing.

      The only real concern is ghosting, even on 20ms displays it gets noticable.

    • Re:Mmm.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SlashdotLemming ( 640272 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:16PM (#8273951)
      WUXGA+ screen, which is 1920x1200 pixels.

      Bought one of those as a demo laptop. Problem is, no-one over 40 can read the screen. And those are the people with the money!!
      whoops

  • wow. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fireduck ( 197000 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:53PM (#8273582)
    that's awfully expensive... i was recently pricing a new computer for my brother and for a semi-decent gaming rig (2400+ athlon, nforce2 mobo), the price was around $800. this is 4 times that amount! all for the convenience of portability?

    i feel bad looking back at the $2000 I spent on my gaming rig that now is worth $1000...

    anyone know how fast can one build a mini-atx gaming rig and for what price? I presume the biggest limitation is heat: processor + vid card in a small space is not ideal. any small form factor cases with lots of fans?

    • anyone know how fast can one build a mini-atx gaming rig

      I can build one in about two hours.

      [ *RIMSHOT* ]

      Thank you, I'll be here through Sunday. Tip your servers, they work hard for you...

  • choice of processors (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Gherald ( 682277 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:53PM (#8273590) Journal
    I would buy if it was an A64. I am looking for something to run 64bit Gentoo... no good options right now, other than Voodoo, and they take like 2 months to ship.

    High ghz P4s just aren't interesting anymore (I have a 2.6 P4 OCed to 3.2 and it is quite boring actually)

  • I just bought an Alienware Area-51m (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TerraFORM ( 528210 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:53PM (#8273595)
    ..and I'm very happy with it. P4 3.2GHz desktop proc, 1 GB PC 3200 RAM, 128 MB ATI 9600 Pro, 60 GB 7200RPM HDD, 16.1" XUGA TFT, XP Professional. I bought it because I like to GAME. Sure, powerbooks are great and are beasts in their own right, but very few current OL games are supported and that is the ONLY reason I didn't go Mac. Alienware is certainly expensive, but you get what you pay for. They really know how to engineer their systems for optimal cooling. Dell realizes Alienware's success (witness AW is on Forbes' list of the fastest growing businesses this year) and is entering the foray. Methinks that they'll do well initially, but the quality that gaming systems require may or may not be met through Dell's uber-assembly line format.

  • Seriously... what's the point? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dragoon412 ( 648209 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:54PM (#8273596)
    With the speed that hardware becomes outdated and unsuitable for gaming, coupled with the inability to upgrade anything terribly performance-enhancing on a laptop, why on earth would anyone spend the money on a machine like this?

    For literally a little over half the cost you could custom-build a desktop gaming monster machine; 10k RPM drives in RAID-0 with an Athlon64, more RAM than you know what to do with, and a video card that outpowers that entire damned notebook.

    Dell seems to be aiming at a really small target market with this machine: people who are serious gamers but also need to travel and also have so much money that they can piss it away on a laptop that's already underpowered by the day's gaming standards, and can't be given any meaningful upgrades in the future.

    And to top it off, it weighs a ton, probably has the heat issues even low-performance laptops do, and it doesn't even look as nice as the Alienware competition.

    Really... I just don't get it.

    • Re:Seriously... what's the point? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by theLOUDroom ( 556455 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:26PM (#8274088)
      I'd love one.

      I'm an electrical engineer, and need to do some pretty resource intensive simulatons. I also work with 11x17 sized drawings.

      Currently I have a laptop, but the performance is somewhat lacking. Even so, there's no way I'd give it up and switch to a desktop.
      At the end of the day, I hit a button, pull a lever and take all my work home. This morning, I spent the first four hours working at home via the company's VPN.

      With my laptop and a VPN connection, putting in a 60 hour week on a critical project no longer means that I have to spend 60 away from home.

      I couldn't give a rats ass about the weight or battery life of my laptop. I use it on my desk at home and my desk at work.

      If someone was willing to double the width and weight of my laptop in excange for twice the sceen area and processing power, I'd go for it in a heartbeat.

      And as for price, it's not that big of a deal when you consider the cost of my time waiting for a simulation to finish or the price of the software that I actually run on the laptop.

      When my laptop is obsolete, they can pass it on to someone in finance, shipping, or wherever.

