Which SAGER for college?

the 4880 wont be any better in terms of being able to do top-o-the line gaming than the 3880 will be in a year or in 3 years time. the graphics cards in them are the same generation so they will be outdated at the same rate. the 7620 will last slightly longer since it has a more powerful card, but be ware that the machine is alot larger and heavier it appeasr significantly so. as well as its battery life by comparison is awful. i think a fair guess as to battery life is about 2 hours (thats probably kinda high) with just doing simple things cause the specs of even a low end 7620 are an absolute power hog.

the 25ms response time may seen high but in all reality it is fairly standard for gaming laptops. the recently discontinued version of the alienware area 51m for instance had a 25ms response time and it was a high end gaming machine so i dont think you need to worry so much about that.

i would say that the 3880 is going to be a good choice, im a university student myself and i will soon be ordering a pretty maxed out 3880 for myself because i do think it is the best system for a student.

3880. Its a good balance of performance and portability.

i dont think portability would be a problem w/ either of those, i cart around my 9860 (quite a bit heavier i believe) around with me all day at school and after the first few days i didnt even notice it.

the opperative word there is cart. with the 9880 you are likely going to need a cart but with the 3880 you will be easily able to carry it with you and it wont be a hassle. remember the amount of books your carrying at college and university, it could be over 20pounds depending on what you take, and then there are binders and paper, and all the other crap we students carry....and between it all adding another 15+ pounds of laptop and a few accessories is gonna add up.

you might not carry as much but depending on what you do carry the weight of the 9880 could easily become a very big hinderance.

Do you carry the power cords and other accesories around with you when you goto class?, cause i heard the battery life on the 9880 is like 1 hour.

Also, does anyone in any of your classes get pissed of because of the sound it produces?

the battery life on a 98-- series is like 1 hour, its because of all those power sucking parts it uses.

Cant you upgrade the videocard in the 3880 though?

I believe that because it has the PCI graphics bus it is upgradeable.

thats incorrect....the video card in the 3880 is NOT unpgradable, pci express does not mean upgradeable. in the 3880 its sodered to the motherboard and is not replaceable, or upgradeable.

the only machines with upgradeable pci-express graphics are the quanta (some new model, and this has MXM) the dell 9300/xps2, and the 9880 (and its clones). they will eventually be joined by a new breed of machines with MXM sockets for the pci express cards. that is going to be the new standard it would appear, the standardized form of new graphics cards for laptops will allow for user upgradeable graphics across the market. but this technology is not in the 3880 or any sager at the moment since the 9880 uses its own design of upgradeable graphics module. it is uncertain as to how long it will take any manufacturer to fully impliment MXM and then there is the issue of actually producing upgrades, so it could be well over a year before it is widely available with any sort of upgrade at all.

that is why buying a 3880 or other sager is not really a bad choice, since it is going to take time for mxm, it means that the next one after this will likely be an mxm laptop where you can make the extra upgrades, and for now the regular 6600 or its equivalents will last very well and should get you to the next one a couple of years down the road.

Just to clarify, we've talked about this before. You're referring to PCI Express, which is a bus, but not necessarily an interface. Some PCI Express laptop solutions are hard-wired onto the board, others aren't. ATI and nVidia have their own proprietary interface formats(plugs), but that's separate from PCI Express.

Also, don't confuse it with PCI-X, which is an interface, as well, but different than PCI Express. Just cause desktop systems typically use the same plugs, doesn't cross over to laptops.

MXM is an interface designed by nvidia to clarify things a bit..... this looks like it will be the new standard in laptops in the future beating out ATI's solution to mobile graphics upgrades which was known as AXIOM. from what i have read the major brands have basicaly chosen MXM for the new standard. this may not be fully true but we know that a real standard will be coming in the future.

Add 4881 to my choices...
which laptop should I buy???