Looking to get a new Lotus, some Q's

I am looking at the P150HM

15.6" 1920 x 1080 FHD LED AUO B156HW01 V.4 95% NTSC Matte Display
i7-2670QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.2-3.1GHz
(8GB) 8192MB, PC3-10660/1333MHz DDR3 - 2 SO-DIMM (Is this worth upgrading to 1600?)

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560M 1.5GB GDDR5 (Can I upgrade this to something better later?) (Will this allow me to play BF3 at least medium settings?)

500GB 7200rpm 2.5" SATA 300 ( will probably put my gen 2 160gb intel SSD in the primary)

Intel® 6300 Ultimate-N 802.11A/B/G/N LAN Card (is this worth upgrading to?)


Thanks for any help/advice given...

 

No, not really worth upgrading to 1600.

Yes you can upgrade to something better later. It should allow you to play BF3 at decent settings.

And if you don't want or need BT, then go ahead and upgrade to the 6300 if you have a wireless router that can output 300-450MBps. Otherwise stick with the 6230.

Mr. Mysterious

 

If i start with the 560m, am I limited to nvidia upgrades only? Also, from past experiences, do they release new video cards that are backwards compatible for these systems?

 

Switch to the 2630QM, the 2670QM isn't worth $50. It's only a 7% difference.

 

If you're planning to upgrade, I'd consider buying the card you actually want up front. While the MXM standard allows you swap out cards -they tend to run $500+ for a new one. If you only want the 560m, go with the P151HM1 to save money. If you want something more powerful, the 485m in the P150HM will be nearly 2x faster for almost half the price of buying a new card down the road.

The MXM standard may change in the future though, which will limit upgrade paths. There is no way to know if or when this will happen though.

 

if that is the case, would i not get more performance out of the 6990m for the same money?

 

Go with the Radeon HD 6990M. It gets ~5% less FPS than the GTX 580M in games but is offered at the same price of the GTX 485M. More bang for the buck. ATI driver support is suspect at times but has greatly improved in recent years.

 

Given that the upgrade is $245, that would be the case. If you are on a tight budget, and your topmost priority is gaming, I'd suggest downgrading the CPU to the 2630 and opting for the 6990m, as the graphics card is the main determinant of gaming performance.

 

Last Q, i was reading somewhere that the V7 glossy looks a lot better than the v4 matte. is that really the case? I will be using the laptop indoors mainly in hotel rooms as i travel. Does the v7 reflect really bad or is it minimal?

 

V7 reflects really bad.

I've used both, I like the V4, as I can't see myself in the screen even at the lowest brightness settings..

 

I'm not sure about the V7 but if it's similar to the stock screen there is a pretty large amount of glare. I didn't get the upgrade initially to allow my budget to get the 6990m and a SSD main drive. Through many hours of research I've discovered that its BY FAR much cheaper to get the vid card you really want right away, the other parts can be self upgraded for about the same as the original upgrade costs. If I swap to the AU V5 matte i'll be out about $200 and still have the original screen for backup.

 

I am currently also looking into getting my first malibal. Basically for AutoCAD and decent gaming. I don't think you'll be disappointed with any of the options they have in the configuration menu.