      Right now, I'm looking at an HP ZD7000 series "notebook." Sure they're huge, but that mean they actually have a decent sized keyboard, and a nice big display. As long as I can carry it with one hand, it's portable enough for me.
  • Hell no. "Price: $3,350 as tested." Thats nuts. Iv'e been known to spend over 3k on a computer before, for home use, but those days are long gone. What are you buying really? The ability to bring a small machine to LAN parties? Less desktop space? The benefits of compact space do not outweigh the hefty price tag for me.

    But it is VERY tempting to have this puppy for pure "HAHAH I GOT ONE AND YOU DON'T" factor :p

  • Price discrepancy? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Txiasaeia ( 581598 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:56PM (#8273631)
    Interesting how the base unit is $2799 *CAD*, and yet the reviewer emphasises the (obviously tricked-out notebook's $3350 USD) huge price tag.

    I remember reading a review for an IBM T41P the other day -- the reviewer's test machine retailed at something like $5500 CAD. Very few people can afford these monstrosities; most of us go for the $2500 "bare bones but still a Mercedes" IBM notebook instead.

  • it's under 3 grand (Score:5, Informative)

    by cubyrop ( 647235 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:58PM (#8273664)
    i can't seem to find where poster got the 3,300 price tag. From dell.com:

    New Inspiron XPS Starting at $2599 After $250 Mail-in Rebate
    Pentium(R)4 w/HT Technology 3.4GHz,15.4 WUXGA
    512MB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
    60GB 7200 rpm Ultra ATA Hard Drive
    4X CD/DVD burner(DVD+RW/+R) including Sonic RecordNow and MyDVD LE
    $2,849

    2600 bucks is actually fairly well inline, and a huge difference from 3,300 in the makes-the-eyeballs-bulge dep't.

    • Re:it's under 3 grand (Score:5, Informative)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:05PM (#8273772) Journal
      The system tested in the TechTV article was 3350, it had 1 gig of RAM and the optional battery/subwoofer addon, and some other bells and whistles.

      Also, after note the "after $250 mail-in rebate", which I dont think TechTV included - they reported the actual out-of-pocket cost.

  • Sorry, dude (Score:3, Informative)

    by slobber ( 685169 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:00PM (#8273698)
    I recently purchased the following system:

    Athlon64 3200+
    1G RAM
    200G Maxtor HD
    ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
    DVD ROM, 1 Gigabit Ethernet

    The total was $1,280 (including shipping)
    So why would I want to pay almost 3x to get a 9 pound monster? The 2K+ premium for (semi)portability is simply too high...

  • Whoa (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:01PM (#8273709)
    Let's see, that's a non-mobile Pentium at 3.4GHz, and Dell says it's 9 pounds. So in real life we're looking at an 11 pound computer that you won't want on your lap, plus it'll have maybe 60-90 minutes of battery life?

    Maybe one of the optional accessories will be a lead-acid car battery with adapter and carrying case!

  • Not for the Price (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cheeseSource ( 605209 ) <{snailbarn} {at} {yahoo.com}> on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:03PM (#8273737) Journal
    Why pay that much when you can get an Alienware with a good customization for $500 less. Plus Alienware tends to make all the right tweaks. I've seen the inside of a normal dell and it's a mess. Compare that to a "normal" Alienware or even Gateway and the answer is an obvious: "I'm not buying".

    • Re:Not for the Price (Score:5, Informative)

      by NotAnotherReboot ( 262125 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:55PM (#8274473)
      ...or you get something that's nearly identical to an Alienware for far less...
      check out Sager notebooks, a good site for them is Pc Torque [pctorque.com]. This particular company even allows you to order it without an operating system.

      You'll notice that the cases are completely identical (Sager and Alienware). A lot of them seem to buy the base components from one company. If you remember Liebermann Computers [go-l.com] (a lot of people thought they might be a hoax with some of their products), even their laptops look the same.

      You'll get the same specs, and probably practically the same system for far cheaper. Bottom line: Alienware is not a good price/performance ratio, especially for notebooks.

  • $3,350 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by donbrock ( 705779 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:04PM (#8273755)
    That's still less than I paid for my AT&T 6300 with a 8088 and 20MB HD in the early 80's.

