HEL80 - Questios Before Purchase

I think I've decided to get a Compal HEL80. I do a lot of digital imaging/CAD work, in addition to gaming. I like the higher res matte screen available on this model. I would like it configured as follows:

Matte Screen 1680 x 1050
2.0ghz Core Duo (or Core 2 Duo if I wait for one)
2gb 667 ram
100gb 7200 HD
DVD R/W
Geforce 7600 256mb
wireless + bluetooth
*will install own OS

Before I find a reseller, I'd like to ask a few questions about this model.

1) It seems that the 7600 vid card is underclocked. How much slower (% fps) would this be for gaming compared to other 7600 or ATI x1600 models? If it really isn't all that much (10% or so) I wouldn't dwell on the issue.

2) Regardless, is it going to be much faster than my current desktop that I will be totally replacing. I have an Athalon XP 2800+ w/ 1gb RAM (ddr 3200), 80gb 7200 rpm HD, and Geforce 6600GT. I'm hoping that there is a substantial performace increase over my current system.

3) I may buy the system w/o the hard drive, DVD writter, and possibly the RAM as I can save some money buying those elsewere. I've always built my own desktops. Will it be particularly difficult to install these components myself? Will it void any warranty coverage from the reseller?

4) Similarly, I will install my own copy of XP-pro. Are there any specicial issues with installing an OS on a laptop that I should know about?

5) Will the beta release of VISTA run well on this machine? Or is that release fairly bug ridden?

6) How difficult would it be to upgrade the CPU to a faster core 2 duo in the future? I may take the CPU down to 1.83 ghz and upgrade to a faster CPU down the road.

Thank you

One more question:

7) Can the resolution be reduced when playing games to get better frame rates without causing graphical error/glitches, etc? I care more about having all effects going and getting high FPS over big resolution, although I do want the resolution for desktop applications.

 

1) I don't have the actual numbers, but this system games rather well. I don't think you'll lose out an awful amount of performance by choosing the HEL80. You can always overclock--which I've never felt the need to do personally.

2) It will be better, but it might not blow you away in terms of performance gains.

3) I would recommend paying the extra and getting a comprehensive warranty for the whole system. Otherwise you'll have to deal with multiple warranties should a problem arise. A single warranty from a reputable reseller will cover all components should something fail.

4) I've done it. It's very straight-forward.

5) I've heard that the current Vista beta is still quite buggy. I personally won't even look at Vista until SP1 or so next year some time.

6) It won't be difficult, but I'd say buy the CPU you're going to keep for the life of the system. Otherwise you end up buying 2 processors, and if you want to keep the warranty going you'll have to pay for 2-way shipping/installation fee on top of the second processor. The performance gain won't be enough to spend say $400+ on it.

7) Yes you can game at lower resolutions. I believe that the detail/shadow/texture settings are what taxes the GPU more than the resolution though. I game at native and at pretty high settings without problems so far but I haven't tried any of the super-demanding games yet. You'd probably need to pull back some for those.

 

Chrisyano, since you responded so thoroughly I have a couple other questions:

8) How have you found the "key board" flex to be? If is bothersome enough to need fixing? This will be my first laptop so the keyboard will likely need some getting used to regardless of how it operates.

9) In general, are LCD moniters as bad as they were a few years ago for FPS gaming? I remember they used to blur pretty badly.

Thanks

 

The 6600GT is a strong card. I don't think you are going to see much of an increase in video performance.

The vast majority of people overestimate the amount of processing power they need. Get a Core 2 Duo to begin with - the T5600 (1.83GHz) is a good value.

You can check out our review of the Compal HEL80 here:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3060&review=Compal

 

8) This is probably the biggest issue that most have with this system and the HGL30. The keyboard does have some flex/bounce to it--although I don't feel like it's unusable.

Most laptops have flex in their keyboards--you can go to a local PC shop and play with their laptops and see what I mean. This one may be slightly bouncier though--but I have no problem typing on it.

I personally do not like to type on the laptop keyboard, so I will always use an external keyboard and mouse with my system unless I have no alternative. As for the bounce, many have added some dual-sided tape to take a way a lot of the bounce.

9) I have a 4-year old LCD (desktop monitor) that is fine with FPS gaming. I also have an LCD from a laptop made in '99--so I think I know what you're getting at. FPS gaming on my HEL80 is fine--it doesn't have any ghosting issues while playing.

 

They're close - in most cases less than 10% in actual games. In synthetic benchmarks, it may be more substantial in favor of ATI, but when's the last time you played 3DMark?

It's probably not going to be as substantial as you might thing. Both the 7600 and 6600 utilize a 128-bit memory bus so that's the main limiting factor on both these GPUs. However, the 7600 is more efficient and will scale better with the faster CPU you'll be getting. If you stick with the same resolutions/detail levels you're using on your desktop machine, you should see some nice gains.

They're quite easy to install, but I still wouldn't recommend it for the reasons given by other posters. What you may save in up-front costs, you could end up paying for in wasted time and money down the road should something go wrong.

Nope. Just make sure you download all the necessary drivers for the machine (chipset, video, sound, LAN, wireless, etc).

Results are really mixed at this point. If you want to play with Vista, install it as a dual boot with XP. Create two partitions on your hard drive, install XP on the primary/C: and Vista on the logical/D:.

If you buy from Powernotebooks.com, you can purchase a Core 2 Duo from them at a later date, ship your notebook to them, and they'll install/test it. It will then be covered as part of your whole system. I plan on doing this once Vista has matured and the prices of the Core 2s has come down a bit.

NVIDIA's Forceware drivers have a very handy feature called "fixed aspect ratio scaling." If you're running a game and want to use a lower resolution, say 1280x800, you can do so and the display will scale appropriately, avoiding the ugly pixel interpolation that typically occurs when running an LCD at its non-native resolution. Two things that occur when using this option 1) you will see black bars along the left and right sides of the monitor at lower resolutions and 2) this option is not available via the drivers if you hook up an external display because the VGA out is analog, not DVI.

 

Thank you all for your posts. Another couple questions

10) If I had a random CRT or other LCD monitor, can I connect only to that (having nothing on the laptop LCD) and use the resolution ranges available to that monitor?

11) I've heard good things about the matte screen on the HEL 80. Is the color saturation/contrast fairly close to a CRT display (I realize it likely isn't as good). I'm going to be doing a fair amount of digital editing work, and I'd like to get the monitor fairly well calibrated and have a good range of color/contrast.

 

10. If you'd like, it's certainly possible.

11. I have the matte screen and I'm -very- happy with it. Comparing it to my old 19" CRT, this one is alot more crisp and the colors seem more vivid (when I jack the brightness up to 50%+ at least )

 

That's exactly what I do. I have my machine on a shelf with the lid closed (make sure you set in Windows power options for the machine to do nothing when you close the lid) and my Dell 2005 FPW hooked up to the VGA-out. Since the Dell and the laptop have the same native resolution (1680x1050), I simply set the drivers to clone my laptop display to the external monitor. It made setup a breeze. That's a big factor as to why I chose NVIDIA over ATI. ATI's multi-monitor support via their drivers is awful. I always had to use a 3rd-party program. No such deal with NVIDIA.