zaa730

Anyone have ideas?

In the short term, it could be until the new radeon/geforce mobile cards come out.

In the long term it could be when ssd becomes cheaper.

losttsol

The best time to buy I think is when the laptop model reaches the end of its life cycle. You get the same parts, but they are trying to get rid of the old cases.

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TehStone

Why do you want a gaming laptop when you have a gtx 260 and a decent system? The best time to buy a gaming laptop is when you want to game on the go and your current laptop can't handle the games you want to play, and when you've got the urge to blow over $1200 for $600 worth of features.

In my opinion the best time to buy any retail computer parts is right around black friday, then from Feb to May. A lot of pc makers release new stuff around late august - september (back to school yay) so feb-may is late enough that that new stuff is discounted & prices drop after "after christmas sales. If you wait too long in the life cycle new products could be totally sold out or pulled from shelves. Many makers discontinue old products & pull them when the new ones come out (apple, hp).

The product life cycle will vary widely across different pc makers so there's no one "best time," except black friday to cyber monday.

For the foreseeable future they can't remedy the heat problems without hurting battery life, performance, or longevity of the system. If they can find a way to marry all four, a gaming laptop might start to be worth the bloated price tag.

zaa730

Black friday was thie biggest joke this year.

identitycrisis

Generally Laptops are just a step behind there desktop counterparts, and often times, barring ultra high end laptops the GPU's are also a step or more behind in every way.

Not to mention pour battery life, extraneous heat, and driver support is generally pretty bad, especially by HP...

Anyways, Id just get a decent laptop with a good gpu, I my roomate picked up a toshiba on clearance, 15.4" screen 3gb of ram 2.4ghz core 2 duo, and a 9700m GTS. Only real complaint was the low resolution of the screen. But the rig is a champ, runs l4d and wow maxxed, and a couple of other games he tossed its way. Yeah he paid around $1300 for it on clearance because it was "pre-optimized out of the box" by bestbuy, but its a nice machine, and will have the Horsepower to play games at ok settings for a while.

I'd say just shop around, and find something you like if you're going to buy and go for it... if you keep waiting for the next thing around thats right around the corner, youlle be waiting a long time, Notebook manufacturers change models every 6 months or more.... Just like those Gateway FX Laptops... one minute theyre the hot stuff, next minute theyre on bestbuys clearance tag with $50 off the floor model

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nathris

Never?

I'd say buy a laptop when the midrange offerings can compete with the last generation's high end. For example the 8600GTS was about as powerful at the 7900GS.

Wait for AMD's mobile 4600 series, since they should be nearly as fast as an HD 3850.

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Acreo Aeneas

Generally, the best time to buy computers and computer hardware is late June and July. This is usually when new/next-generation hardware gets released and also when the best deals on current hardware are made. Lastly, unlike EoL sales, this halfway point in the year lets you get the hardware you want and not making you spend extra time looking for a out-of-stock component or sold out computer.

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steve00ses

the m1730 is going for a very good price right now, as they are pretty much being phased out...awesome laptop...but are you thinking about spending 3k+ or more along the lines as most and only want to spend 1500?

I would really worry about SSD, i have one and im selling it as its not all that great, i have better benchmark scores off my 7200.2 drive than i do off my 64gb SSD. IMO/experience i have never had a problem with drives dieing/breaking...so the normal ones work fine for me.

xwinx

I don't think it's worth it to spend so much on a gaming laptop to be honest
the top top configuration I believe is a 3870 tri-fire, which costs $4500 upwards for the laptop, but then my desktop 4870 can beat that..

a laptop you can get 2x+ performance by spending that money on a desktop.
with $1500 you can get a laptop probably with the power of a 9800GT (if you're lucky), but then slap that on a desktop rig and you'll have a wicked 4870x2 in there. and oh, laptop CPUs have a much lower cache.. and no overclocking



if you insist though, late june / july is when laptops are cheapest.

steve00ses

Some ppl like me are rarely at home...im at work on my gaming laptop, and when im at home i dont sit on the pc. So since im always on the go...the laptop is the only option...

And yeah the x9000 cpu does have a very nice cache..Desktop will always be a better bang for the buck...BUT only if you are at home to use it...

I know there are already better laptops than mine, and that the desktops were stil ahead of it...but SLI 8800 gtx's at 625-950-1550, and the x9000 at 3.4..its quite the gaming experience. All games run amazing at 1900x1200.

Who buys a gaming laptop to use the battery?? Who cares about battery life..if its longer than 30 mins..thats good enough.

The best place i think to get great laptops is delloutlet.com...they have m1730 on there and they can be had for great deal..yes they are refrubs..but they carry same warrenty as new. And if you dont like what you got...they will refund the money. Where i have bought all my laptops from, and been very happy.