Gaming laptop (Which one?, should i build my own?)

**♔Lord Stason♔** · May 19, 2010, 11:35 PM

Hi guys,

Recently I've acquired a lot of money due to selling my much loved car, since i have brought another car (Celica GT4) for less then a 1/4 of what i previously been given for selling my VXR8. finance loans paid off, i still have a large amount left over.

Determined to save most of it for a special occasion one day, be it marriage/ honeymoon or mid-life crisis lol, i still have a few Thousand pound left over.

Because I'm always moving around be it on barracks or coming home/ going out on the lash during the weekends i rarely get to play much TW games or games at all. I'll probably put a fair few hours in when i get to go home earlier, or if my shift doesn't start till late in day for what ever reason. That being said i was going to upgrade my desktop computer but i thought it would be better if i just brought a laptop so i could take it with me be it parents house friends house so i can feed the addiction.

I've had a nose around for some gaming laptops, I've noticed some are really expensive just because of the portability of such a fast/powerful machine and for every penny they seem to charge a pound more because of it's so called "uniqueness of it" I've tried www.pcspecialists.co.uk (UK site since im British) to specify exactly what's inside, found that a lot easier but im not sure if i know what im doing here.

I've got maximum of £2,000 to spend, i want a laptop that has just as good performance or close enough to a roughly set out desktop that can run empire total war between medium-high end settings.

Any personal suggestions or tips would be much appreciated.

**Darkpriest667** · May 19, 2010, 11:49 PM

http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16834220669

Asus G72gx-x1

is a nice gaming laptop but i live in the us so i dont know its availability

**karamazovmm** · May 20, 2010, 02:58 AM

The envy 15 or the 17

take a look and config for yourself

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/sh...notebooks/ENVY

Since you're from UK you can't configure the envys, but there is a site, that I will edit in here that you can use the configs that are available to US, and they'll send it to you in UK. They also have a policy of lowering the declared value if you ask them.

I would go for the envy 15, the 5830 is a great card, and the way that the people over notebookreview forum overclock those card (simple program) you are guaranteed a performance in the same level as the GTS 360m, now the 5850 is in the not upper middle of the gtx 285m and the gtx 260m. Anyway both laptops are kick ass.

PS: if you had a UPS PO box apparently you can get those shipped to you, and if you could, you just lost a 25% discount

**The Gallant Forty-Twa** · May 20, 2010, 01:45 PM

Only thing I can recommend is that you buy it from the US. My ASUS one cost me $1,300 which was around £800 or so. The UK one retails at around £1,799 and is actually inferior to the US one in terms of specs. So yeah, try and buy from the US, it saves so much cash.

The ASUS G73JH or w/e laptops are amazing.

**♔Lord Stason♔** · May 20, 2010, 02:17 PM

is there any decent websites i should know about in US that allow you to custom build the laptops to your choice?

**Darkpriest667** · May 20, 2010, 05:22 PM

yeah Dell's alienware site does but Im not to keen on what they call customization.

**Musthavename** · May 21, 2010, 02:37 PM

As to buying from the US, the Pound has dumped against the Dollar recently so you won't get as good a deal. That, and Customs will probably want to tax the rest of the difference up, though i'm not sure how they'd hit you.

**karamazovmm** · May 21, 2010, 03:47 PM

you would probably get a better deal anyway by buying in the US, thats what I do. I live in Brazil and oh well, do you know how much a gtx 480 cost here? 2000 dollars.

The tax from importation here is 50% of the value for individuals, and I still get the best price even if I account for a 2 to 1 parity between the dollar and the real.

**Musthavename** · May 22, 2010, 04:03 AM

Well, looking at the Government website, you'd have to pay Customs Duty (5% if under £533, otherwise the rate changes depending on the item), and you'd have to pay VAT (17.5%), so you're looking at a minimum of 22.5%.

So that $1300 laptop is worth about £900 at current exchange rates, which is £1102.5 after customs.

**The Gallant Forty-Twa** · May 22, 2010, 05:02 AM

Meh, when I bought my laptop from the US I got it sent to the office where a friend works. He opened it up, packed it all into his luggage and took it back with him when he came back to the UK. No customs taxes for me

**craziii** · May 22, 2010, 06:27 PM

that is how you should do it if you got connections.

importing in europe is that expensive? 22% tax? damn!

**Darkpriest667** · May 23, 2010, 03:03 PM

Originally Posted by craziii

that is how you should do it if you got connections.

importing in europe is that expensive? 22% tax? damn!

LOL you act surprised.. you better say hello to that kind of taxation because of the VAT tax we are going to be looking at similar tax rates here in the U.S.

**craziii** · May 25, 2010, 12:53 AM

but I live in the usa, why would I import anything when we have everything here in the states?

**♔Lord Stason♔** · May 25, 2010, 05:00 PM

I decided to build my own laptop, i like to have a simple styled laptop, rather then these pimped machines designs.

look forward to using it!

**Vaz** · May 21, 2010, 06:51 AM

Post edited.

As to Alienware, I've bought an M17x recently, spent nearly a quarter of my wages on it, to give it the bells and whistles. I don't have it yet, but despite the price it's apparently an excellent piece of kit.

I can pretty much guarantee that you can get a load of stuff that's cheaper, but still performs more than adequate.