The first Laptop comes from Dell. It’s the Dell XPS M1530. I have an older model of this laptop currently myself and can speak from personal experience. (which I’ll touch upon after going over some highlights and specs of the M1530. The Dell XPS M1530 is an ultra light, under 6 lbs, ultra powerful, and stylish gaming laptop. It comes from their online store and can be viewed here: http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_m1530?c=us&l;=en&s;=dhs&cs;=19&~oid=us~en~29~xpsnb_m1530_anav1~~
It is as Dell says “designed for hardcore gaming”. It’s system specs are as follows:
Intel Core DUO X2 T6400 2.0ghz/800mhz.
15.4 inch high resolution lcd monitor
Built in camera and speakers/mic
4 GB ram
128 MB nvidea geforce 8400M GS
High Definition Audio 2.0
320GB harddrive
Bottomline: $899.00
This laptop has a HUGE hard drive for a mobile system. Enough space to hold tons of games.
It’s monitor is large enough to enjoy gameplay but not so large that it becomes too large for travel
Plenty of ram to play all of today’s top games.
A great videocard. This is the cheapest xps to use the nvidea card instead of just the intel intergrated graphics cards. Those others that use the intergrated graphics will not be able to run many, if any of the current games on the market. Making this xps the cheapest true “gaming laptop”
I have this laptop’s kissing cousin. the M1710. Mine is an older out of manufacturing model. But mine still plays many great games such as World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI Online, Neverwinter Nights, Warcraft, Petz, Fallout Three and more.
I’ve had this xps for over 2 years now and it is still functioning great. I can garuntee that the new Dell XPS will be with you for many many years if you take care of it and treat it right.
Dell also offers great discounts for students or many businesses. They also offer their own line of financing which you can apply for on the site.
Dell’s Customer Service is also outstanding. They will come right to your house to fix any issues you may have. I actually had another XPS sometime before I had this one. It was my first laptop, and the Gen one XPS – the old 12 pound one that was more like a small coffee table than a laptop, lol. But About 2 years ago, it went belly up. Dell was stumped and unable to fix it, so they shipped me my new, upgraded, newer model, xps free as a replacement. Dell has a long record of customer satisfaction which makes them number one.
The new XPS models are very attractive and you can even pay extra now to have custom skins and paintjobs like alot of the more expensive competitors offer.
The Dell XPS is my pick for the most affordable gaming laptop.
And it appears many others share my opinion as this model is rated 4.5 out of 5 stars in customer reviews.
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Let’s look at some of the other affordable gaming laptops. Next up we will take a look at the Asus G50Vt-X5 Being sold right now by Best Buy for $899.00 http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9173262&type;=product&id;=1218044029168
My mom had an Asus a few years back that she bought 2nd hand and she really seemed to enjoy it. This system not only has great specs but looks really cool too with a lightning bolt theme paintjob.
- Processor Platform Intel® Centrino® 2
- Processor Intel® Core™2 Duo Mobile
- Processor Speed 2.13GHz
- Display Type WXGA widescreen with 1366 x 768 resolution
- Screen Size 15.6″
- System Bus 1066MHz
- Cache Memory 3MB on die Level
- System Memory (RAM) 4GB
- Type of Memory (RAM) PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM
- Hard Drive Type Serial ATA (7200 rpm)
- Hard Drive Size
- 320GB
- Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GS
- Video Memory 512MB GDDR3
And it like the last laptop that we looked at also sports a built in webcam. However it does not have the High Def sound card. Which could be a huge draw back for some gamers
The two systems are very similar. They share same ram, graphics card, and hard drive sizes. And they are both the same price. This system is another Fan favorite 4.7 out of 5 stars. Being so close in spec to the Dell Xps I would go with the dell over this one just due to their amazing customer service. I have not had much experience personally with the asus gaming laptops, nor their customer service.
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Moving on, the next laptop we’ll take a look at is the Toshiba Satellite P300-ST6711
This laptop is slightly more expensive thana the last two but has a few nice improvements over them. It is being sold directly from toshiba’s website: http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cdetland.to?poid=433646
The first noteable difference is the increased screen size. This laptop features a 17 inch screen, while the prior 2 only had a 15 inch monitor size. However, it has some drawbacks as well. The default configuration only has one gb of ram this is not enough to play most games. However you can upgrade to as much as 4gb for under 50 dollars. Most games still run fine on the minimum of 2 gb of ram. The other drawback is that this model only has 160gb harddrive. Still plenty of space for games, but not as large as the previous 2 systems that we’ve looked at.
However, their is one very nice advantage over this one and the others, and that is the graphics card is upgradeable to the 1GB model as opposed to the 512MB models in the prior two systems. The price I’ve quoted in this article, includes the 1GB videocard in the pricequote. So add on some extra ram and maybe invest in an external harddrive later down the road, and you have yourself a rockin’ system for still under $1,000.
