Shopping for Laptops

[baratron]

My Macbook Pro is officially no longer at the minimum spec for Elder Scrolls Online, so I need a new computer. Since Apple don't make laptops with sufficient graphics capabilities for gaming, I'm being forced back to a PC. I am not very happy about this and will be keeping my Mac for work purposes, most likely.

I'm looking at a couple of "extreme gaming" laptops online. (I don't know what "extreme gaming" is - I've been assuming it's like extreme ironing. In which case I don't need to worry too much because my physical limitations prevent me from climbing narrow rocks in order to play my video game at the top of them. Also, I'm pretty sure that the internet connection isn't too good up most mountains.)

Since laptops are not easily upgradable, one must start with the best possible spec now in order to make sure that the machine is still usable in 5 years time.

I've got it down to 2 possibilities. One has a better screen (GLOSSY 3840 x 2160 rather than matte 1920 x 1080), the other has twice as much video RAM (8 GB vs 4 GB). The one with the better screen and less video RAM is also lighter (2.5 kg vs 3.1 kg). My MacBook Pro is something like 2.7 kg including its fancy case, so I know I can just about lift that much.

Here's the spec:

• 15.6" glossy 4K PLS LED widescreen (3840 x 2160) - sounds like insane resolution to me but it's the only glossy screen that was offered. I'm not going back to matte after using a MacBook Pro.


• Intel (R) Core(TM) i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4720HQ (2.60 GHz, 3.5 GHz Turbo)


• 16 GB Kingston SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8 GB)


• NVidia (R) GeForce (R) GTX 980M - 4 GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX (R) 11


• 250 GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD, Sata 6 Gb/s (upto 540 MB/sR |520 MW/sW) - deliberate choice, I can't see myself needing much storage space considering that I've only used about 240 GB of my current hard drive on a machine which has both games and work on it.


• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit /w SP1 - inc DVD & License (YES! Not Windows 8.1! Also a free upgrade to Windows 10 when that's released.)


• Obviously it has a sound card and some USB ports, but I'm not hugely excited by those. They're just there.


• Various warranties, etc.

Does that sound good? I hope it should last for the life of ESO, anyway. The price for that spec is £1216.67 ex VAT or £1460.00 inc VAT.

Have any of you ever bought machines from PCSpecialist? Richard knew of them as a place where you can get custom laptops, but neither of us knows what the build quality is like. Also whether it's possible to get an "extreme gaming" laptop with this kind of spec from anywhere else for cheaper.

I kinda wish I could get the glossy super high resolution screen and the extra video RAM on the same machine, but that doesn't seem to be an option.

Comments

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

It sounds amazing. Though I'm a lousy judge as my laptops are more like £200 a pop.

250G when you used 240G with work stuff though: how big is the work side of things? Can you like right-click on a work folder and see how much disc space it comes to? It would make me nervous but then I store stupid amounts of old nonsense.

I'm not good on how much of games is held locally and how much online these days, and I'm guessing the win 7 to win 10 upgrade won't involve too much bloat from the OS.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

I have a laptop I bought from pcspecialist. I have no complaints about the build quality, but I am not the best person to comment on laptops as I hardly ever use them because I don't travel and when I'm at home I want the comfort and convenience of a proper keyboard and a proper monitor.

[lovingboth]

Yep, that's 10x what I'd spend on one :)

If I had to have a laptop to play games on, I would definitely be looking at ones with an AMD APU. I have one in the desktop (and in JA's desktop) and I am amazed at what they'll for so little money.

For number crunching, they're slower than Intel, but in (my) real life, I can't notice the difference: they're all 'fast'. Graphics wise, though, they're the equivalent of an Intel and a good video card. On a single chip.

Translation

[lovingboth]

'Gaming' = 'expensive'.

'Extreme gaming' = 'very expensive'.