[smithsmith]

2 questions

-is this laptop decent ( i use the net and occasionally play video games and will it handle video games 2/3 years down the line
-is it worth it ( i have tried many combinations and this is the cheapest one from dell build a laptop that has all the features that i want

Dell XPS17 for £909.00

COLOUR CHOICE Silver Anodized Aluminum Cover
PROCESSOR 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM processor (2.20 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.10 GHz)
OPERATING SYSTEM English Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
GRAPHICS CARD 3GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M Graphics Card
OFFICE SOFTWARE Microsoft® Office Starter
SERVICES AND SUPPORT 1Yr Next Day Hardware Support
ATASAFE ONLINE BACKUP DataSafe Online Backup 2GB - 1 year licence (cant remove to reduce price it comes with it)
SECURITY SOFTWARE McAfee® SecurityCenter 15 Month Subscription(cant remove to reduce price it comes with it)
ADOBE Adobe® Photoshop® Elements + Premiere® Elements Bundle (cant remove to reduce price it comes with it)
LCD 44 cm(17.3") FHD WLED AG (1920x1080) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
MEMORY 8192MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x4096]
OPTICAL DRIVE DVD+/-RW (DVD, CD read and write)
HARD DRIVE 1TB (5,400rpm) Serial ATA Dual HDD - (2x500GB)
PRIMARY BATTERY 9-cell 90Whr Lithium Ion battery
KEYBOARD Backlit UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 1000 (EUR)

[Gofre]

It's difficult to tell if it's worth the price if you don't tell us the price.

[smithsmith]

haha sorry about that £909.00

[los lobos marinos]

(Original post by smithsmith)
haha sorry about that £909.00

Just checked and I'm getting the total down to £818 inc VAT (with 10% discount)

Use this discount code at checkout for 10% off: 0C03P209L07JS$

Also, logged on to NUS extra and they are giving 8% discount via EPP but not sure if you can use the codes together.

[mabrookes]

(Original post by smithsmith)
2 questions

-is this laptop decent ( i use the net and occasionally play video games and will it handle video games 2/3 years down the line
-is it worth it ( i have tried many combinations and this is the cheapest one from dell build a laptop that has all the features that i want

Dell XPS17 for £909.00

COLOUR CHOICE Silver Anodized Aluminum Cover
PROCESSOR 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM processor (2.20 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.10 GHz)
OPERATING SYSTEM English Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
GRAPHICS CARD 3GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M Graphics Card
OFFICE SOFTWARE Microsoft® Office Starter
SERVICES AND SUPPORT 1Yr Next Day Hardware Support
ATASAFE ONLINE BACKUP DataSafe Online Backup 2GB - 1 year licence (cant remove to reduce price it comes with it)
SECURITY SOFTWARE McAfee® SecurityCenter 15 Month Subscription(cant remove to reduce price it comes with it)
ADOBE Adobe® Photoshop® Elements + Premiere® Elements Bundle (cant remove to reduce price it comes with it)
LCD 44 cm(17.3") FHD WLED AG (1920x1080) with 2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera
MEMORY 8192MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x4096]
OPTICAL DRIVE DVD+/-RW (DVD, CD read and write)
HARD DRIVE 1TB (5,400rpm) Serial ATA Dual HDD - (2x500GB)
PRIMARY BATTERY 9-cell 90Whr Lithium Ion battery
KEYBOARD Backlit UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 1000 (EUR)

It is a very good price with the 1080 screen included - even before the discount someone mentioned. You won't find a better price from dell without going to the outlet and waiting for a deal to appear.

It is not a games machine, you have to pay for actual gaming laptops, but it can run all games at least at medium settings and most at high. I can run Skyrim with a combination of medium and high settings with very high frame rates and no slowdown etc on the same spec - but you won't be able to do this on full 1080 resolutions.

[smithsmith]

Is it worth not buying the back lit keyboard which would save me £30, and then i could get my total after the coupon (thanks) to £791.10

[los lobos marinos]

I was going to the mention keyboard but just thought you chose it for aesthetics. I've seen on forums people comment about it feeling flimsy and 'cheap' in comparison to to the normal keyboard. When you type a lot you get to know where all the keys are more-or-less without looking even if, like me, you only use your two index fingers to type. Besides, I've found the the display screen gives more than enough light to see everything when I'm working in a dark environment.

Edit: Surely the £90 discount is worth +rep

[smithsmith]

ah thanks for the tip, i was going to rep but i was repped out, i knew about the 10% thing a little while before you said aswell lol

[+ polarity -]

(Original post by los lobos marinos)
Edit: Surely the £90 discount is worth +rep

beg

[los lobos marinos]

(Original post by + polarity -)
beg

Yeah well, I've often been called a little beggar. At least I think that's what they say....

[smithsmith]

So how many years will this laptop last before it becomes useless, ( which i mean, not useable or too slow for average software or stranded games at mid graphics), and how long will it physically last, thanks.

[los lobos marinos]

That precisely depends on what the laptop is used for.

I'm typing this on a pc I built over 10 years ago. The same pc is also used for watching digital tv medium res, streaming films medium res, word-processing etc. I can only play games made before 2004-2005.

My last dell laptop I bought in about 2007 and it was stolen last year. Never had any defaults.

My current XPS laptop I bought last september and is working fine. It'll last me ten years or until it gets robbed.

Just on a footnote. PC component technology moves so fast that it out of date almost before you have bought it. It's not even worth worrying about it or you'll be upgrading every 6 months...

I build a new desktop about every 3-4 years to allow latest games at decent res.

