Laptop Suggestion

[bounda]

last night i played 2 campaigns of l4d and it ran like silk. i only had to drop the settings a bit

 

[IronManForever]

^ Why not some demos of new/popular games? Like Crysis? Call of Duty 4?
Also please check out some of the new RTS(Real-Time_Strategy) games (demos). That would give us a fair diea of overall performance.

 

[bounda]

because the laptop isn't built to run crysis and i don't want to download a game demo and waste my time and bandwidth when i know exactly how the performance will be.

besides theres a video of the cq50z running crysis on youtube if you wouldve read the thread

 

[ankit_niitian]

You received the lappy very late bounda. At least late for me. I was worried about the performance of AMD, I also heard that it gets very hot and I was also worried about the quality of Compaq laptops. So I decided to compromise on the gaming front and ordered for Dell Inspiron 1525. I know that it's graphics suck but at least it has better quality. Sorry everyone that I changed my mind. Actually I went for ordering Compaq. But someone told me at the last moment that AMD get's hot very fast. He was absolutely agains AMD and Compaq. So I took his advice and went for Dell. It cost me 36,800. I have not revieved it yet. I'll post the review ASAP.

Thanks again for the help

 

[IronManForever]

because the laptop isn't built to run crysis and i don't want to download a game demo and waste my time and bandwidth when i know exactly how the performance will be.

besides theres a video of the cq50z running crysis on youtube if you wouldve read the thread

Apart the reasons you mentioned; I would have definitely checked out demos of some Heavy Duty Games as well as some 1080p VC-1 stuff to test the performance.

Thanks anyways.

 

[ankit_niitian]

I got my Dell Inspiron 1525 4 days ago. I forgot to add a review here. So here it is

Configuration:
Core 2 Duo 2 Ghz
2GB RAM
160GB HDD
15.1 inch display
8 in one card reader
DVD writer
2MP camera
Original Windows Vista home premium
Wifi and Bluetooth

Cost:
Rs 37,000 including all charges but excluding carry bag

Some of the cool things about this lappy include double headphone jack, remote control and touchpad on top for multimedia related keys. I will upload the photos soon when I grab my hands on someone's camera mobile . I tried GTA San andreas on the lappy and it runs cool. I have not tried any of the new high end games as I know that they will not run on Intel GMA. The battery performance is decent and it runs absolutely without any heat. I usually run it on balanced performance mode. The camera quality is OK but cannot be compared to 2MP camera phone image quality. You can record videos as well. The software for the Web Cam also has a face detection mechanism which I have seen for the first time.

I only had one problem. The lappy came with a single 136 GB partition and a secondary backup partition of 10 GB. But I needed more partition so I had to format it on the first day. They have given a CD which is the recommended way of creating partitions. But that also creates a single Windows partition and a seconday backup partition. So I had to use the Windows CD to create more partitions any ways. Also there is no automatic way of installing all the required drivers. You have to manually install each driver which is tedious. Also I feel that I have not recieved one CD as there are two things missing. First is 30 day McAfee trial versoin. Second is a docklet which was there before I formatted the system but now I can't find it on any CD. The docklet had controls for every dell software. Now I have to control everything from the start menu. I will contact Dell about this soon.

The lid also doesn't have any locking mechanism which is a bit pain. They have made the lid movement stiff to balance that but I feel a less stiff lid with a locking system is a better choice.

Overall I am happy with the laptop. But as I am new to laptops, so I am facing a questions. Should I always run my laptop on charging if I am not outside or should I run it on battery and charge it only when it's low on battery. Someone told me that the baterry has fixed charge cycles so I should keep it on charging to extend my battery life. But another person told me that he used to keep his laptop on charging all the time but now his laptop gives backup of only 5 minutes. So I am confused with which is the better choice.

I would be thankful to anyone who can help.

Thanks again everyone for your valuable inputs. My next laptop will have nVidia graphics I assure you .

 

[IronManForever]

^ When you buy the laptop, the first thing to do should be caliberation of the battery. Charge the battery to full, keep it on charge for some more time; use the laptop on battery, let the charge finish completely, leave it for 2-3 hours. And then charge again. This is called caliberation of battery and should be ideally done once a month.

Today's laptops come with Lithium batteries in contrast to the old ones which used Nickel batteries. Usage principles are different for Lithium.

