Originally Posted by
Verneir
Yeah that's a pretty decent Asus laptop, especially considering it's $999.00 USD. I have lots of time to wait for new stuff to come out, but I'm deffinitely poking around to get up to speed. Who knows, I might throw in the towel and just fly out to Cali to prep my desktop for shipping, or build a new desktop. As I start researching more & more into it, I'm remembering reasons why I've never bought a laptop before. For example desktops are cheaper, faster, more customizable - there are many laptops where you HAVE to buy a certain model in order to get a GTX280m, and if you're looking at an Alienware m17, then you're automatically going GTX280m SLI which of course drastically increases the cost and decreases battery life. That's just one example, but pick a feature, almost any feature, and you're in the same boat.
Add onto that the fact that a desktop version of a GTX280 or 285 is going to outperform the card and the desktop build will be easier to overclock, cheaper, more powerful, etc it gets discouraging. Then I consider that $1500.00 and higher priced machines pretty much should have ~3 year advanced warranty (added protection against accidents, like for built-in LCD breaking for example) and you're really looking at a high price tag - generally $300.00 - $500.00 just for a warranty where you have to go through all the usual BS, "Have you flashed the BIOS? Does an external dispaly work? Are you ready to kill me yet? Don't you just love the fact that you paid ~$400.00 for this support and you're not even sure if some block head is going to end up re-imaging your HDD while we have it?".
Docking stations seem pretty lack luster for gaming laptops too, based on the few I've checked into so far. In my opinion if my laptop lacks ports or connections, not to mention the fact many docking stations/port replicators will elevate your machine off the surface of your desk, increasing airflow, then the docking station/port replicator is pretty key for the whole "desktop replacement" gimmick.
Having said that I'm looking at sharing a bedroom with someone until July, and due to my finances it's smart to stay here until at least then. It'd be challenging to have a decent desktop in the very little space available, which brings me right back to the laptop scenario. :)
Also, although I don't care that much about Blu-Ray, I might get it either initially or later on. It'd be nice if the LCD could do at least 1920x1080. Honestly, I haven't looked at Toshiba, Sony or Gateway really at all yet and I have a bit of a bias against those, albeit a bias not based in sound fact it still exists. The HP Envy 15 beats limited edition and the Alienware machines are what I keep looking at.
I've started looking at Asus laptops a bit also but what bothers me there a bit is in the past year or so I've seen a lot of comments from people at Newegg saying Asus's customer support blows these days. Then again, I don't like HP support :) but if I buy into a decent support package at least I'll have leverage if I need it.. and in my experience there may be some hoops to jump through but HP will generally make good on their warranties, as long as it isn't a printer, lol.
Anyway, thanks!
Oh, also one other thing about that Asus laptop at Bestbuy - it's BESTBUY! Personally I don't tend to like the idea that Bestbuy would be the ones carrying my warranty. In my opinion this is just an unnecessary added layer. More BS. I buy keyboards and canned air and stuff like that from Bestbuy, maybe a television if it's a good price, but that's about it. Oh, and maybe a game.. or something like a PS3. Anyway, computer purchases are stores like The Good Guys, Micro Center, Frys Electronics, Circuit City, BestBuy, etc kind of makes me cringe.