[nish81]

(Original post by + polarity -)
beg

us low-gemmed people have to get it where we can

repped you smithsmith

[smithsmith]

I will be mainly using it for word processing , playing games on the net and using the net, watching movies, and occasionally playing video games on around medium graphic settings,

how long will it last in terms of playing video games on medium graphics before it wont cope with the new releases or revert to lower graphic settings or both.

and how long will it physically last for the movies and word processing and general use

and are there any other websites that allow you to custom built your laptop for decent prices that i should try and find a better alternative.

[mabrookes]

(Original post by los lobos marinos)
I was going to the mention keyboard but just thought you chose it for aesthetics. I've seen on forums people comment about it feeling flimsy and 'cheap' in comparison to to the normal keyboard. When you type a lot you get to know where all the keys are more-or-less without looking even if, like me, you only use your two index fingers to type. Besides, I've found the the display screen gives more than enough light to see everything when I'm working in a dark environment.

The backlit keyboard is exactly the same quality as the normal one I have the backlit and have used the normal before. It feels the same and looks much better and less "cheap". If you can afford it I would say there is no reason to not get it (unless there is something for £30 you would much rather have somewhere).

(Original post by smithsmith)
I will be mainly using it for word processing , playing games on the net and using the net, watching movies, and occasionally playing video games on around medium graphic settings,

how long will it last in terms of playing video games on medium graphics before it wont cope with the new releases or revert to lower graphic settings or both.

and how long will it physically last for the movies and word processing and general use

and are there any other websites that allow you to custom built your laptop for decent prices that i should try and find a better alternative.

My XPS17 lasts a good 5 hours general browsing, a good 3.5 to 4 hours for more intensive use such as constant videos, dozens of tabs open etc. For gaming it is not really a good idea to use on battery, but I have heard people saying you get a few hours (2/3) if you play around with the settings and power management.

For alternatives you could look at Lenovo they are very good laptops with amazing quality, but they tend to be more expensive and not include some of the extras dell throw in (also the XPS has the best speakers I have ever heard on a laptop).
http://www.lenovo.com/uk/en/

There is the HP Envy, but it gets hotter than the Dell and will not have as good a spec for the price (youll probably pay a few hundred more for this spec at least).

Also have a look and consider Malibal, although an american producer they ship everywhere and even with the cheap UK upgrades (not much at all for the UK keyboard and power) and shipping included it can beat the XPS on spec and price depending on the deal you have from dell and what Malibal is doing at the time. I found this site after I got my Dell and found I could have got a much better spec for £50 including shipping. Bare in mind the cheap prices are because by default it comes with no OS though, I can get free Windows 7 from uni so it would be worth it for me, the price goes up with an OS.

http://www.malibal.com/

[smithsmith]

(Original post by mabrookes)

http://www.malibal.com/

oh sorry i didnt mean battery life i meant life span of the laptop, and thanks for all the tips +1

[los lobos marinos]

The laptop will be able to do perform adequately for as long as continues to function.

Use for games will gradually decline over the next 2-3 years.

If you are planning on keeping the laptop for years then you may want a blue-ray drive as it may be possible that studios could reduce the amount films released DVD.

(Original post by smithsmith)
...are there any other websites that allow you to custom built your laptop for decent prices...

Take at look at PC Specialist Ltd

[smithsmith]

yeah i have thought of the blue-ray but i thought its not worth the money and i doubt i will be getting any blue-ray dvds and i suppose the amount of films released on dvds will hold out for many years so ill be alright on that part

and i will do check that site thanks

i checked it out but it seems to be quite expensive thanks anyway

[NuclearFusion]

It's stupid why Nvidia puts 3Gb of Vram on a GT555m card, on a 1920x1080 screen there is no way you will ever need such a large frame buffer- even if you did use a higher resolution monitor (though they are very expensive past 1080p), that GPU would not be powerful enough to run a massive resolution at decent framrates in any case.
As far as I can see, they just put large Vrams on their OEM cards as a cheap way to make them sound better, even though 1Gb would make zero difference in terms of performance. Hence why the GTX 580 (Nvidia's most powerful single GPU graphics card until Kepler) only has 1.5Gb frame buffer (although there are a few rare 3Gb variants) because people who buy a GTX 580 know that you don't need that much Vram for a standard 1080p screen.
Rant over, just find it stupid that Nvidia just sticks large Vrams on their OEM laptop graphics cards as a cheap way of making them sound better- even though 1Gb would make no performance difference.

[smithsmith]

(Original post by NuclearFusion)
It's stupid why Nvidia puts 3Gb of Vram on a GT555m card, on a 1920x1080 screen there is no way you will ever need such a large frame buffer- even if you did use a higher resolution monitor (though they are very expensive past 1080p), that GPU would not be powerful enough to run a massive resolution at decent framrates in any case.
As far as I can see, they just put large Vrams on their OEM cards as a cheap way to make them sound better, even though 1Gb would make zero difference in terms of performance. Hence why the GTX 580 (Nvidia's most powerful single GPU graphics card until Kepler) only has 1.5Gb frame buffer (although there are a few rare 3Gb variants) because people who buy a GTX 580 know that you don't need that much Vram for a standard 1080p screen.
Rant over, just find it stupid that Nvidia just sticks large Vrams on their OEM laptop graphics cards as a cheap way of making them sound better- even though 1Gb would make no performance difference.

yes i have reasearched a little about that since i know next to nothing about computing and got some info that 3gb would be pointless as the card is not near enough to use the full 3gb even using multiple screenes or higher res screens.

i was thinking a gtx 570 would be more suitable choice mainly because its at a good price and a decent graphics card, would you recomend me any laptops which feature it or a better alternative to the 570 that is still good on price