Gaming laptops
Gaming laptops have been designed just for that: playing the lastest games at high quality with good performance. To this end they use powerful processors and graphics cards, and have to be quite big (15" at least, 17-18" the most powerful ones). They usually have high resolution screens and, sometimes, good speakers with subwoofer, and can often be configured with fast hard drives (7,200 rpm, sometimes in RAID 0, or SSDs). They usually have a good build quality and an aggressive design, but a short battery life (1-2 h).
True gaming laptops are expensive (usually from 1,200 USD, but extreme gaming laptops can go over 3,000 USD). If you need something cheaper, have a look to the multimedia and basic laptos, sometimes they have mainstream graphics cards that can run well most games, if you keep graphic quality low.
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Featured gaming laptop
| Asus G73JH. Recommended price: 1599 USD |
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3.9 kg (8.5 lbs), 17-inch display (1920x1080) |
| 2 h battery life (estimated browsing the Net) |
Intel Core i7-720QM (quad core, 1.6 GHz; Turbo 2.8 GHz)
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ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 (1 GB GDDR5)
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| 1TGB HD (2x 500 GB), 8 GB RAM DDR3 |
| HDMI, Bluetooth, numeric keypad |
| Specifications: Asus |
| Reviews: Notebookcheck, AnandTech, CNET, CNET UK, Computer Shopper, Legit Reviews, Notebook Review, InsideHW |
Some purchase options:
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Alternatives
- Alienware M17x: 17-inch, customizable, ATI 5870 CrossFireX. Also available at Best Buy
 and Pixmania.
- Clevo W880CU (17-inch, GTX 480M). Customizable at many assemblers, such as Xotic PC (USA, worldwide shipping).
- Clevo D900F (17-inch, desktop processors, GTX 480M). Customizable at many assemblers, such as Xotic PC (USA, worldwide shipping) and Cizmo (Europe).
- Clevo X8100 (18-inch, GTX 285M SLI or ATI 5870). Customizable at many assemblers, such as Xotic PC (USA, worldwide shipping) and Cizmo (Europe).
- Clevo W870CU (17-inch, GTX 285M or ATI 5870). Customizable at many assemblers, such as Xotic PC (USA, worldwide shipping) and Cizmo (Europe).
- Toshiba Qosmio X505
 (18-inch, Nvidia GTS 360M). The graphics card is among the slowest in this category, but it's an good laptop.
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HP ENVY 17
 (17-inch, ATI 5850). Very attractive design, but cooling is probably not as good as in true gaming laptops.
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Featured gaming laptop
| Alienware M15x. Recommended price: from 1199 USD |
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4.1 kg (9 lbs), 15.6-inch display (1600x900; optional 1920x1080) |
| 2 h battery life (estimated browsing the Net) |
Intel Core i3 330M (2.1 GHz),
up to Intel Core i7 Extreme 920XM (quad-core, 2 GHz, Turbo 3.2 GHz)
 |
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 (1 GB GDDR5)
|
| 250 GB HD (7200 rpm), up to 500 GB or 256 GB SSD; 3 GB RAM DDR3, up to 8 GB; optional Blu-ray |
| Customizable, 3 available colors. DisplayPort, eSATA, Bluetooth, backlit keyboard, optional TV tuner |
| Specifications: Dell |
| Reviews: Notebookcheck, Portables4Gamers, Notebook Review, Driver Heaven |
Some purchase options:
|
Alternatives
- Asus G51JX (15.6-inch, Core i7 720QM, GTS 360M, some versions with 3D display). Seen at Buy.com
 , The Nerds , pcRUSH , PC Connection and Xotic PC (USA, worldwide shipping).
- Cheaper (1100 USD): MSI GX640 (15.6-inch, Core i5 430M, ATI 5850). Seen at Buy.com, mwave, pcRUSH
 and Xotic PC (USA, worldwide shipping).
- Clevo W860CU (15.6-inch, customizable up to GTX 285M or ATI 5870). Customizable at many different assemblers, such as Xotic PC (USA, worldwide shipping) and Cizmo (Europe).
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Tips: when picking the actual model or customizing one, it's good to keep a few things in mind:
- Graphics card: the one found most often in gaming laptops is the Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M, but if you need more performance you can look for the GeForce GTX 480M, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 (the most powerful options nowadays) or even for a dual solution (2 cards in SLI or CrossFireX configuration). Just below these "true gaming cards" you have the Nvidia GeForce GTS (GTS 360M) and that are also good performers. You could find useful the game list at Notebookcheck.
- Processor: when playing games at high detail levels the usual bottleneck is the graphics card, but the more powerful the graphics card, the more powerful needs to be the processor not to become the bottleneck. In addition, some games are very processor-dependent, specially RTS ones. Currently some games are optimized for more than 2 cores, while many others are not, so for some games quad-core processors are the best option, but for others a fast dual-core processor will give better performance. Mobile Intel Core i7 processors seem to be a good option for gaming, because they auto-overclock themselves when multicore usage is low.
- Screen: you can find gaming laptops either with low resolution screens (for exemple 1366x768 in 15.6" size), or with high resolution (up to 1920x1200 in 17" or 1920x1080 in several sizes). High resolutions in small screens can make text, icons and toolbars too small. In addition, the higher resolution of the screen, the more powerful need to be the graphics card to run games at the screen's native resolution.
- Cooling: gaming laptops generate a lot of heat and need a good cooling system. They usually have it, but anyway a cooling base is a good investment to help keep temperatures low. One of the best is the NZXT Cryo LX.
- Mobility: gaming laptops are heavier than regular laptops of the same size and have short-lived batteries, so they are not really very portable. And keep in mind that a gaming desktop computer is going to deliver more performance for your money. Have a look to the Alienware desktops to compare prices. The Alienware M11x has been launched recently, it sports a 11.6" screen and a Nvidia GeForce GT 335M, but uses a CULV processor that can be a bottleneck in a few games.
