NotebookForums.com › Forums › General Notebook Discussions › Notebook Forums - General › Looking for advice on ABS Mayhem or another notebook for school and gaming
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Looking for advice on ABS Mayhem or another notebook for school and gaming

post #1 of 77
5/28/04 at 8:39am
Thread Starter 
I am looking to buy my son a notebook for a graduation present, he's going to Purdue in the fall. I want it to be practical, but he also likes to game. I looked at the ABS Mayhem, but very poor battery life. I would be grateful for any insight.
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 77
5/28/04 at 10:35am
If you are looking for a notebook with a battery life of 3+ hours, go with a Pentium-M notebook, or some AMD64 notebook.

Maybe the Mayhen G2 would be best?
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 77
5/28/04 at 11:33am
take a look at the CL56 which you can find from powernotebooks.com or ibuypower.com It packs the Pentium M processor, M11 video card (best gpu currently available) and the option for a 60GB 7200rpm HDD, all for a very reasonable price (around $1800-$1900 for a very, very nice system) IT has between 4.5-5hr. battery life. also take a look at ibuypower's battalion e turbo which uses the same components yet has the option of a $100 paint job. IF you want widescreen (15.4WXGA) then take a look at Mitac's 8050 which is available at Hypersonic as the CX6 or at rjtech.com It uses the same components, just has a paint job. All three of these lappys can easily play any video game out there.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 77
5/29/04 at 2:14pm
Thread Starter 
Thnaks for the info. I went to all the sites you suggested and these are the 2 I'm debating between, would you suggest one computer or company over the other?
ibuypower:
$1900
Battalion-101 E-Turbo Series 15.0" SXGA+ 1400x1050 LCD TFT Notebook w/Li-Ion Battery, Universal AC Power Adapter Original Metallic Silver/Black 2-Tone Color )
Processor ( Intel® Centrino Mobile 1.8GHz CPU with 2M Cache )
Memory ( 512MB DDR-333 PC-2700 [Notebook Memory] Major Brand )
Video Card ( Mobility 128MB ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 256-bit 3D Video )
Hard Drive ( 60 GB 7200rpm ATA-100 Super Slim Notebook Hard Drive )
CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive ( 8x DVD-ROM & 24X16X24 CD-RW Combo Drive [E-Series] )
Sound Card ( 3D Wave Stereo Sound Onboard )
Fax Modem ( Build-in 56K V.90 Fax Modem [Notebook] )
Network Card ( Build-in 10/100 Network LAN [Notebook] )
Flash Media Reader/Writer ( Build-in 3-in-i Media Card Reader/Writer [Notebook] ) USB Port ( Build-in 3x USB 2.0 Ports [Notebook] )
IEEE-1394 Fire Wire Card ( Build-in 1x IEEE-1394 Firewire Port [Notebook] )
Wireless Network Adapter ( [FREE] Wireless LAN Wi-Fi 802.11g 54Mbps Mini-PCI Module ) Operation System ( MS Windows XP Professional Edition )
Warranty ( Warranty Service Standard 1-Year Limited Warranty + 1-Year i-Care Deluxe 24/7 Phone Support )

