The Best Laptops for Gaming 2012

Posted on Notebook | February 10, 2012 by compunet

Most hard-core gamers know the best way to attack online is through a desktop machine with all the bells and whistles, but sometimes you just have to take your game on the road. Whether travelling for business or pleasure, very few serious game players want to leave their online experience behind and look for portability that will allow them the best experience. Some of the things to look for in a gaming laptop include:

• Frame rate
• Processor
• Graphic card
• Memory
• Monitor size
• Battery life
• Overall weight
• Price

At minimum, for a good gaming experience, a frame rate of at least 30 frames per second will be needed. Otherwise the action will seem slow or jerky. Some of the better gaming machines will have a frame per second rate of over 50. Some of the better machines that come with enough punch to fight through many of the action games come equipped with a smaller monitor, such as 13-inches, but ideally a 17-inch monitor is about the smallest you should accept.

With the size of CPUs and GPUs requiring a lot of power, battery life becomes important in your choice of equipment. Carrying around one or two spare batteries may be an option, but finding a machine with an 8-hour battery life will serve you better. Weight is also a consideration, but maybe not one of the top ones. Perhaps more so is the choice of a graphic card, processor, and the amount of memory since all the new games and MMORPGs require a powerful machine that can run all those 3D effects and heavy graphics smoothly. Finding a machine that includes all of the best attributes that fits into your budget can be challenge but not one that can’t be overcome.

Some of the top machines for gamers include:

Dell Inspiron 17R provides top 3D performance with an Nvidia GeForce GT 525M chip. It provides control over virtual media and its appearance helps cement its place as a viable replacement for a desktop PC game unit for slightly over $1,000.

The Acer Aspire AS383OTG-6431 also uses an Nvidia GT 540M graphics chip and is considered one of the most powerful portables on the market. It also is powered by enough battery life to keep you in the game for up to six hours at a budget-pleasing price of about $750.

As a replacement for a laptop for under $1,000, the Asus K535V-B1 offer quad-core Intel Core i7 processor and Nvidia GeForce graphics to keep you ahead of all the action.

With a higher price tag, the Acer Aspire AS8950G-9839 has a huge 1080p screen with built-ini Blu Ray drive with excellent sound reproduction. It is driven by an AMD Radeon HD 6850M processor with higher frame rates than many within the same $1,500 price range.

Another system for under $1,000, the Dell XPS 15z offers many of the same features, speed and overall power that many of the higher-priced units provide. It has been compared to the Apple MacBook Pro 15-ich, but at considerably less expense.

One of the lowest priced models, at around $800, the Samsung QX411-W01 that is equipped with an extended battery life with a Nvidia GT 520M that works well with many popular games, but falls short when playing many of the higher end games on the market. For those sticking with most of the more popular titles, it will keep them in the game without a lot going out of pocket.

The post is a contribution by Ilya Elbert who writes for several Small Business IT Support and Computer Fixing companies and blogs about computer-user related issues.

Tagged with : Gaming Notebook