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[Tobel]

Hi all! Apologies if this is in the wrong area -- I searched but didn't see any recent threads on laptops.

I'm heading to Alaska for the summer (the day after D3 is released  ) and would like to get my hands on a laptop before I go. I've been doing some digging and have set my sights on this Asus laptop.

At this price range ($700-900) it looks like the things I'm deciding in are HDD RPM speed, a small increase in graphics card, or a small increase in processor power. I'm assuming this will be enough to run the standard array of games like Diablo III, LoL, even a bit of Skyrim. Anyone have any recommendations or personal experience lately in laptop purchases?

Cheers,
Tobel

[nenjin]

I think I might have that model at work actually (I'd have to double check.) Might not have the HDD RPM's of the one you posted, but for a laptop it's pretty nimble. Mind you, I don't game on it. But it can handle a chat client with half a dozen windows open, a web browser with 8 tabs open with some youtube thrown in for good measure, SQL YOG pushing data, a PuTTY client pushing data, dual monitors, GIMP, Hamachi, 3 instances of VNC and some other shit, all without missing a beat.

The graphics card in it is decent for a mobile card. 1 gig of memory on a dedicated (non-shared memory) card is not too bad if you keep settings low. Core speed is kinda meh but you can't demand too much from a mobile card.

I think basically anything short of AAA shooters or giant 4x games will do just fine.

[Tellemurius]

Origin Pc or Sager, either one will do the job of gaming.

[Tobel]

Thank you both for the info. I've done a custom gaming laptop company before, Voodoo PC, and I don't think I'll go that route again. A machine  that nenjin described will probably do fine. I normally wind up playing more indie games than anything, and it seems to have most requirements that current games have.

[Muz]

I got a Asus A43S. Worse stats, but runs every game at up to medium quality. That one you picked should be fine.

Word of warning, though.. Asus laptops have horrible touchpads. As in if you're typing something your fingers are going to accidentally 'click' the touchpad and randomly zoom the screen. I live with it ok, but if you can't get a mouse, you'll have a lot of frustration with the touchpad. It's not easily disabled either. Don't expect to play clicking games with the touchpad.

[nenjin]

Yeah that's probably my one complaint. Try and flick your finger too fast to the left or right and you end up clicking the pad and craziness happens.

[FearfulJesuit]

The real test of any computer is DF, I find. Seriously, somebody should make a "standard" fortress- say, 200 dwarves, 10 years old- that we can download and play to be able to test our machines against. Nowadays, with quad-core processors being used to measure computers, it's very hard to do.

[Tellemurius]

I could but that means I would be testing my quad core out

[nenjin]

I was mistaken on this laptop. It's a Samsung. Still, it's got enough juice that for all non-gaming it's more than I need.

[Muz]

The real test of any computer is DF, I find. Seriously, somebody should make a "standard" fortress- say, 200 dwarves, 10 years old- that we can download and play to be able to test our machines against. Nowadays, with quad-core processors being used to measure computers, it's very hard to do.

I played DF on a slightly worse laptop. Well, Adventure mode, and a 4x4 fortress with less than 100 dwarves and a river. Seems fine. Lol, I went for dual core just to optimize DF performance.

[darkrider2]

I run supreme commander on my laptop and even the less CPU intensive first version makes it heat up beyond belief.

If you plan on using it for intensive gaming I would suggest you get some kind of way to cool it.

I'm sitting with an icepack under it. heh.

[Muz]

Asus laptop is actually really good with heat management. My old Acer used to overheat just with browser games.