P150HM Advice

Price target ~$2000
Usage: Law school note taking, Coding/productivity software/VM (but usually will be logged in remotely to work), Gaming

Looking for a replacement for an XPS 1530 that is starting to show hard disk and video card issues... I'm horrified it might die during an exam. Looking to buy for delivery before May 1 (before exams) or before Aug 1 (before next semester). Biggest requirement is at least 1920x1080 (I wish I could still get 1920x1200) on the display.

In terms of gaming I mainly play SC2 and my current machine I have to run lowish settings and even then I have lost games due to low fps in big battles. Also play Civ 5 and looking to get Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 and Diablo 3. Might play some FPS as well.

First big question, is the hassle of installing OS and drivers worth the money I could save on getting Win 7 cheaper? How hard are the drivers to find etc... I would probably end up needing Ultimate.

Would I need to upgrade the processor for any reason?
I'm strongly considering the hybrid drive option for speed/size mix, but I probably only need 250g-320g so 500 is pretty big for me.
Assuming that thermal compound is a definite yes?

I'm willing to return it if I have a dead pixel so no need for warranty?

Any reason to upgrade wireless card?
No need for blu-ray (PS3 does that fine) unless the drive is superior?
Any reason to get more than 8gb ram?
Should I pony up for the 485M or wait for the AMD option that seems to be much cheaper?

Any other major releases to wait for before buying?

Thanks everyone for your advice. With the 485M, its going just a bit higher in price than I wanted but depending on advice I might suck it up. Rather not be frustrated with my new toy...

 

I'll try and answer these in order

The drivers are not hard to install and can be gotten on the clevo or sager website, and any good reseller should be providing the driver disk anyway for you to install drivers if you get an OS or not. Besides that its a standard OS install.

On the processor the 2630QM does NOT have VT-d extensions nor does it have AES-new instructions which the 2720QM+ have so if you are running VM's its something to consider. Also to consider that the dual-cores will be out in February which will have faster base clocks (Up to 2.7ghz) and will also support VT-d for VM work, but has 2 less physical cores, so its a tradeoff there.

Thermal compound is always a good thing to improve on from stock

Wireless only if you want or can use dual-band access points, as the stock wireless is 2.4ghz only while the upgrade is dual-band 2.4/5ghz so if the 5 is available you can use it, and with more throughput on the intel card if hooked to the right AP you can get better speeds. Not a bad way to spend $25ish

8GB+ RAM only if you do heavy VM work
the 485 is your call, the AMD card that will be coming out won't have the same performance as the 485 it'll be less, but it'll be cheaper, it should be inbetween the 460 and 485 performance levels. So its worth checking out if you have some time to spare.

Thanks

 

I'm surprised they're cutting corners at this price point--

 

I got mine for 1400 euros. It has the 460M, 8 gigs of RAM, 500GB HDD and the 2720QM CPU. For the things i need it (gaming and doing projects for my university) the laptop as is, is an amazing performer. I play CoD BO at 1920x1080 with everything on high, AA and stuff and i get more than 45fps. The 485M GPU is amazing. I would have bought mine with that GPU if it was available in Greece.

So here go my advices:

-Go for the 485, it is currently the faster mobile GPU.

-Do not specify a very fast and expensive CPU, the 2720QM or the 2820QM are fine.

-Upgrade the memory to 8 or 16 gigs

-As for the thermal compound, mine has the stock and it runs quite cool

-And as to whether you should get it with the os pre-installed that's up to you.

 

The drivers are not hard to install and can be gotten on the clevo or sager website, and any good reseller should be providing the driver disk anyway for you to install drivers if you get an OS or not. Besides that its a standard OS install.

- I guess then I have to check how much the OS will cost me (definitely not going to be worth it on an hourly rate analysis )

On the processor the 2630QM does NOT have VT-d extensions nor does it have AES-new instructions which the 2720QM+ have so if you are running VM's its something to consider. Also to consider that the dual-cores will be out in February which will have faster base clocks (Up to 2.7ghz) and will also support VT-d for VM work, but has 2 less physical cores, so its a tradeoff there.

- Did not know this, but most apps don't multithread well enough to take advantage of all 4 cores anyway, how will the price differ if you know? I'm also not familiar enough with next gen games to know the performance differences but I do remember that dual cores usually do give you a lot more battery life...

Thermal compound is always a good thing to improve on from stock

Wireless only if you want or can use dual-band access points, as the stock wireless is 2.4ghz only while the upgrade is dual-band 2.4/5ghz so if the 5 is available you can use it, and with more throughput on the intel card if hooked to the right AP you can get better speeds. Not a bad way to spend $25ish

- Since I have a 5ghz router I'm glad I asked... Didn't notice that.

8GB+ RAM only if you do heavy VM work
the 485 is your call, the AMD card that will be coming out won't have the same performance as the 485 it'll be less, but it'll be cheaper, it should be inbetween the 460 and 485 performance levels. So its worth checking out if you have some time to spare.

- Should the AMD card come out before March?

 

Hey,

The BEST dualcore that you will be able to buy is currently forcasted to be a bit cheaper than the base quad core price, so the lesser dual-cores will be even cheaper. We'll have the pricing up on our site early feb for pre-orders. The OS should be in the neighborhood of $100 for Home premium give or take $10-15 depending on who from. When the AMD part comes out? We are hearing it should be out by then, but that's all speculation as we don't know other than its in development right now.

Glad we could help.

 

Thanks!

Will probably wait 1-2 months then!