New Laptop for College?

• Zatrox wrote on 2010-07-01 18:21
  Heading off to college next year, so it's time to buy a laptop. However, I still want to be able to play games (nothing hardcore, probably just Mabinogi and WC3) well.
  
  I know gaming laptops with a solid battery life are practically nonexistent :T_T: So what's the next best thing? I was looking at the Asus G73jh for a while, but then noticed its pitiful battery life..
  
  Budget is under $2000. Any suggestions? :lol:
  
  (btw, prefer pc)
• Virtue wrote on 2010-07-01 18:32
  PROTIP: When you game on a notebook you always plug it in so the battery doesn't run out within an hour, lol.
• Chiri wrote on 2010-07-01 18:39
  If you get a laptop and you want mabi to look good, then get one with a video card (read: not integrated). Otherwise, the more recent integrated cards can handle mabi, but you won't get anti-aliasing and maybe not shadows...
  
  Other than that... Dells have good warranty, so if you're not as careful as you'd like, you can get the "everything but hammer marks" warranty and they'll come out and fix your laptop whenever you need them to.
• Chillax wrote on 2010-07-01 18:43

  Quote from Chiri;80284:

  If you get a laptop and you want mabi to look good, then get one with a video card (read: not integrated). Otherwise, the more recent integrated cards can handle mabi, but you won't get anti-aliasing and maybe not shadows...
  
  Other than that... Dells have good warranty, so if you're not as careful as you'd like, you can get the "everything but hammer marks" warranty and they'll come out and fix your laptop whenever you need them to.

  
  
  The Dell salesman lied to me and said that everything, even the battery, had a 2-year warranty. After 1 year of my purchase of a Dell XPS, my battery went kaput, and when I asked for a replacement, they told me the battery warranty was only 1 year :/
• Chiri wrote on 2010-07-01 18:45
  That's why you RTFM.
• Zatrox wrote on 2010-07-01 18:45

  Quote from Sin;80281:

  PROTIP: When you game on a notebook you always plug it in so the battery doesn't run out within an hour, lol.

  
  
  Except gaming laptops, even without gaming, still last about an hour. Not enough for two classes in a row
• Chiri wrote on 2010-07-01 18:48
  I thought gaming laptops got about 3~4 hours running normally :/
  
  How high tech is your campus? Many of them have 'smart' classrooms, that have power plugs provided for every other seat or so.
• Cucurbita wrote on 2010-07-01 19:01
  You dont need a gaming laptop to run mabinogi and wc3.
  Standard laptops with any kind of graphics card will run the game perfectly fine at max frames.
• Osayidan wrote on 2010-07-01 19:19
  To get a longer battery life get lower specs that will still run those games.
  
  Low RPM on the drive (7200 max, solid state would be ideal if it fits in the budget).
  Lower Ghz, and not a trillion cores.
  Less RAM with reasonable speed (ex: 2GB with ~800Mhz or less).
  Decent graphic card that doesn't need its own fan.
  
  Also keeping the fan exhaust clean of dust or other things will reduce the need for the fan to work at full power all the time, meaning less power drained out.
  Keeping the operating system itself clean and well managed/configured will also reduce CPU load, and therefore consume less power.
  
  Hopefully you won't be gaming in class, so keeping the CPU use low should be easy. Keep it to basic web pages (no videos) and stuff like Word, combined with all the above, and a battery that would normally last 1 and a half hours can probably go to 4.
  
  
  Keep the high-end stuff for the desktops until we get better battery technology.
• Cucurbita wrote on 2010-07-01 19:26
  If your battery shows signs of death you should probably replace it before it takes the laptop with it D:
• Chillax wrote on 2010-07-01 20:21

  Quote from Chiri;80293:

  That's why you RTFM.

  
  
  TBH, it didn't say, and I saved all my papers.
• Chiri wrote on 2010-07-01 20:25

  Quote from Chillax;80321:

  TBH, it didn't say, and I saved all my papers.

  
  
  http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/services/Dell_Global_Basic_HW_Service_Rev%203.1_US_English.pdf
  

  Portable computer batteries carry the lesser of either a 1-year limited hardware warranty or the length of the limited hardware warranty for the Dell computer with which the battery is shipped.

  
  
  Mmhmmm.
• Chillax wrote on 2010-07-01 22:02

  Quote from Chiri;80323:

  http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/services/Dell_Global_Basic_HW_Service_Rev%203.1_US_English.pdf
  
  
  Mmhmmm.

  
  
  I'd be referring to my papers, especially my invoice, which listed all my warranties. Maybe you could find me an older, unupdated version of the manual you just showed me? This is very recent.
• hengsheng120 wrote on 2010-07-01 22:59

  Quote from Zatrox;80294:

  Except gaming laptops, even without gaming, still last about an hour. Not enough for two classes in a row

  
  
  that is the minimum continuous time for modern laptops (running everything at full yields 1:30 of battery life of the shortest batteries). if you only do normal work with LCD at full brightness (you can turn it down) it'll last 2.2 hours. if you use power saving mode and turn everything on low you'll get 2.7~3 hours, even on gaming laptops. you can put it to sleep in-between classes (and when you don't need access to it) it'll last a lot longer. Just making the screen turn off after a short while will make it last 3~4 hours.
  
  laptops with dedicated graphics start from ~$800+
  
  also you can buy laptops with the hybrid integrated graphics and dedicated graphics ("nvidia hybrid graphics") which will switch on demand depending on what you do, this will extend the battery life.
  
  seeing that your budget is $1000+ i assume you'd want a very good laptop...
  
  [edit: this version is available in the US, though i think you still have to order it online]
  I recommend the Asus-U30JC: http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=Asus-U30JC
  
  4~10 hour battery life and decent graphics
  
  macbooks are also nice with decent graphics (but you need to have a windows installation disk for bootcamp in order to play mabi)
  
  Remember that you still need a decent pc to afk or duel in dunbarton or do the desert dragon events at decent frame rates (without lowering any of the settings).
• Creampuff wrote on 2010-07-01 23:34
  I think Chise pretty much summed up all the tech specs. I've heard that the Dell Studio series is pretty decent given its price, although Asus laptops are generally pretty good too. Haven't checked up on laptop models lately so can't really say more than that. =(