Noob AW purchase question

Hey all, I have a couple of questions relating to purchasing either the M17 or M15. A bit of background to help things make sense, my 18 year old son is off to the US in March, to hopefully further his professional sporting career.

When he is there his primary communication tool will be his notebook and the Internet, pretty easy as most notebooks will handle that however, being his age he has been playing games for many years and wants something that will allow him to do so (CS source, Need for Speed shift, WOW,etc), communicate with his friends and us, play his music and watch videos. After researching all this it has led me to AW and the M17x and M15x.

From a parents perspective my biggest concern is the stability and support of the device so he does not have too many issues and we are able to easily communicate with him, so based on all the above what is the best option? I am leaning towards the M15 due to its newer tech, though both devices seem very capable.

I do have couple of specific questions, please:

1) do either of the devices suffer from heat issues (all that tech in a confined space)?
2) after reading the thread re the throttling issue for the M15, could that be a big issue with the type of load described above?
3) we plan to get the premium warranty so he is able to get support in the US and from what I read this seems to be OK, any comments?

All advice would be much appreciated, thanks.

 

hi there

i would like to have a father like you, who obviously buys the machine for his beloved son

to1. no overheating issue, the new M15x is a rock solid machine

to2. problem which has to be taken serious with games in the near future, but AW/DELL is aware of and will fix it soon, hopefully

to3. premium warranty is always good

your son will be very happy with the machine, yes there are some issues, like a lag in the touchpad and also the speakers could be better, but thats not serious

i recently got my missing bluetooth card and fixed it by myself and there i figured out, that the quality of the machine is awesome, try it, when you get it, just open the door at the back, 2 screws and look inside, you will see, rock solid, perfectly aligned parts, nothing tiny or fragile

hope it helps

 

1 no, the cooling is sufficient

2 the throttling only happens when you max out the CPU under synthetic benchmarks that are designed to push it to the extreme which will not happen under normal conditions. Plus if it does happen dell will replace you machine

3 the extra warranty is good but i find i only upgrade when i need to. I get 1 year in home and if i keep it longer then 1 year i just upgrade with 1 call.


I have both a M15x and a M17x and while the M15x is not here yet i would vouch for the build quality of both


The Sager 860cu and 870cu are other laptops to seriously consider

 

Also, the M15X cannot really be called too portable. If the lappie wont be moved at all (besides home -> US -> home) then you could also go with M17x which will outperform (on the assumption you go XFire or SLI) the M15x any day in gaming.

 

M15x, huge performance, huge stability. Can't go wrong with it. Just make sure when buying it, to upgrade the graphics card from the 240M to the 260M, and 4GB of ram. I wouldn't bother upgrading the i7 720QM to i7 820/920 unless you have money growing on tree's. Everything else is personal preference.

 

If you will be doing alot of mobile work and gaming then the M17x is what you need to get since it has more powerful GPU's and better battery life


If size and CPU orientated task are your concern then get the M15x


But for you and your son i would recommend the M17x since it does have better battery and gaming capabilitys. I dont see your son encodeing Blu-Rays