i have a gaming laptop.
it's a compal cl56, that i had voodoopc customize for me. i would have just bought it directly, except i really wanted a metallic red paint job on it. i bought it almost 2 years ago (march 2004 as a birthday present for myself). i love it.
it is a 1.7ghz Pentium M, 1gb ram, 60gb 7200rpm hd, dvd-rw, 15" screen, mobile ati radeon 9700 w/ 128mb ram, 5.4lbs. even for an almost 2 year old computer, it can still play all the most recent games really well. (ok i haven't tried F.E.A.R. yet just because i'm not really a hardcore gamer anymore). this computer goes with me whenever i'm travelling between LA and San Diego, and when I have to fly out to NY. It was really helpful when I was playing DAoC and WoW incessantly. Now it's just my portal web browser and occasional Warcraft 3: TFT/DoTA and WH40K:DoW machine (although some people are trying to get me back into WoW). I beat FarCry and Doom 3 on this machine. No, I didn't use a touchpad, I bring a USB optical mouse with me. The sound is pretty good, but I usually use a set of Etymotic Research ER4Ps that I keep my laptop bag (also great for plane trips with the 20-25db reduction). The frame rates are good too. I can basically play DAoC and WoW at full resolution (1400x1050) with all the goodies turned on. Doom I had to reduce the goodies slightly and I played at 1024x768. Far Cry I could play at full speed at 1024x768.
What are my conclusions after having spent so much time with this laptop. Well, they're PERFECTLY VIABLE GAMING SOLUTIONS!!!! Here are some points worth considering though:
1) You need a USB mouse. Don't worry about mouse pad space on the couch or anything. You get a good logitech optical mouse, and it works fine on the couch, on the floor, whatever. might be hard to get headshots everytime in CS, but if it was that important to you, you'd put the laptop on the table.
2) They can get toasty. When you're playing a game, the graphics card and CPU are running full blast. It can get toasty. Put it on a table, since your lap will really really warm. (don't worry, it doesn't overheat unless you bought a shitty laptop from a no-namecompany).
3) Supreem is kinda right.. on some really soft beds or beds with a really thick pillowtop or something, you probably don't want to game on it, since the laptop will sink down a little bit and the air vents will become obstructed. Not ideal for stability to block the air to your computer.
4) The screensize and performance is fine. You're sitting closer to a laptop than a normal computer usually, so the 15" screens on most laptops are more than enough. Performance, again, when I bought my laptop 2 years ago, it was playing all the newest games at pretty much full speed at high resolution. Now that it's 2 years old, it still plays most games pretty damn well, and I'm getting that it might even perform better than some of the computers you guys are gaming on.
5) Umm... my laptop doesn't slow down when I game
Strange that yours does. It'll slow down when I unplug it from the wall, just because Windows automatically starts conserving more power when you do that, but you can just turn that off, and it'll be back full speed.
6) Battery life... gaming while not plugged in doesn't work too well. With everything going full speed, your battery life is gonna be like 25-33% of what it would normally last surfing the web and shit. My laptop usually lasts a decent 4-5 hours doing light stuff. When I game, it down to like 1 hour. When I put in a DVD, it lasts about almost 3 hours. Slightly less when I'm watching DIVX.
7) You don't need a docking station. Actually, I think they're gimmicky and wastes of money. Your laptop has all the f'ing ports you need. My laptop has 3 USB 2.0 ports, 2 line in 1 line out, wireless ethernet, wired ethernet, phone jack, pcmcia slot, parallel port, even a freaking ps/2 port, what the hell else do you need? a docking station adds umm.. maybe a couple db9 serial ports, then all the same ports that your laptop has on the back of it. whooopie.
At home, of course I prefer gaming on my desktop. Some of the reasons why: it is faster. it has a bigger screen. Bigger keyboard. I like my cordless mouse on it better. I have nicer speakers setup. At home it's a P4-2.8HT, 1gb ram, Radeon X800XT w/ 256mb ram on a 20" dell lcd (1st gen hehe.. i paid $1000 for it). my computer was 1/5th the price of my laptop
(not counting the monitor of course). I paid like $2500 for mine total.
And that's really the bottom line these days. Gaming laptops are expensive. Prepare to pay for it if you want a good one
here's a random picture off the web. mine looks like that, except it's metallic red:
Hey all I'm in the market for a new machine, and I figure it's about time for a nice sleek laptop. Right now I'm looking at an alienware.
:blob8::blob8::blob8::blob8::blob8::blob8:
