Gaming vs. Mobility

I want to buy a gaming laptop but I'm a bit worried about mobility since I want to work (not play games) while traveling every week.
Then I was told that some Vaio FW series has 2 video cards, one for gaming and other with poor performance and low consumption and that we could switch between the two. I couldn't find this. Is that true?

If its not, is there a solution or am I doomed to have only 45 minutes of Excel?

Or all this is bull because processors and video cards consume less power if I'm not playing? (so I will have 2,5 hours of Excel or 45 min of Fallout 3)

Thank you!

 

My laptop's in my sig, and I don't find it a burden to carry around to class at all. I hear people say that anything above a 14" is way too heavy and bulky, but I disagree. I know my rig's outdated, but the 8600M GT has pretty good performance.

 

Yes, some gaming laptops have a dedicated & integrated GPU, one for gaming & the other for battery life.

 

Some notebooks do have "hybrid graphics" (their catchphrase for it), but the mid-range graphics cards (9600M GT/Radeon HD 3650 and equivalents) aren't giant battery-suckers by any stretch of the imagination.
ATi and Nvidia both have technologies to downclock and downvolt GPUs when they aren't needed - not unlike your modern CPU, just with less stages.
It's only when you get to the enthusiast/high-end graphics cards that you find 12-cell batteries that barely last 90 minutes.

Personally, I'm still able to squeeze 3 hours of battery life out of my year-old 8-cell battery.

 

LOL, i thought of something how about buying a netbook and a gaming laptop? go gateway gaming laptop and a netbook. gaming laptops to be considered good take up 15" up.

 

Hybrid graphics is the key to having performance and battery life although it's not a very widespread technology yet. However, depending on your level of "gaming", you can simply go for a mid-range GPU. That way, you can still game and have decent battery life.

 

Gaming on battery is not really a good idea, but I suppose if you're desperate... I can easily get 2 hours out of my G50Vt (with 9800 GS) surfing the internet on the stock 6-cell and decent brightness. With an extended 9-cell, I could probably get 3 hours. How much runtime do you need for office stuff?

 

my issue with gaming on battery is that the laptop (M17x) won't suck as much battery power as it should. i want 30 mins of full-performance gaming IF i am gaming on batteries but it lowers power consumption to GPU (and CPU i think) even if my power setting is "high-performance".

i'd disable SLI if i wanted more battery life. (specs are in sig.)

 

Thank you guys.
I travel for 5 hours twice every weekend so the more batt time I get the better...

I'm not a hardcore gamer but I'm also not from US, I'm going there and then I'll have the opportunity to buy a notebook for a good price, so this note will stay with me for a long time, like 4 years. So it has to have good specs. I'm interested on those Asus with the Geforce GTX 260M.

Another disadvantage of not being from US is that I'm store options limited. I cannot buy online since most of sites doesn't accept international credit cards and I don't know what stores you have there. I stick with bestbuy. So if you know some good model that I can buy in Orlando/Miami please let me know. I'm willing to pay 1100 to 1300.

For the same reason I think I'm not finding any notebook with hybrid graphics to buy.

Buying a netbook is an option to consider buy I think I must have the notebook for a while before buying a netbook. And netbooks are easier to get here so I can buy later.

 

Well if you want battery life the G51 wouldn't exactly be the good choice since I think you can't milk more than 2 hours on that thing while doing regular tasks.

Is the need immediate? I ask because Nvidia and ATI will be coming out with 40nm GPUs soon(end of the year at the earliest) and some of those(the GDDR5 128bit ones) are said to be a good compromise between performance and lower power consumption.

 

You may want to make a post on the "Which Notebook Should I Buy"
Link

Also, if there is a microcenter near where you're going, definitely stop buy to take a look there as well.

This one will give you power (260m), but little battery (~ 1:50). However, if you get this you could also get a netbook with it for battery, but very little power.

 

Yes, I'll be there in October
I think 2.5 hours would be good for a gaming laptop but I don't think it can live for this long, does it?
If I could get 2-2.5 hours maybe I could buy another battery...

 

My laptop (In Signature) is great for casual gaming, but for traveling it isn't that good but you won't feel uncomfortable

 

If you're not buying until Oct you have a chance that the new 40nm products will be out. Don't get fixated on any current models because October is still a long ways away.

If by the grace of god the 4860 becomes available, or even the new 40nm Nvidia lineup, your prayers will be a lot closer to being answered.

 

Please ignore all the "anything over X lbs" or "any graphics card over Y" arguements.

Note the higher end GPUs do indeed suck power, but I have never had an office app that wouldn't run in the 2hrs of battery life my G50VT gets with a 6-cell battery.

Anything 17" or smaller is plenty portable enough for most healthy people, but I would say that 15" is a great mid-size and mid-power laptop.

I encourage you to actually heft these laptops at a local retailer and try them... honestly you will find the the weight is completely not relevant to anything save people trying to have "better" numbers. What will matter is where you can fit the laptop, and what you are comfy with as to USING the laptop.

For instance I went from a 17" to a 15"... and while 2lbs lighter... I don't even notice the weight...
I DO notice the ability to fit it in server room cradles/shelves easier however.

 

If I can put it in my bag, it's mobile.

 

If you can use a good rucksack that is designed for laptops then you won't notice the weight much.

In my opinion you sacrifice far too much power, performance, usability and so much more when you opt to use a Netbook. I think the 15'' NP8662 is the perfect compromise between performance and portability, you could undervolt to save power and change power settings to save even more, for example how the hard disk spins etc.

Also you can simply buy an extra battery for emergencies.

 

Xps 13"

 

Yeah, I don't care about weight and size, I know I'm gonna get something from 15" to 17".

I hope something better comes up until the beginning of October but I don't think it will. Until now I think those Asus G51 and G71 are the best options (for $1000-1300 laptops).

 

Asus G51 makes me nervous with its standard 90C+ GPU load temps.