Gaming w/ slice battery

[00squigzilla]

I could have sworn I posted this yesterday but it appears It didn't work so I'm going to do this again. Btw I am currently looking at a dell xps 17 with everything dell offers maxed but I'm pretty sure there are better laptops than that. Any advice would be nice, I've been searching for a few weeks now but I want some first hand opinions.


General Questions

1) What is your budget? $4500 nz dollars max. That's 2700 euro or 3500 US dollars. Although things will be more expensive down here.

2) What size notebook would you prefer?

e. Desktop Replacement; 17"+ screen

3) Where will you buying this notebook? From an online store, overseas if the price is cheaper but probably from NZ.

4) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?
a. Like: All
b. Dislike: Apple because their OS can't support as many games as windows but I am willing have a second OS on the laptop but I would rather not.

5) Would you consider laptops that are refurbished/redistributed? no

6) What are the primary tasks will you be performing with this notebook?
Gaming, school work, university (neither school nor uni should be too complex) etc. Surfing the internet.

7) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places, leaving it on your desk or both? Both, I want to be able to use it for an entire school day (6 to 7 hours) with a hour of gaming and a few hours of work on a medium or high brightness but I realize even with a slice battery this is unrealistic.

8) Will you be playing games on your notebook? Skyrim, Assassins creed etc... Mostly new games.

9) How many hours of battery life do you need? As the title suggests I want a slice battery. I will not buy any laptop that doesn't have a compatible and preferably large slice battery/battery pack available. I'm not sure about these universal external battery packs, I don't want to risk one being incompatible.

10) Would you prefer to see the notebooks you're considering before purchasing it or buying a notebook on-line without seeing it is OK? Yerp. The feel won't really be a problem because I will probably end up using a wireless keyboard and mouse.

11) What OS do you prefer? Windows (XP or Vista or Windows 7), Mac OS, Linux, etc. Windows 7 or XP. Linux maybe. I can't decide between 7 or xp. 7 is obviously better but I can't play my old games on 7.

Screen Specifics

12) From the choices below, what screen resolution(s) would you prefer? 1920x1080 full hd and preferably 3-d but it's not a necessity. I would settle for a slightly worse display if I had to.

13) Do you want a Glossy/reflective screen or a Matte/non-glossy screen?
Not sure about the difference, any suggestions. I think I prefer matte but I'm not really sure.

Build Quality and Design

14) Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you? Not in the slightest.

15) When are you buying this laptop? Within the year so any laptops that are soon to be released are an option.

16) How long do you want this laptop to last? 5 years would be nice

Notebook Components

17) How much hard drive space do you need; 80GB to 640GB? Do you want a SSD drive? 250gb ssd or hybrid. I will probably use external hard drives.

18) Do you need an optical drive? If yes, a CDRW/DVD-ROM, DVD Burner or Blu-Ray drive? Blu-Ray reader/writer



Additional Info

-Has to have great ventilation.
-Has to have 8gb of RAM min
-Needs a decent video card, preferably dual
-Does anyone know if there are any batteries that work with the alienware mx18 or mx17. (although I just noticed that the price went up by about six hundred dollars so the mx18 has crept out of my price range a bit)
-I do not care about weight at all.
-I want wireless
-Need I7
-Once again I'm stressing the slice battery point. Battery life is very important to me. Does anyone recommend using universal external battery packs with adapters? If so then I'm all for any suggestions without slice batteries.


hmmm..... A battery pack, charging a battery pack, charging a battery pack, charging a battery pack, charging a laptop hooked up to a slice battery.... .... .... such a device would be heavy but think of the possibilities.... or maybe just a hiking pack lined with a thick waterproof coating and filled with as much battery acid as I can carry.

[00squigzilla]

Bump

please help

[00squigzilla]

Bump, is anyone actually going to help me?

[00squigzilla]

Bump, apparently not...

[00squigzilla]

And still no assistance...


Bump

[ocr123]

I'm not an exprert but have you checked out clevo p170em? I don't think any gaming laptop has a decent battery life so my advice would be get an extra battery.

[Darkshado]

I too would steer you towards Clevo.

However to be honest, I don't think any gaming laptop out there really has slice batteries available for it. The other thing you must keep in mind is that any battery won't be able to provide all the wattage the power adapter will, so the processor and GPU will throttle back on it.

About your OS choice, I would say go for 7 x64. Dual boot if you must. But if you feel more adventurous, I remember seeing some hack-ish ways to get XP to boot from a VHD just like 7 can. Haven't tried it myself (yet) but it could be worth looking into. Maybe a VHD W7 32-bits install would be worth considering as well to run that older software?

[00squigzilla]

The p170em looks like a very good choice, unfortunately it seems a little difficult to get hold of in NZ but I haven't had a thorough look yet. International shipping is an option I guess. Anything else that you would recommend?