Custom Built Laptops and thier bad cases

T

tristam

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 21, 2003
Messages
141
Hi all,

I have a dream.

15-16" screen with a good resolution
460m GTX gpu
i5-520m proc (because I dont see a reason to spend the extra money on a i7, convince me otherwise)

These specs are easily obtainable at a number of compy customizers that I found on the internet including ibuypower, xotic, and sager.

The problem is, I cannot seem to find a single one of these custom manufacturers that has a good case. The form factor is for the most part ugly, but more importantly they all ship with 3-cell batteries. The whole point of me wishing for a 460m as opposed to the 5870/5850 is because of Optimus gfx switching (read: battery life).

Am I asking for the impossible here, having my cake and eating it too? I would have no problem even paying a little bit more to a manufacturer such as MSI/Asus/whomever to get these specs but I just cannot find such a laptop.

Please set me straight or help me find this dreamy lappy.
 
If you don't mind your laptop looking like a jet fighter!

Asus g53

Also here for pre-order and cutomizable:
xoticpc
 
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Thanks newster, that computer does look like a jet fighter though, and not in a good way, hehe.

I guess I will post as per the norm and list all of my requirements/information:

I want a decent battery life of 2 hours or more.

I live in WA, USA.

My price range is 800-1500 USD

I want the above GPU if possible.

Besides Newster's recommendation, does anyone else know of a decent lappy?
 
What would you consider a 'good looking' laptop chassis? I personally actually like Sager's for the fairly minimal styling with the only issue being they are slightly bulky. Given you don't like the asus g53 either can you give an example of what you do like? Are you looking for like a macbook or something? Is the decent battery life for just browsing or for gaming (gaming is nearly impossible probably). Is the gtx460m a requirement or would a 5850m (about as good) or 5870m (better than a gtx460m) be acceptable?
 
the main reason these gaming laptops don't come with beefy batteries is, or at least was, because they are desktop replacements and not truly mobile platforms. They are intended to sit on a desk, connected to a power supply, and then moved occasionally to a new location. In the past they were never advertised as anything other than a desktop-on-the-move so your dream of anything approximating usable battery life in such a beast is likely to be unmet in that regard.
 
I really appreciate the advice that you guys have given me so far. I checked out the Lenenvo laptops, and they are pretty nice. Good style too, but they have a quatro gpu which if I am not mistaken is more optimized for intense applications.

To answer your questions about the style I prefer, I do like the look of Apples but also I like my cases to be a little bit more showy then your average Sager case. More importantly, the reviews I read seem to indicate that the touch-pad is only medicore and also that for every DIY case I found, they had a pretty limited selection of ports. I do like MSIs more showy cases some (MSI GX640-260US) but dont necessarily need all the lights etc. I just have an older Asus which is blocky, plasticy, and grey, which drives me nuts. More metal plzthanx.

The main reason for the GTX 460m is because to my knowledge it is the only DX11 capable card which also has Optimus, which allegedly saves a lot of battery life for when I would not be gaming. I fully understand that if I am playing Crysis, I best be plugged in. But when I do decide I need to play some solitare and surf the net on my long flights, I can do that for a couple hours as well. I dont know if Optimus truly makes a whole lot of difference though, instead of being mostly hype.

I think that I did find the computer I am looking for. the MSI GT663, which was just announced on the 1st, seems to have the specs I am looking for. I havnt seen anything like it, setup wise, but if you guys know of anything else, wow me.
 
if their past hybrid graphic solutions are anything to go by, then I doubt Optimus is just hype :)
 
i love the tech specs of the Asus Laptops. But i ask one thing.....

Can it be in unibody please?! and give me at least one non stealth fighter option...

I cant be the only one.... at 1500$ id buy one over a MBP any day. I just cant stand those wannabe stealth fighter looks.
 
yeah, to be honest that laptop has, again, pretty much exactly the specs I want. But the freaken screen folds from 2 inches from the back, and it looks like it has a 'ba-donk-a-donk". That paired with how thick and angular it looks, its as if they really dont want me to buy it.
 
Does that MSI 663 come with an option for i5? Pretty sure i7-700 series and up cpu's don't come with integrated graphics so you can't use switching anyway: http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?familyId=43402

According to this msi press release it only comes with an i7: http://www.msi.com/index.php?news_no=1107&func=newsdesc

Nvidia optimus is good, but in terms of battery life, ati's switching works just as well. It's just that nvidia optimus is a lot more seamless in terms of switching, which is a good thing. How valuable that is to you is personal preference. Both when switch will use the integrated graphics which will use the same amount regardless of which discrete card you have.
 
Well the Envy 14 doesn't quite fit his 15-16" description, and only has the 1366x768 right now (the 1600x900 "radiance" screen seems to not be available and is said to not be coming back anytime soon if at all). Anything with an i5 and a discrete graphics card should be able to do switching though.
 
Non-Nvidia cards also allow switching? Maybe I have been living under a rock but I thought that only cards with optimus have this option.
 
Yes, anything with integrated graphics and discrete on current platforms allow switching. Basically anything with an i5 will switch. Nvidia's optimus is better than ati's whatever they named it because it is nearly seamless though. You switch and that's it. With ATI's I think you have to wait a few seconds as it switches over.
 
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