Tag Archives: computer

The Folly of the Gaming Laptop

Posted by on 23 July 2010 No comments

I see it all the time.  Sometimes in Reddit’s “buildapc” section, sometimes from my google adventures and sometimes from friends.  I don’t quite understand the desire, but I think if anything it’s simply really effective marketing.   Most commonly, a kids graduate high school, they try to look for a way to continue their gaming hobby in college.  The mantra is that every college student needs a laptop, and these kids decide their laptop needs to also be powerful enough to play today’s  most demanding video games.  Usually this just means they end up overpaying for a laptop that isn’t really up to the task of gaming anyway.  This article will mainly focus on college students as that’s where I have the most experience.

The Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing

I’m going to analyze one specific laptop, out of the dozens of good options for a “gaming” laptop, the Alienware M17x.  The stock configuration of this laptop is as follows:

  • Intel i5-520M 2.93GHz Dual Core Processor
  • ATI 5870 Mobility
  • 17 Inch 1440×900 Display
  • 2x2GB DDR3 Memory
  • 250GB 7200RPM HDD
  • Combo Drive
  • 802.11n Wireless Support

Total price? $1,799.99.  If you were unaware, that’s a lot of money for the spec’s you get.  Most people try and justify the cost of the gaming laptop saying that they need a laptop for college.  Do you need an $1800 laptop for college? Definitely not.

My Advice

My recommendation for all college students and all parents of college students is to not spend more than $500 on a laptop.  Why? Because no college student needs to lug around a 12 pound laptop to their classes every day.  The ideal laptop for a college students in my mind is the Dell Mini-10v. It’s small but not too small, it’s got a 92% size keyboard and 9.5 hours of battery life all for just $299.  It packs plenty of punch for taking notes in the classroom or working on a powerpoint in the library.  You can even use DropBox to synchronize your school work on the go.  What it can’t do?  It likely can’t watch YouTube videos full screen and it can’t play any 3D games.  Bummer?  Not really.  Cause if you were just about to spend $1800 on a laptop and you only spent $300 on this guy, how much do you have leftover?  For those of you playing at home, $1500!  $1500 will build you a monster of a computer!

The M17x Desktop Equivalent

So if you wanted the same exact power of an M17x, but in desktop form, how much would you have to pay? $740.  That’s a markup of over $1000 just so you (or your son/daughter) can carry around a mini-super computer.

Same (if not more) performance for $740, at the cost of decreased mobility and a more space taken up at your desk.  Add the price of a $300 netbook to this computer and you’re still left with $700 in your budget.

What to do with the leftover $700

I’ve been a university student for 3 years now, and I know all the little lies people tell themselves about why they need what.  ”I need a powerful laptop so I can do CAD”, “I need to be able to compile programs”.  ”I’m going to be writing a lot of papers so I need a nice laptop.” “I want to be able to take notes on my laptop in class.”  There is merit to all these arguments, however there is no reason a desktop can’t be used.  In fact, I find that most people are less productive doing work outside of their room anyway.  The reality is that my girlfriend has gone through 4 years of college as a Pre-Vet Biology (Systems Physiology) major with a $400 Dell desktop, and her GPA is excellent.   In addition, I find that it’s simply easier to take notes by hand for pretty much any class.  A lot of note taking involves drawing diagrams, and doing so may be difficult to do quickly on a laptop.

So What to do with the leftover $700 to optimize yourself for your university studies?

  • RAID 1 Hard drives: RAID 1 provides data backup in case of a hard drive failure.  If you loose all of your papers and homework, you will be sorely upset.  Trust me.  All you have to do is buy a second hard drive of the same make and model and configure them for RAID.
  • Buy two monitors.  Dual monitor setups can be extremely helpful for multitasking, and especially helpful for students who are doing video editing, CAD, graphic design.
  • Invest in a good pair of headphones.  You don’t need noise cancelling, noise “muffling” will do just fine, I’ve got a pair of Sennheiser HD-280 Pro’s and they are great for blocking out noise and focusing on work.
  • Upgrade: 5770 not enough for you?  Why not upgrade to a GTX 480 if you need the power (you’d also need a better power supply).  Need a quad core? Probably not but if think you do then the i5 750 is a great processor.

The choice is ultimately yours.  If you think you need to spend $1800 on a laptop then go ahead, but you’ll most likely be wasting a lot of money.  My parents spent $2200 on my MacBook Pro when I started school, and I was very thankful.  My laptop could play video games, use CAD better than most laptops, and it was pretty fast at day to day tasks.  However, my laptop was too heavy even at 6 pounds, so I rarely brought it to class with me.  My campus is one of the smaller college campuses and it was still a half mile walk each way to some of my classes.   When I did bring it to class, I found it was more of a distraction.  I found myself mostly using it at my desk in my room.  Not to mention when it came time for an upgrade, I could upgrade the RAM and the hard drive but nothing else.  Desktops are fully upgradeable.  There are plenty of genuine reasons why you might need a powerful laptop, but be sure when you go for that gaming laptop that you think the extra $1000 is worth it.

Computer Concierge Service

Posted by on 6 July 2010 No comments

So after work today I stopped by my local Microcenter, because I was looking at the i7 930 processor they had for $200 vs Newegg’s $290. While I was standing next to the processor cabinet, two guys approached the area and started talking about a computer they wanted to build. These two guys were far from computer geeks, and were certainly approaching a 10 on the “bro” scale, and the nearby sales associate picked up on this pretty quickly. Being a good salesman, he took them under his protective wing and began his sales pitch.

It was not surprising, salesmen at Fry’s do this all the time, and I’m used to this. They will take advantage of someone’s lack of knowledge of technology to sell them more than they need. This is how Monster Cables got so popular in the first place. The guy at Microcenter wasn’t terribly sleazy, but did give a bit of misleading information. The guy who the computer was for stated that he mostly used his computer to watch ESPN videos online. What processor did the employee try to pitch to him? The Core i7 930 from Intel, of course. He mentioned that Intel used Hyperthreading technology that made each of its cores act “the same as if it was two cores”. I left before I could hear the conclusion, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy walked out of the door with a $200 processor and a $200 motherboard, when a $75 processor and $90 motherboard would have been just as effective for him.

This experience gave me an idea. There should be a computer concierge company that will escort you through a computer store and help you build your computer. The target audience would be people who are maybe enthusiasts, but have never built a computer before or are not sure of they decisions. But the service wouldn’t be limited to in store help. Maybe the guy would just want to chat on the phone, or exchange emails on advice between two choices, or on advice on a particular subject. Maybe they just want to meet for coffee and have a casual conversation about how to go about choosing parts, or what they need. Maybe once the person has bought all the parts, they need help putting the computer together.

Surprise, Surprise, I’m actually gonna try this out this fall. I’m gonna post on craigslist and be very upfront about what I offer. I’ll charge someone maybe $20 and I’ll meet them at Fry’s and help them avoid overpaying for a computer. I don’t expect to make much money, but I’ll be doing something I enjoy.

Sound Blaster Audigy 2

Posted by on 11 January 2010 No comments

I realize this card is like…. 7 years old? But it wasn’t really being used in my server so I put it into the rig and now I have sound!

I put it in the PCI slot furthest from the graphics card so it wouldn’t obstruct airflow.  The audio sounds really good, I’m used to my onboard laptop sound but this is much much better.