Buying a new notebook...saving $$$

IF you are a 3d Mark benchmark chaser or need 110 FPS, Pass on this thread. If you want a decent all around gaming machine and are willing to spend less than half of what most spend, read on for an alternate view from an older geek. who's been in hee game since the beginning of computer time.

I view all lappys as "disposable consummables" with a useful two year life. Each year after really fading fast into obsolesence logarithimly. (unlike Desktops which are easily and inexpensivly upgradable (keeping HD,CD drives LCD's CRTs etc.)

I decide what to buy based on prior experience : Im 21 with 25 years of such experience!(46) Been using and buying PCs since the 8088! (look it up speed demons)! I have learned the following in the past 20 or so years in the computer commerce world...and saved thousands of dollars in the interim.

1. What do I want/need to do TODAY?
2. What is the MINIMUM outlay/specs I need to do THAT? (Dont buy more than you need or will reasonably actually use in a notebook)
3. Seek information via forums, friends (be careful there, you'll get caught up in D**k measuring contests)/ Magazines, etc.
4. Buy the lowest priced acceptable configuration and work up from there. ( a good RMA policy is mandatory)
5. NEVER ever buy the fastest GPU or CPU available at any place in time. (This should be number 1)
6. Never buy Lappy with a desktop processor. The small price/performance benefit, if any, is not worth the heat,weight,and battery issues.
7. Pass on all extended warranties and "idiot" insurance on All products. Only the unlucky few ever benefit.Especially those who add 20-30% to the intitial cost.(Even much more complex automobiles with thousands of parts electronic,computers and mechanical only charge 5% more and for a longer time!) Use Tylenol Pm to "sleep better" if you need it, or "Paxil for "peace of mind". (Its cheaper) Besides, most computers are replaced not because they stopped running, but because they are obsolete. There are thousands of working 386, 486, PII PIII & P4 parts in boxes in garages all over the country. And plenty of old still running lappys as well.

Now understand I could not care less about 3DMark scores or synthetic bench marks or the wow factor from LAN party peers. Thats a sure way to spend way more than you need. Been there, burned there!! All that aside:

Because laptops and all systems are fairly obsolete in a couple years. (See the threads featurung "loaded at the time" 81/8200 owners screaming for upgraded V cards etc) If you can get your current needs met with a minimum configuration, You can then save $1000-$1500 and use that money in two years to buy another refub under the then bleeding edge BUT BETTER AND FASTER THAN TODAYS" $2500 machine in any case for around the same money while the guys who have today's bleeding edge machine still have a year or two's worth of payments left. You will unsympathetically read their whining and petitioning to Dell for upgradable components.

The Top Of Line LAppy TODAY will not be the TOL Lappy in two months. BUT YOU ARE PAYING TOL PRICES TODAY FOR THAT! You don't HAVE to!!

My humble machine runs ALL the games listed below well and even looks great in plan ole WXGA. I am used to a 19 inch CRT at 1178 rez. So WXGA is fine and of all the posts I have read, and I did read a lot. There are more issues with the SXGA+ and UXGA (too small for screen size issues, not electrical). I saw no one returning a SXGA for either issue. So I figured the SXGA would be fine and it's a SAMSUNG and it is indeed a great LCD in a comfiortable native resolution where ALL LCDs look their best and are the crispest. Dell is in the comfortable position of having guys UPGRADE to the more expensive UXGA because of the poor Hitachi SXGA+ LCDs!!!

All that said I still ordered mine fully expecting to return it. especially after reading the many posts here and elsewhere regarding the 8600 I was "convinced" I had to have a 1.7 with a Radeon 9600 (many of them were bad as well) to run any game without chop.
You can imagine my surprise when my ordered refurb ran everthing I threw at it with no second guessing or frustrating experiences. I even edited a 7 min video for a local TV show. Like butta!

If you believe you need to chase 3D Mark scores... well so be it. It's gonna be more expensive all around to chase that car and it NEVER stops!!.
If you really can see the difference between 70 and 110FPS, your stuck with paying the piper. If you can live with 30+ FPS you're gonna save a bundle.

It comes down to what do you want to do today? No matter what you spend, It's old news tomorrow. And someone will always have a better and faster machine, at least on paper!

The following humbly spec'd machine runs the following games at med to high resolution:

MAx Payne II
Sim City 4
Madden 2003
Tiger Wood 2003
FS 2004 (locked at 30 FPS MIN)
GTA Vice City
Call of Duty
Medal of Honor

Now I Can't speak for Final Fantasy, Halo, Unreal, Jedi, I don't care for the SciFI or Fantasy type games.I prefer the real human stuff! But I have read on the forums, there are those who have TOL Toshibas and lower end CompaQ X1000's who are running those games with 64 mb lesser V cards. Many are content.

Believe it or not this 8600, purchased recently (still have 2 weeks to "upgrade") runs the above very well. And it is a keeper.

So those of you who want a decent gamer and run the games mentioned above, don't want to spend a lot for a disposable product, and especially aren't concerned with synthetic benchmarks like 3D Mark scores or hundreds of FPS, just real world application satisfactory rendered. Im here to say you don't NEED a high powered configuration with the latest bells and whistles.

Let the flaming begin!!!