or

CYBERPOWER INC
$1815.95
S4-3200 NOTEBOOK
ADAPTER: Universal AC-DC Adapter
BATTERY: Li-Ion Battery Pack 14.8V x 4400mAH 4 hours Runtime
CDRW: 8X DVD & 24/16/24 CDRW COMBO DRIVE
CPU: Intel® Pentium® M Processor @ 1.8Ghz 2MB CACHE [+1785]
HDD: 60GB 7200RPM ULTRA ATA 100 HARD DRIVE [+50]
IEEE_CARD: BUILT-IN 1394 IEEE FIREWIRE PORT
INVERTER: NONE
KEYBOARD: BUILT-IN KEYBOARD
MEMORY: 1024 MB PC2700 333MHz DDR MEMORY
MODEM: BUILT-IN 56K V.92 FAX MODEM
MONITOR: 15.0" SXGA TFT LCD DISPLAY 1400X1050
MOTHERBOARD: Intel® 855GM CHIPSET MB W/ Centrino™ TECHNOLOGY
MOUSE: BUILT-IN TOUCHPAD
NETWORK: BUILT-IN 10/100 NETWORK CARD
NOTEBOOK_COVER: CYBERPOWER S4-SERIES NOTEBOOK COVER (ORIGINAL SILVER COLOR)
OS: Microsoft® Windows® XP PROFESSIONAL [+46]
PCMCIA: (1)Type II PCMCIA 32-Bit PC Card Bus
SERVICE: STANDARD 1-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY
SOUND: BUILT-IN AC 97 SOUND
SPEAKERS: BUILT-IN STEREO SPEAKERS SYSTEM
VIDEO: MOBILE ATI RADEON 9700 PRO 128MB VIDEO
VIDEOCAMERA: NONE
WIRELESSCARD: Wireless 802.11G 54Mbs MiniPCI Card
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 77
5/29/04 at 2:20pm
since he will be using the laptop for school i suggest buying from somewere that has 3 year extended warrenty option. look at the zforce z3, that is the oem asus m6n laptop you can buy it from www.escstore.com in many configurations, it gets about 5 hours of battery life and is very good for gaming. you can also ask them about the modular bay battery that will further extend the battery to over 8 hours. And to otp it all of the 3 year extended warrenty is only 150 bucks
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 77
5/29/04 at 2:24pm
Thread Starter 
thanks, will go there now and look.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 77
5/29/04 at 2:27pm
no problem, i just ordered this system last night after doing 3 months of research on these forums, What your son needs is exactly what i was looking for, a laptop that will be portable for school needs but still good for gaming.
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 77
5/29/04 at 3:05pm
or you can order the Asus M6N from www.proportable.com and get a 3 year warr. standard
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 77
5/29/04 at 3:10pm
Thread Starter 
How does this one look with a 3 year warranty
$1980.00
Chembook 2056 -S/Compal CL56
15" SXGA+ (1400 x 1050) Active Matrix Display
1.7 GHz Intel Pentium M Processor (Dothan - 2048 L2 Cache)
128 MB Dedicated Video Ram, Ati Radeon 9700 Pro
60 GB Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
512 MB DDR333 (PC2700) SDRAM (512 MB x 1)
8X DVD / 24 x 10 x 24 CD-RW Combo Drive w/ Softwares
Internal 56k Modem
Internal 10/100 Ethernet LAN
Internal IntelPRO Wireless Ethernet/Lan (802.11 b+g)
Smart Lithium Ion Battery (4.0+ hours battery life)
S-Video, VGA, 1 IEEE Firewire Port, 3 USB 2.0 Ports
Panasonic Secure Digital (SD) Memory Slot
AC Adapter w/ power cord
Free Deluxe Carry Case
FREE BONUS! Notebook Essentials Software (19 Titles)
MS Windows XP-Professional Installed, CD Included
1 year parts / 3 year labor, life tech support
Extended Warranty w/ Help Desk Options (coverage begins after factory warranty ends)
3-year extended warranty w/ on-site & help desk services (EW3)
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 77
5/29/04 at 3:13pm
Thread Starter 
am going to look at the Asus M6N now, thanks.
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 77
5/29/04 at 3:13pm
nice, have to be honest and say I never have checked out there site before
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 77
5/29/04 at 3:35pm
Thread Starter 
Also looks good, also found it at discountlaptops, the extended 3 year adds $150 to the price, is it worth it, I'm thinking after the original warranty runs out won't these be out of date anyway?
$1855
Chembook 2060 -S/asus m6n
15.1" SXGA+ (1400 x 1050) Active Matrix Display
1.7 GHz Intel Pentium M Processor (Dothan - 2048 L2 Cache)
64 MB Dedicated DDR Vram - ATi Mobility 9600 Pro (M10) w/ 4X AGP
60 GB Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
512 MB DDR333 (PC2700) SDRAM (512 MB x 1)
8X DVD / 24x10x24 CD-RW Combo Drive w/ Softwares
Internal 56k Modem
10/100/1000 BaseT Ethernet LAN Port
Internal IntelPRO 2200 Wireless Ethernet/Lan (802.11 b+g)
Smart Lithium Ion Battery (5.0+ hours battery life)
Built-in Flash Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro)
S-video out, 4 USB (2.0), 1 PCMCIA, IR, 4-in1 Card Reader, IEEE Firewire
AC Adapter w/ power cord
Free Deluxe Carry Case
FREE BONUS! Notebook Essentials Software (19 Titles)
No Operating System Installed, drivers included on CD-ROM
#1 year parts / 3 year labor, life tech support
Reply
Reply
post #13 of 77
5/29/04 at 3:47pm
Thread Starter 
Will there be a big difference between the 64 and 128mb for the graphics card?
Reply
Reply
post #14 of 77
5/29/04 at 4:01pm
i read its only about 5% increase in performance
Reply
Reply
post #15 of 77
5/30/04 at 2:04am
I'm in a similar situation - I have to buy a laptop to be my main computer for pretty much the next three years...and I game (so it's important to me that what I buy has some good power packed in and won't be crap by the end of the year).

