Spec me a gaming laptop with emphasis on silence and weight

[Carlosis]

I had already replied to this but looks like a mod deleted it? no idea why, it wasn't anything negative or even mention other companies, weird.

Let me know how it fairs when chucking hefty games at it regardless. I didn't think about the panels being pre installed so it's good PCS aren't at fault there.

I've been shopping about today but literally every other website that have either prebuilt or custom options always work out so much more expensive than PCS. I'm just going to have to patiently wait and get the finance sorted, it's more an issue with Hitachi than PCS it seems but there's some cross over there that caused the issue. I just have that big purchase excited child rush going on that won't go away till i have a new laptop

 

[n1ghtwish]

Anything in particular you want me to test out? I can take requests

 

[Carlosis]

Anything you have that's pretty intensive really. I'm sure you'll be fine blasting all the settings up though.

How are you finding it now you've had it a bit longer? any other thoughts or niggles? apart from the bleed how is the screen at displaying movies and games etc? i won't be getting the IPS version so i guess the feedback won't be totally valid.

 

[Rakk]

I had already replied to this but looks like a mod deleted it? no idea why, it wasn't anything negative or even mention other companies, weird.

It wasn't deleted, it had just been automatically been put in the moderation queue and was waiting approval (I've no idea why it decided to auto-moderate it - it looked fine to me, sometimes it just does when everything looks fine )

 

[n1ghtwish]

Anything you have that's pretty intensive really. I'm sure you'll be fine blasting all the settings up though.

How are you finding it now you've had it a bit longer? any other thoughts or niggles? apart from the bleed how is the screen at displaying movies and games etc? i won't be getting the IPS version so i guess the feedback won't be totally valid.

Dying Light, Metro Last Light Redux both playing admirably well as you can imagine with the 980M.

I am trying to get used to the screen, it doesn't seem quite as good in terms of motion response as my current monitor, which is a Samsung S27B970D (PLS LED). I get a little "blurring" in fast action (yes, Motion Blur is disabled ), but I'm sure I could get used to that, and it's not terrible to me. It's better than I had on my previous monitor which was an NEC 24WMGX3.

I played an episode of The 100 on it, looked good to me, colour balance looked right, I had the brightness on about 80-85% of maximum for general usage.

To be honest it's a powerful beast of a machine and mine seems well made, I think the panel let's it down a little though for a gaming machine. Does anyone know what panel it's using? For me it's the weakest point of the unit. It does look fantastic in general Windows usage though.

Having used the 15" for a couple of days I would also add that you will appreciate a 17" screen for gaming on, it won't be as "portable" but you can still lug it about, and the extra screen real estate will definitely be worth it. How good the panels are on the 17" version I have no idea though!

 

[Carlosis]

That's a shame about the panel, although by the sounds of it if you have a dedicated snazzy external monitor it'll pale in comparison somewhere. I'm not much of an AV nerd either so not sure i'd see much difference either. Could be interesting to see if the case is compatible with other panels further down the road.

 

[n1ghtwish]

It's a reasonably nice external monitor, but actually itself not a gaming focused one, for those a lot of people would probably say to look at the TN 120hz ones, or at least to check the response times are low enough to not add noticeable blur or motion issues. Panel tech is still improving though, I'd like a TV with OLED display but they are still very expensive and an immature tech, but give the best black levels.

The panels used in these laptops are a bit of a mystery though, it would be great if they confirmed what the panel was so that you could find out more about it's specs, the quality of the screen is very important when it comes to laptops.

 

[n1ghtwish]

Some more updates from me. My laptop is being picked up tomorrow.

The 1080p IPS panel appears to be this one: http://www.panelook.com/LP156WF4-SLB5_LG Display_15.6_LCM_overview_18872.html - it's listed in device manager as LGD037E - it has a 35ms response time which may explain why I could notice some (not much!) ghosting on it. It's not terrible by any means, just something I could pick up on.

The 17" version, which is non-IPS 1080p LED Matte, appears to be this display: http://www.panelook.com/N173HGE-L11_Innolux_17.3_LCM_overview_12343.html - which is an Innolux, model CMO1720. This won't have as nice viewing angles, or even contrast ratio, but the response times look better. It says 2/6 which I think refers to black/grey response times in ms. From what I can tell this Innolux panel is used in a lot of the Asus, MSI laptops etc.

I am seriously considering downing my budget a bit and getting the Optimus VI instead. The 17" one can be had with i5, 960M, 8GB RAM for just under £700. http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/optimusVI-17/FwHZBVNBaz/

This won't play as well as the 980M would, but it's a bigger display, and should play most games reasonably well, at a very reasonable cost. My fav game right now is EU4 which probably doesn't need the extra grunt of the 980M, I will probably be playing more Diablo 3 soon as well which is a similar thing, should run fine on 960M.

 

[Carlosis]

Oh really? So the screen is that much of a deal breaker. I trust you're overall still happy with everything else though? See I'm more concerned of overall colour profiles than response times as I don't think I'd notice it. Viewing angles aren't an issue either way. I'm still going to opt for the 17" with the 980M as all the games I intend to play will be pretty intensive (Fallout 4 being the star here). I just need to order it asap so I can get any issues resolved early before leaving for tour.

 

[n1ghtwish]

Hey Carlosis,

Yes, I consider the screen to be very important, maybe I place too much emphasis on it but it's a very key component for me. The rest of the laptop was fine though, keyboard was nice to use, trackpad was fine, it was a little noisy when playing things but wasn't awful or anything (fans spinning up when playing games for example). I could not really fault anything else.

If all I was doing was browsing and general windows stuff then this IPS screen would be great, nice viewing angles etc, but for gaming I suspect the 17" TN panels will be better at handling motion. They can both suffer from backlight bleed though, really wish they would correct this problem more carefully but guess it would up costs if they did.

 

[Carlosis]

So did you send this back in the end?

After 2 weeks of frustration getting this finance balls sorted out, on my third attempt at ordering it it's finally been accepted/processed. I anticipate problems once i get it also but if there's nothing wrong with it i'll be amazed and very very happy. Now i wait for about 2 weeks i guess, it'll be worth it i hope.

 

[n1ghtwish]

Hi Carlosis,

Yes I did send it back. They stated the Backlight bleed was within tolerance (how can this even be measured for tolerance, I don't think so. It's an opinion. I posted the pics a page or two back, what do you think?).

They refuse to see it as a fault and will take £35 off my refund to cover courier costs as I can get a refund without reason having returned it quickly enough. If this was a £300 laptop I would probably not care, but it's not. The screen does not match the components for quality.

They also said that the laptop had a small scratch on the underside of the chassis, blamed me for it (I didn't knowingly cause it or see it whilst it was in my possession, so they want to charge me £30 to replace that). They have no proof it was me, I can't prove it wasn't them either. If I had damaged it I would admit fault and pay, but I am not happy to pay this given they sat on my returned laptop for over a week I think before coming back to me about it.

I've had a couple of emails back and forth with them about it, but I am still in limbo.

I am not unreasonable but they are not budging or compromising here, so this is ongoing. My last email to them was dated on the 9th and they haven't replied since then. They still have the laptop and the money.

Good times!

 

[n1ghtwish]

I've an update today, PCS agreed to refund me minus the courier costs, but not for the chassis damage. This, for me, is a reasonable compromise and I am happy with this as an outcome.

 

[Carlosis]

That's good some sort of resolution came about. Regarding your last screen bleed photo, how did you set it up to show it off? i'd like to replicate the settings on mine and check everything is ok. I couldn't see any issues, just the colours weren't too striking but i found out it all depends on what content you throw at it. I'm yet to properly calibrate the display either but it does the job. I just wish it was IPS as the viewing angles are pretty bad, even tilting it forward/back a few inches changes the picture. It's not a big issue as it'll just be used for personal use and i'm not going to be walking around showing everyone what's going on.

 

[n1ghtwish]

Hi Carlosis,

With bleed, I would advise not looking for it if you can't see it during normal use, I only tested for it because I could see it whilst using it. If you are always using it on bright images or in bright locations you are unlikely to see it. It's most noticeable when playing a game that has very dark backgrounds.

If you really want to check it then drop the screen brightness to 70-80%, load a full black image in your browser, in fullscreen mode, turn off any other external lights you have etc (be in a dark room basically), if it's present it should be viewable.

My desktop monitor gets IPS glow but not noticeable backlight bleed. IPS glow is where you see a bit of glowing from off-centre positions depending upon your viewing position so it "moves" with you, and is unavoidable for IPS screens. Bleed however appears to be an accepted industry standard amongst monitor manufacturers, and very little effort is put into correcting it, it seems. Some bleed is probably always going to be present, but it can vary significantly from one monitor to the next. If bleed is minimal it's probably not worth doing anything with it.

Hopefully one day OLED will be more prevalent in monitor/screen tech, and it should significantly reduce the problems that plague a lot of monitors using today's panels.

 

[Yohannas]

Well this thread made for insightful reading! It's completely turned me off the idea of a gaming laptop, at least for the moment. It seems like you pay a huge premium compared to a desktop PC, and still need to make big compromises for things like bad screens, bad battery life or loud fans. Thanks for all of the information!

 

[GeorgeHillier]

Well this thread made for insightful reading! It's completely turned me off the idea of a gaming laptop, at least for the moment. It seems like you pay a huge premium compared to a desktop PC, and still need to make big compromises for things like bad screens, bad battery life or loud fans. Thanks for all of the information!

Gaming laptops aren't all that bad, you've got to remember this is only one persons experience.

Yes, they do cost more compared to a desktop, but that's expected, my screen is fine as is the fan

 

[Stephen M]

Agreed George, screens are very good, depending on what model you get but that is the same with choosing desk top screens. I have never used a battery powered desk top so cannot compare but if you have a high powered machine it will be power hungry. Likewise, fans are fine, especially as cooling will always be a problem with laptops. Finally, to make a decision on one thread seems odd, there are very many happy laptop customers on these fora.

 

[GeorgeHillier]

I agree with this. I see these problems all over the internet about gaming laptops. Heat is the biggest issue.

The main reasons laptops overheat are because of dust build up and thermal paste not being applied well. My laptop (although not the highest spec) is brilliant and never gets too hot, even when gaming for long periods of time.

 

[Stephen M]

As George said if you look after them heat is not a big problem. It is also an non-issue in many ways, it is obvious a small laptop case will not be as good at cooling as a desk top, it is just something you accept if you want portability.