17" way better than 15" for gaming?

Hello all.

I'm buying a gaming laptop next week, hopefully, and have it narrowed down to the Asus G51vx at NewEgg or the G71 at Best Buy.

I was leaning G71 simply because of the screen size, but the G51 15" has a much nicer screen, backlit chiclet keyboard, and there's no tax, so I'm leaning that way (price is same otherwise).

Do those of you who have gamed on a 15" machine find that the size of the screen hinders you?

Do those of you who have used both find that a 17" definitely enhances the experience?

Portability isn't a big deal, but it's nice. If there isn't a huge difference, I'll probably go G51. If people swear that 17" rules the day, then I'll head G71.

Thanks!

 

It's all personal preference. I've gamed on everything from my Asus N10J netbook 10.2" screen, 13" Lenovo U330, 15" Vostro 1500, and 17" Gateway P-7811fx. I do prefer a larger screen, but for portability sake, prefer a 15". If you don't plan on moving your 17" around a lot then go for the 17". Otherwise choose a 15".

And to be honest 17" vs. 15" didn't make much of a difference to me since I'm usually sitting 12" from the screen in either case.

 

I enjoy gaming a lot in my 15''... I think is just enough to play at a normal distance from the screen...

 

i perosnally like 17" way better, my roommate has a 15" dell i feel it's too small.

 

2 inches m8.... 2 inches - what do you think

I have a 17, but would glady go for a sager 8662 thats 15inc.

 

So...it's entirely personal opinion. I will be moving it around for a month to be my mobile entertainment center as I'm on the road for work, but I won't be busting out a 17" beast in a Starbucks or anything.

Do any of you find huge advantages to 17" screens when playing RTS?

I'm on a 15" laptop for work most of the day, and this seems pretty small. But then again, it's old, and max res is 1024x768.

Would a 1900x1280 in the G51 make up for the 2 inches of screen size in a 17" that maxes at 1440x900?

 

get the G51 and buy a 20.5 inch acer extrenal screen for $200. That's my future plan.

 

15" is fine

17" would be nicer though

 

i love my 15 inch screen. i dont feel crippled at all by it. in fact, it is the perfect size, good portability, but not too small that i dont see things. of course, hopefully ill be switching all my gaming this christmas to a new desktop (minus team fortress 2 and WoW)

 

I think either would be fine, but I prefer 15" for the portability.

 

I like the size of the screen on my 17" better, but a 17" also supports much better hardware/gameplay potential imo.

 

The only reason I go for a 17" over 15" or 16" is for dual GPUs. Extra bulk's not worth it otherwise.

 

or better cooling, more hdd space, bigger processor, ect...but i guess those things don't matter.

 

I moved from a 12.1" screen in 1998 to a 15" screen in 2003 to a 17" screen in 2008...

When it came time to replace the Toshiba 5205-S119 in 2008, I really, really, really wanted to stick with a 15" screen...the 17" laptops had a large footprint compared to my Toshiba...unfortunately, the only 15" at that time that had a cutting edge video card (8800GTX, I believe) was the Alienware m15x which appeared to have some fit/finish issues according to the initial user reviews on this site...

I opted for the XPS m1710, and my initial response to a 17" laptop wasn't "WOW...check out the gaming on this thing"...it was "WOW...look at how huge this thing is"...I don't think the gaming, based on screen size, improved that much (however, I now had a better CPU, better GPU...so Far Cry ran much better on the new laptop than it did on the Toshiba 15"...but the step-up in screen size taken by itself wouldn't have been such an impact)...

On the other hand, I cart my 17" laptop everywhere I go (to work and back each day; vacations in planes, trains and automobiles; I'm trying to talk my wife into letting me take it to church), and I haven't pulled any back muscles or broke anything on the laptop carrying it around...and it has to go through an x-ray machine everyday at work...so, I personally don't think 17" is a huge inconvenience anymore...AND when I do pull out my Toshiba 15" laptop to find a file that I forgot to copy over, the 15" does appear very small now...

So, the point of my long-winded post is that you'll probably be happy with whatever you buy, but if you go 17", you may never be able to go back to a 15" and be happy...

And a higher resolution on a smaller laptop screen can be miserable to read text in some games...most productivity applications will allow you to increase the text size for readability, but some games will not...and you end up stuck with tiny, barely readable text when doing high resolution gaming...I had 1600x1200 on the 15" screen, and don't remember having a problem...but some people do...

I think your question was hinting at what I've heard called screen 'real estate'...screen 'real estate' for having multiple windows open or multiple toolbars in an application (Adobe Photoshop or Premiere) is pixel based not screen size based...screen size just makes a certain resolution 'bigger'...so, yes, you'll have more screen real estate on the 15" laptop at a higher native resolution, but it will come at the expense of legibility...

 

Well, of course they matter. But let's say I'm on a budget, and can't afford the behemoth that is your machine, Gamer (envious.i.am).

Let's say all things are about equal, as is case with G51 and G71. Still think 17" because of the screen size alone?

That's sort of what I'm asking, I guess.

 

You can get the 2 HDDs that most 17" gaming laptops offer, as well as the QX9300 in the G51 and it should handle the cooling of the GTX260M just fine...so no those things don't matter in this case.

If we're talking in general then more space does usually mean better cooling but it does not mean that a 15" chassis can not handle the cooling of the higher end cards or that every 17" chassis is designed well enough that it can. What's even better though is with cooler, lower powered, 40-nm GPUs about to hit real production that extra cooling more space provides may soon not even make much of an appreciable difference.

 

Doesnt make to much difference to me, we are only talking about acouple of inches, i like gaming on a 17", 16", and my current 15.4" screen, the important thing for me is the gaming, not acouple of inches, if we where talking about a jump of say 5"+ then its a different story.

 

If that's the case then it just comes down to personal preference, price, and portability. 17" are obviously larger an heavier and usually allow for an additional hard drive and/or second GPU.

Personally, with similar hardware and cost, I'd stick with 15" for portability. I found little to no difference using a 17" or 15" screen when gaming. At first I might have been "wow, this screen is big" but getting into the game, it really didn't matter.

 

Would have to be 17" every time for me. But if the 17" is a lower res than the 15" then not much in it really. I personally find the 17" great and I play a lot of rts games. You will probably love whichever one you go for mate!!

 

Go for the G51 simply because that Best Buy G71 for $1300 is a horrible deal now. When the G71 was at $1150, it was a steal though