So my question is: Are the Pentium Ms actually good for hardcore gaming? They seem to have so little power compared to the 64s and the Pentium 4s. Whenever I was looking at my options, I just skipped over all Pentium M processors...assuming that they were good only for business type things

So considering I need this to last for some time...and be okay with gaming, would you say "yes, go ahead, get a Pentium M" -or - "Just go with a 64 bit/Pentium 4"

Oh yeah, battery life/weight doesn't matter to me too much. 90% of my time with it will likely be plugged in - I just need it to be portable so that I can bring it home on vacation.

***EDIT****
By the way...SuzyQ...if your son games, he might not be too happy having only 512 ram. I'd say...spend an extra $100 or so and configure the computer to 1gb (1000 mb) ram. That should not only make for better gaming but it will mean less time before having to upgrade/get a new computer
Reply
Reply
post #16 of 77
5/30/04 at 2:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Creation3
I'm in a similar situation - I have to buy a laptop to be my main computer for pretty much the next three years...and I game (so it's important to me that what I buy has some good power packed in and won't be crap by the end of the year).

So my question is: Are the Pentium Ms actually good for hardcore gaming? They seem to have so little power compared to the 64s and the Pentium 4s. Whenever I was looking at my options, I just skipped over all Pentium M processors...assuming that they were good only for business type things

So considering I need this to last for some time...and be okay with gaming, would you say "yes, go ahead, get a Pentium M" -or - "Just go with a 64 bit/Pentium 4"

Oh yeah, battery life/weight doesn't matter to me too much. 90% of my time with it will likely be plugged in - I just need it to be portable so that I can bring it home on vacation.

***EDIT****
By the way...SuzyQ...if your son games, he might not be too happy having only 512 ram. I'd say...spend an extra $100 or so and configure the computer to 1gb (1000 mb) ram. That should not only make for better gaming but it will mean less time before having to upgrade/get a new computer

I hope you do know about the 1.5x rule regarding Pentium-M processors. A 2.0GHz p-m actually performs like a 3.0GHz P4.

Also, I fail to see how 1GB of ram would really make that much of a big difference. Can you tell me of a game that uses that much ram?
Reply
Reply
post #17 of 77
5/30/04 at 2:44am
That ram might not make a difference for games that are out right now...but if she's getting a 3 year service warrenty, I'm assuming she wants this computer to still be good for gaming in 3 years - in which case I'd say get 1GB. A few games I'm looking forward too right now (they should come out by December or so) are saying that they're most likely going to have 512 ram as a minimum requirement. Logically, most of these games list the lowest possible requirement to play their game because it would get them more customers. If the minimum is 512, I'm assuming that to play a game like that smoothly with all the sound/graphic/other options turned on high (which, to some gamers, is important) you would need more than 512.
And these are just the games coming out in December. In three years, who knows....
Reply
Reply
post #18 of 77
5/30/04 at 2:46am
I run 1GB of ram, and I tell you, EVERYTHING runs better. Games don't stutter, I can exit one game and enter another almost instantly, and run lots of proggies at the same time. In all seriousness, I'm thinking of upgrading to 2GB (but I'm a graphics designer, so I need extra for **** Photoshop... )
Reply
Reply
post #19 of 77
5/30/04 at 11:09am
also the penium-m is not the bottlenck in many of these systems, most systems with pentium m's have integrated graphics chips or dates graphics chips, If you choose a P-M with a radeon 9600, or better a atleast 512mb of ram it will game very well.
Reply
Reply
post #20 of 77
5/30/04 at 3:34pm
Windows does not manage its RAM very well. At any given time it swaps a good chunk of active memory out to disk. This means that if you have lots of apps running at once and switch from one to another, even if you shouldn't be over the 512mb limit, Windows will still have to load from disk. That why switch from app to app sometimes has a small 1 sec delay.
The more ram you get, the more memory you can allocate before Windows starts to swap a noticble amount to disk. When I upgraded from 512 to 1024, I didn't notice a difference in gaming, but when running Word, VS .NET, Dreamweaver and a bunch of browsers, switch from one to the other was instant.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Notebook Forums - General
NotebookForums.com › Forums › General Notebook Discussions › Notebook Forums - General › Looking for advice on ABS Mayhem or another notebook for school and gaming