  • I have a AW (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Str8Dog ( 240982 ) * on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:08PM (#8273831) Homepage Journal
    I have an Alienware laptop and would gladly trade it in to get one from Dell. Alienware can take up to 2 months to deliver anything you order from them. They have no way of verifying what is in stock and what is not, this includes their phone sales people. They have a 15% restocking fee on all returns. You have to send the machine in to them to get repairs which can take up to 2 months as well.

    My wife bought mine for me and we had to change the order two times to get something that was actually instock. It still took over a month to get here and when I did get it the backlight switch failed with in 2 weeks. Oh and it came preinstalled with a MS RPC virus...

  • Notebooks are not your only choice. (Score:3, Informative)

    by openSoar ( 89599 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:12PM (#8273880)
    If you want raw power as well as luggability, big hulking laptops like this aren't your only choice. The current generation of ultra small form factor pcs from Shuttle et al can fit this much power into a tiny case that comes with a cool carry bag. Add in a really nice 17" 12x10 lightweight lcd monitor and you're set with a lot more dosh left in your pocket - you can even splash on a dell 2001fp 16x12 lcd for $750 and still be way under budget. You pay a large premium to pack it all into a "portable" space and then it's difficult to upgrade.

  • Same performance, much cheaper: (Score:3, Informative)

    by Ummagumma ( 137757 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:16PM (#8273944) Journal
    I just bought one of these:

    Sager np5680 [pctorque.com]

    And for under $2000, you get almost exactly the same machine. Its a highly respected brand, also, they just don't have the marketing fluff of Dell or the other big guys.

    The only difference I see, is the video card (9600 vs. 9700), and no DVI out on the Sager. For $1K, you can keep your DVI :)

    Add in Win XP as an os, to add $250, and you are still $1k cheaper. Or go free, with Linux, your choice.

  • I'll take the Ferrari (Score:3, Funny)

    by jshift2work ( 748726 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:17PM (#8273960)
    That one at least went vroom vrooom

  • Gaming laptops (Score:3, Insightful)

    by painandgreed ( 692585 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:19PM (#8273995)
    I like laptops for gaming. At LAN parties I would be set up, ready to go, and eating snacks while my friends were still carrying their computers in from the car. The thing I really learned to appreciate was the same resolution screen in a smaller physical space. Everything was in my center of vision and I never needed to look around on the screen. Playing games on my desktop, I get irritated that I have to look around on the screen because action is happening in my periphial vision. I've been looking around and debating if should go for small and light or desktop replacement. I quickly found that the best desktop replacements out there seemed to be gaming computers because they had the top kit. Alienware looks good for a desktop replacement not only because it's beefy but because it looks cool. I don't think Dell is going to put out computers in Cyborg Green or Saucer Silver. Money is an issue and I don't think the mobility will convince me to buy a laptop that costs that much unless I would need the power and mobility for work also. of course, now that Dell is putting one out, I probably have a better chance of getting work to buy me a Dell laptop than an Alienware one.

  • Compitition is good... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by way2slo ( 151122 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:20PM (#8274018) Journal
    Hopefully the compitition between these high powered portable game systems will force the price down a bit. $3k for any system is a bit much, I 'd say. However, portability is worth a little extra price. I was pondering a system like this for a while and ended up going for an Area 51m from Alienware. It's sweet! Yeah, I paid through the nose, but I use it all the time on business travel, let alone ad-hoc LAN parties at my friends, so for me it was worth it. If the price can come down a grand or so, I would probably be able to talk some friends into them which would really open up the possibility of some nice LAN parties. Seriously, most people I know do not want to take their desktop and monitor all over creation just for one evening is too hard*; for them to do.
    [* The Rule of Hard: Any task that is or precieved to be too dificult will be avoided.]
    But portable systems like these laptops are much better and with XP, the network is plug and play (usually) (Also, wireless networking is great). All you have to lug around is a backpack and setup is as simple as taking it out, plugging in the mouse and turning it on.

    Performance wise, my only issue is that some games do not render quite right on my Area51m and an occasional few don't work at all. They work fine on my desktop so I would have to say that there is a difference between the PCI and the laptop version of a card. Fortuantely, they were odd games that I did not need to have portable.

  • laptops make crappy gaming systems (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:42PM (#8274281) Journal
    The keys all stick together and the keyboards are cramped. Not to mention its harder to see dark objects and the screen blurs more then a desktop LCD or CRT.

