buy.com special... Is it? laptop question

[azagarth]

so I have been looking for a good laptop, one that I can take to school and game on (mainly ffxi, but occasionally I will want to play Civ5, and some newer games like ff14 when it comes out). Desktops I know are better and cheaper to game on, but it is impractical for me since I am rarely home. I like 17" screens, so I will have to live with the weight, but really it is not that much more than the 15" i lug around now. I was originally looking at http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Samsung+...&CJPID=3876131 but now since its not $150 off there is no real point in getting it since its not a good deal now IMO. Would this have been fine for ff14 to play on?

This lead me to looking elsewhere for laptops since the sale went off, and I ran across this http://www.buy.com/prod/asus-g73jw-x...217473100.html while its about double what I had initially planned to spend, I would not mind paying that much if it really is great. I am not sure if its a steal right now price wise, but thats the only site I know selling it.

if you have some other cheaper suggestion for a good laptop to play games on let me know. I do not have to max out settings, I am casual gamer but hate it lagging like mad, or just being shitty slow in general. Often times I am playing a game, listening to music, surfing web, and doing HW in excel or something similar all at once. So my current HP gets a bit bogged down and will lap (now it shuts down super fast from overheating which is why I am getting a new laptop). My laptop will need to handle this, but I would like to keep it around the $700 range if possible, unless I am getting so much more with the 1k+ ones. Thanks!

[Gredival]

The G73 is pretty much your best bang for the buck in terms of a desktop replacement level laptop. There are slight variations at different sites with different prices. The cheapest iirc would be BestBuy's

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+L...0g73&cp=1&lp=1

BestBuy's comes with an HD5870 Mobile, the one on Buy.com is the newer one with the GTX 460M. The GTX 460M is definitely the more powerful and better GPU -- but driver support for newer nVidia cards is abysmal. If you are spending 1k+ on the laptop and your primary game is XI, you'd be sorely disappointed by being mired in 5~ FPS with nVidia.

I'm sure the issue will be resolved eventually, the question is when. That being said, either version of this laptop is overkill for XI. So you really need to consider what types of newer games you'll be playing.

[azagarth]

well ffxi is my main game, however I really am interested in starting up starcraft2 with my room mate, I already play civ5, and will be starting ff14 for sure when it comes out with my ffxi LS. I would like to play a lot of the new mmo's coming out too and shooters like CoD and such, but these will not be played much so don't need max settings on these.

Primarily I am concerned with ffxi and ff14.

Just curious what kind of machine would I need to max out ffxi? I know its pretty low, but if nothing I can always buy a ps3 for 14 which might end up being cheaper anyhow. If i could just buy a decent priced laptop that would max ffxi settings while I am dual boxing, listening to music, and doing HW while surfing the web that would be great.

[azagarth]

oh also how does this look

HP Pavilion dv7t customizable Notebook PC

XY757AV


* black cherry
* Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
* Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-580M Dual Core Processor (2.66GHz, 3MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 3.33GHz
* 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 5650 switchable graphics [HDMI, VGA] - For Dual Core Processors
* 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
* 500GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
* No Additional Office Software
* No additional security software
* 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (standard) - Up to 5.0 hours of battery life +++
* Standard Keyboard
* 17.3" diagonal HD+ High-Definition HP LED BrightView Widescreen Display (1600 x 900)
* SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
* HP TrueVision Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone
* 802.11b/g/n WLAN
* HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

think its 999 right now off the hp site.

Lenovo is having a 25% off sale too, do they even have a good gaming laptop? I got a friend who loves his for programming, but gaming is different.

[SaviorSelf]

I'm confused, you're aware FF14 is out already, right?

[azagarth]

yes I am. Some shell member are still debating to play or not, because like me they need better comps lol... I do see i worded that way confusing, sorry.

[dfdfpp]

Don't get an HP. That's been my personal experience (from observation and being the unfortunate owner of one myself), but also Squaretrade did some sort of study where they had a 3 year failure rate a good 6% or so worse than the better brands. Mine started crapping out hardcore after 12 months (wireless, hard disk connections, graphics card, screen, and motherboard in that order).

squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf if you're interested. The data is technically 3 years old now, but it's a good place to start I think. (Sorry, not enough posts for URLs yet.)

As a side note Asus got the best reliability score. I'm a big fan(boy) of their motherboard products, so that's why I saw the Squaretrade report in the first place, ha, but the newsletter was touting how they are the most reliable laptop brand etc etc.

[Gredival]

G73 is still overkill for SC2 unless you want maxed out graphics. I don't have any idea about bottom line on 14.

I'd take the BestBuy G73 over that HP in terms of cost for upgrades: the $200 is worth Asus reliability, the i7, and the superior graphics card.

I think you can find a cheaper Asus around $1000 that will be better than that HP if you look around.

[Cephius]

I think everyone has had bad experiences with every laptop brand. Every type of computer is going to have certain failure rates, it's just something you have to deal with. I like Dell just because I'm comfortable dealing with their customer support and like their policies on warranty replacements and such. I like the build quality of Asus and HP but their customer support is horrid if you ever have to deal with them. It really comes down to personal prefence as long as you don't consider a no-name brand.

[volcanicweather]

Just a FYI almost everything from buy.com is "refurbished" (aka used) be it a store display, corporate lease, etc... so keep that in mind. I made a couple purchases there several years ago and was extremely dissatisfied and basically got electronics that crapped out after a short period of time.