System spec breakdown:
- Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T6400 (2.00GHz, 2MB L2, 800MHz FSB)
- Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium (SP1, 32-Bit version)
- Microsoft® Office Ready with Microsoft Office Professional 2007 60-day Trial Edition
- 4096MB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SDRAM (2048MBx2)
- 17.0″ Diagonal Widescreen WXGA+ TruBrite® display (1440×900)
- ATI MOBILITY RADEON™ H4650 with 1GB DDR3 discrete graphics plus up to 255MB shared memory using ATI HyperMemory™ technology
- 160GB HDD (5400rpm, Serial-ATA)
- No Secondary Hard Drive Installed
- DVD SuperMulti (+/-R double layer) drive
- Intel® WiFi Link 5100AGN (802.11a/g/n)
- No Bluetooth (No Antenna)
- Lithium Ion battery (6-Cell, 4000mAh)
- 1 Year Standard Limited Warranty
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Three down, two to go! The next system we’ll look at is not necessarily “under 1,000” but it is close. Clocking in just over the 1,000 dollar mark (about $1,013) the next system is the highly acclaimed, award winning Alienware . Voted the best 15 inch gaming laptop in both 2008 and 2009. And highly covetted by gamers across the globe. Every gamer worth their salt, knows about Alienware. Just looking at this puppy to write this article made me lustful with envy and capitalistic want.
It looks cool, is fully customizable, lights up, and performs like a dream.
Here are it’s system specs:
- Intel® Core™2 Duo Processors (6MB Cache, 800MHz FSB)
- Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processors (6MB Cache, 800MHz FSB)
- Intel® GM965 Chipset
- Up to 8GB Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
- 2 dedicated SO-DIMM slots for Dual Channel DDR2 Memory
Graphic Card Choices include:
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- 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
- 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT
- 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GT
- NVIDIA Quadro FX Series
Powerful mobile solution for the advanced 3D creative professional.- 512MB NVIDIA Quadro FX 3600M
500 GB harddrive, more than enough room to store all of your favorite games.
Built in wireless
1200 DPI screen resolution with 2.0Megapixel Webcam.
This thing is lightning fast and will be the envy of everyone in the neighborhood. The drawback is the pricetag and alot of what you pay for is just “Fluff” like the customizability, casing, and name recongnition. Alienware was bought out a few years back by Dell. So you can expect the same great customer service from them as you can from Dell.
I was thinking of buying a desktop station next month, but honestly, now that I’ve seen this machine, I may go for this instead. It is just one sexy laptop all around.
Just take a look at the pictures on the Alienware site and you will see what I mean!
http://www.alienware.com/products/area-51-m15x-notebook.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AREA51M15X-AI1&SubCode;=SKU-DEFAULT
—————-Last but not least, my final pick for affordable gaming laptop is the cheapest but one of the most powerful laptops we will look at in this article. It is the Xplorer X5-2900. By a little known company called Cyber Power. It’s case design may be plain, but it does come in seven different colors. And even though it may not look it on the outside, this baby has alot going on where it counts, on the inside. Delivering the best performance per dollar of any of the laptops we have reviewed tonight.
It’s price? Just a mere $759 USD. It’s specs? Well See for yourself:
- Notebook: MSI MS-1651 Notebook 15.4″ WXGA 1280×800 Pixels w/ NVIDIA® Geforce 9600M-GT 512MB VRAM, 2.0 Megapixels Webcam, Built-in Bluetooth, Support Intel Penryn Socket P Mobile Processors, & Supports PCI-Express mini card
- NOTEBOOK COLOR: MSI MS-1651 Notebook Cover (Original Color)
- DISPLAY LCD: 15.4″ WXGA TFT LCD Display 1280 x 800 Pixels
- CPU: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Mobile T6400 Dual-Core Processor @ 2.0GHz 800FSB 2MB L2 Cache
- MOTHERBOARD: Intel® PM45 + ICH9-M Chipset Mainboard
- MEMORY: 4GB (2x2GB) PC6400 DDR2-800 SODIMM Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
- VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA® GeForce GO 9600M-GT 512MB Video
- HARD DRIVE: 250GB 5400RPM SATA150 HARD DRIVE
That’s alot of power for a very low price! This deal is not to be missed! You can visit Cyberpower to learn more:
http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Xplorer_X5-2900_Notebook/
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In closing I would also like to mention that many deals and promotions are always arising and if you’re in the market for an affordable gaming laptop all you need to do is keep your eyes peeled and keep looking. Don’t get hung up on brand name, afterall, everyone starts somewhere. Do your homework and read alot of customer reviews and get opinions from people you know who may have had a few different laptops. You can also find good deals sometimes on used laptops on places like ebay or by going to expo conventions and electronic stores and the like.
