Thinking about upgrading to a 1520

Well....

Here's my recommendation on the 1520. It's a great laptop and I love it for what I use it for. I have two rigs that are in my sig. My XPS 410 is what I game with. I primarily play FPS shooters. I use my 1520 for computing anywhere around the house and away from home. Generally internet, watching movies and office documents.

I have played games on the 1520 and was pretty disappointed in comparison to my XPS 410. Of course that's not a fair comparison with an 8800 GTS versus the 8600M GT card. The 8600 GT would likely disappoint you for a desktop replacement video option. It will play games, you just have to lower the settings to make them playable.

The next issue is your video out on the 1520. The 1520 only has VGA or and analog out for the monitor. In my opinion the better video quality for an external monitor is DVI out, especially with a 22" screen. You might experience some performance issues gaming with a 22" monitor. I could be wrong since I didn't try it. I figured that with my experience on the laptop screen, why waste my time using an external monitor.

If you're looking to use a laptop as a desktop replacement, you'll need to step up to a 17" laptop. Most of your 17" laptop's come with a DVI out for running an external monitor that will give you the best picture.

A couple years ago I purchased my Dell 9300 and installed a 7800 GTX video card in it. I used it for over a year as my primary PC. It worked awesome. The graphics were great and I used the DVI out to connect to my 22" monitor. The 1520's 8600 GT doesn't even come close to the performance of the 7800 GTX from what I can recall.

I am very happy with my 1520 and would gladly buy one again. I just don't use it for FPS gaming. It plays Tiger Woods 2008 nicely. It might play others good, but not the FPS shooters to make me happy.

Recently I read Sager is selling a couple 17" laptops with the new 8800 GTX 512 video cards. Those would probably give you the gaming performance you'd like to see. Of course they are running $2100.00.

If you're looking for the 1520 to be your desktop replacement and you do FPS gaming, don't sell off your desktop rig right away.