Ideally, do not let the charge of a Lithium battery fall below 25/33 % during normal usage.

Each Lithium battery has a fixed number of charge-discharge cycles. Anywhere between 500-1000 (check your model for details).

One cycle is when the battery reduces to 0% from 100%; and then returns to 100% after charging (or vice-versa).

It may take many days to complete one cycle. Say you use 33% of battery today and charge it to full. Tomorrow you use 33% again, and charge it. And day after tomorrow you use 33% and charge it to full again. So, that means it has taken 3 days for one cycle to complete.

Lithium battery degrades a bit after each charge-discharge cycle.


Regards, IronMan.

 

[ankit_niitian]

Thanks for the information IronMan. But still I'm not clear. Should I keep my laptop on charging or charge it only when the battery is below 35% as you said??

 

[ashu888ashu888]

^^

congrats on ur purchase.. mujhe bhool gaya kya bahi !!..
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Also, wat i think Iron said was..wen u use it to jus 33% (from the complete 100% charged lappy battery) it will come down to 67% and then charge it to full 100% and so on..
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Btw, wat games u tried buddy ?? Does FIFA run smoothly ?? also wat applications are u trying to run on ur lappy ??
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Cheers n e-peace...

 

[IronManForever]

At ankit
Use it on battery when you need to. Else you can keep it on AC power.
Though do follow the instructions, like avoiding frequent discharge of battery below 33% or so when possible. And do remember to caliberate the battery once a month or once every two months.

 

[ankit_niitian]

^^
mujhe bhool gaya kya bahi !!..

No yaar I can't forget u. I have tried GTA San Andreas only. It runs ok at medium settings (800x600 medium detail). I am using heavy application like Photoshop and Netbeans (java IDE). The lappy doesn't need a gasp while running them. It runs very smoothly.

Thanks IronMan for clearing the doubt. I'll keep my lappy on charge if I have a plug and calibrate the battery every month and also avoid complete discharging.

Thanks again all...

 

[ashu888ashu888]

^^

ooh netBeans ?? gr8.. i wanted to knw (if at all u are using any SERVER) with ur Netbeans, does it slow ur Lappy???

say MS SQL Server+Netbeans
or
SYnapse Server+Netbeans etc..

plz tell me... coz u also very well knw these both Apps are hreally resource hungry ..
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Cheers n e-peace...

 

[ankit_niitian]

Well with Netbeans I use jBoss Application Server and the lappy doesn't get effected by that. I have not yet installed MySQL but it doesn't take much resources. jBoss is a heavy server and takes upto 450MB or RAM. Currently I am using Netbeans 5.5 which is less resource hungry but soon I will install Netbeans 6.5 which is very resource intensive

 

[ashu888ashu888]

^^

oh gr8, thanx for the update buddy..

 

[IronManForever]

At ankit

My MacBook manual says that if the laptop is to be stored usused for long, say months, then its best to keep it cahrged at around 50% and remove it from the lappy. As its the same Lithium battery in all, I'm sure it applies to yours too.

BTW the graphics should handle GTA:SA at better settings. My age old FX 5200 card handles at 1024x768 med with 2x AA.

 

[ashu888ashu888]

offtopic:

I too had tat card (FX 5200) then changed it too 7600GS... but yes, i was really satisfied with its performance...

 

[IronManForever]

[offtopic again]
That card was heavily criticised as being one of the weakest cards available! And being expensive for the price. Infact the fhole FX series from Nvidia was criticised. But as I am not a gamer really, I dont have any problems.

 

[ankit_niitian]

Well the opposite happened to what you said. GTA-SA started to get so slow, that I had to reduce the setting to 640x480 to make it run smoothly. Also I had to set the detail level to low . I was disappointed by all this ...

 

[ashu888ashu888]

wats the battery life like ?? i mean for how much time can u run games on it wen its fully charged and the same with Applications like netbeans+any server or database running.. ??

 

[ankit_niitian]

Well Ashu when I play games (GTA for eg), then I set the battery mode to High Performance. Then I get about 1.5 Hrs of backup. So usually I play games with the charger plugged in. With netbeans and mysql at balanced mode, it gives about 2hrs of backup. Actually in balanced mode I increase the brightness otherwise it would give more than 2 hrs of backup...