    If you have this kind of money it might be better to build a monster gaming station at home and a moderate gaming laptop that is cheaper and has longer battery life for the occasional game on the airplane away from home.

  • Here is What Comparisons of Laptops and Desktops a (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cmacb ( 547347 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @06:00PM (#8274547) Homepage Journal
    I've had several laptops and many many computers (in addition to the many more inflicted on me at work).

    My computers slowly grow obsolete and get thrown out while still in a working state, but it's hard to forsee current systems becoming useless any time soon. I've been through dozens of monitors, keyboards (especially) and mice though.

    The display on my 2 year old Compaq laptop has gone bad once already, the lettering on the keys is now unreadable from use. Both my laptop and desktop systems are quite useable from the perspective of "horsepower", but the laptop will much sooner become useless without one form of expensive repair or another.

    In the mean time there is a store near me that will practically GIVE me an old style 17-inch monitor and NEW keyboards and mice are priced in the teens.

    So, what's wrong with this picture?

    What's wrong is that laptop keyboards should have developed an industry standard form factor and connection standard long ago. Likewise, the small card that is the video card for my laptop should be easily replaced, and easily connected to the monitor, which should also be easily replaced. At that point I'd have no problem justifying $3000 or more for a machine that I could be confident would last (with some easy end-user repairs and upgrades) for many years to come. Further integration of IO devices as is the case with notepad computers is insanity. Of course, if you have an unlimited money supply (spending your companies money for instance) insanity is par for the course.

    I'll stick with my desktops and use the laptop in emergencies until the peripherals issue is addressed. (For any company that wants to implement this, please contact me for information about where to send the royalty checks.)

  • Wary of Dell's "new" v1.0 Offerings (Score:3, Interesting)

    by delus10n0 ( 524126 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @06:06PM (#8274613)
    I remember when they released the latest and greatest 8000-series of the Inspiron, and it was plagued with problems, such as power/battery issues, video card issues (GeForce2Go required a different/higher voltage than the ATi cards.) I personally had to deal with all of this junk, along with Dell claiming it wasn't their fault. Searching their forums, I could find at least 25 others having the same exact issues as me, with the same exact hardware (first release of the Inspiron 8xxx series, 8000.)

    So in the future, I'm wary to buy any series/model from them that's "brand new", especially if it's a laptop. Seems like they iron out the kinks and them release a newer revision (8100, 8200, etc.) that works pretty darn well.

  • Athlon64 laptop (Score:3, Informative)

    by Sivar ( 316343 ) <charlesnburns[@]gmail...com> on Friday February 13, 2004 @06:49PM (#8275079)

    The cost is... Absurd. Even for a top-end gaming laptop.

    Let's see. For $2,500 [hypersonic-pc.com], I can get an Athlon64 laptop which:
    1) Dominates [anandtech.com] gaming performance (games, you know, the point of the Dell laptop's existance)
    2) Will run for more than 45 minutes on battery, becaues of Cool'n'Quiet technology. Mine runs for about 3 hours on battery. Honestly, a high end Pentium IV in a laptop? While we live in infinite battery land, why not add a 21" CRT monitor?
    3) Isn't a Dell laptop.

    Or, if I still like Dell (they aren't bad for the price sometimes), and am not one of the 95% of the world's clueless that still believes the CPU clockspeed = performance, I can buy a Dell Inspiron 8600 with a 1.7GHz Pentium M (which is very close or equal in performance to a 3GHz Pentium IV in most tasks), with an ATI Radeon 9600 Mobile and 1GB of memory, for about $2,600.

    I have to say, this new Dell laptop is clearly targetted towards complete idiots with too much money on their hands. It isn't even a "just for rich folks which can afford the finest things in life" unit, because those "rich folks" can get a hell of a lot more laptop [voodoopc.com] for the price, and not have the cheap stigma that is attached to every Dell laptop (except the admittedly very good Dell Precision series (which is made by the same ODM that builds some of IBM's laptops).

  • The real question is... (Score:3, Funny)

    by jocknerd ( 29758 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @06:54PM (#8275137)
    Can you fry an egg on it before the battery runs out?

  • No (Score:4, Funny)

    by rixstep ( 611236 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @09:59PM (#8276497) Homepage
    Are you buying?

    Never. Will not touch an x86 ever again.

    And certainly not from Dell.

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