8600 1.4
512 2700 ram
Nvidia 5200Go 64mb
DVD/CDRW
40 GB 5400 rpm
SXGA
Win XP Home
1 year warranty
$1268 refurb

Yes I would. In fact I did. !!!

1. It's a Dell. I think Dell is a better company
2. The gateways have the slower ram and HD I believe
3. Gateway just bought E-MAchines which in one of the latest PC mags got a terrible review vs 14 other notebooks. That will be a terrible thing if Gateway puts their name on E-Machines!
3. The Radeon is nice, but not worth the questionable other items.
4. My Samsung WXGA is better than the washed out Gateway LCD's
5. I don't think Gateway is on solid financial footing as a company.

It's more expensive that what I bought by around $200 as well.

I looked at that machine at the Gateway store and OMax as part of my own research and passed. Not enough bang for the buck in my opinion.

Schwinn, I almost did as well. I nearly bought a Sager even!
Actually you did ok. If it were me, I would have bought the 7200rpm drive as an external so I could get the benifit of the faster speed and still use it for all my machines and future purchases. I would have got the 2.8 (200 mhz is not a big difference) and the regular screen as well. But the UXGA is a great screen especially if you NEED it for resolution intense applications. HT is nice again if you NEED it TODAY! Many buy without even knowing what they need certain things for or even IF they need those things. Just because it's there they want it. I'll bet most with HT cannot explain what it is or when it works the best! Mutitasking? You can do that already on a 533FSB...Hmmm


It's an easy thing to do. Especially reading the glowing excitment of the posters who bought all the bells and whistles and gloriously post their 3D mark scores!!!. We then Keep inching up."Well what the hell, another few hundred and I can have the best" I was schooled by another poster on that attitude as well as past experience. I almost got sucked in even with my experience. It's easy. Many will agree.

You will love your machine nevertheless. Maybe next time it will be easier to see the difference between the benchmark and FPS chasers vs..your own idea of what is acceptable in real world application.

Nobody is going to congratulate you for getting a far inferior lappy to theirs in an unpatronizing way....Some People pay more for only the "wow factor" Therefore it's "percieved" as the best. Thats why they sell Rolls Royces and Rolexes. A Toyota Avalon will do everything and anything a Rolls will and will be more reliable. A stainless steel Seiko or Timex will actually keep better time longer than a stainless steel Rolex and not need yearly maintainance. Its a snobbish "self glorifying" self image issue, in many cases .There is especially no logic in that in the computer world. It's just too short lived.

All the Best..

With regard to the Gateway Corporation

Their buying of E Machines was to increase their bottom line as Emachines has a huge bottom line and way less employees creating it. They won't be putting the Gateway name on the boxes but will profit from the current channels. They had to buy E Machines because they were in sad shape regarding their net income. They are closing theiir retail outfits right and left.

This is a company in trouble. Will they survive? The E Machine deal will buy them a lot of time, but they have been getting bad buisness press which is not good for public confidance.

I knew they were in trouble before I bought my machine and yes before they bought E Machine which is a great deal for them actually.

The Gateway LCD is lacking in contrast as compared to my SXGA. This is not my opinion alone. There is a whole thread devoted to this at Dell (or is it here?)

My notebook was less than 30 days older than a "new' Gateway and yes that's worth $200 plus dollars!

Yes Dell is a better company..no doubt check out the stock price, the profit margin, the cash flow, the public and business perception that drives sales.......need I go on?

RAM speed is HUGE in any machine. You can notice relativly small ram speed differences/ Like from 266 to 333 when loading and editing a dense graphic file, or editing music and/or video EFX. There is the bottleneck right now preventing 800 FSB from being 800FSB!!!

HD Drive speed is not a factor unless its a 4200 rpm drive and you need to do intensive video editing...? 5400 is my personal minimum. 7200 is a kuxury! And lets not forget the HD is virtual RAM when ram is full. RAM speed is HUGE...

Ther is a Gateway store here in Vegas. I spent a lot of time there and the 505XL was on my radar for sure, but the sales people could not anser my gaming qiestions nor could I demo the machine so I passed in favor of the 8600 and Dell's flawless quality reputation...Now if onlt their service stopped living on awards they may have recieved 5 years ago.....well.......

:smash:

MARKY

. I think you should not even consider a Dell it at this point . You will not be happy and always looking for the slightest issue because of your lack of confidance in the product.

I know, I felt the same about the Gateway. No matter how many bells and whistles, I just was not confidant and had never had the ,yes flawless,personal experience I have had with Dell product..

When product does not sell enough to keep a company in the black there is something wrong. That was my issue with Gateway. Dell IS however selling product, tons of it! The price /performace ratio is widely know to be among the best.Theres a good reason for that and it does foster a confidance in the company and product.

I did not HAVE to ask Dell about gaming. There are actually quite a few forums whhere one can get all kinds of real world experoence and questions answered. It's just a matter of sifting. Hmmm I don't see Gateway listed on this forum or any other for that matter. So the sales guy was pretty much it..and he could not answer my question on even the HD speed!!!!

GO ahead get the Gateway or E-Machine...or Toshiba. But for God sake don't buy the Dell!!!! You'll be a nervous wreck!!!!