Need laptop for gaming/programing/game design

[Camaroz06]

Hello All,
I am trying to help my cousin out with a laptop for a game design certificate course he is taking. I haven't looked at laptops for sometime and have been out of the game as far as it comes to mobile graphic cards. And I have no idea what game designers and programmers look for in a laptop. I thought they would want desktops for rendering purposes. Anyways its a $2000 max budget, anyone have any recommendations? I was looking at alienware and configured what seems to be a nice rig for about $2000.

Alienware:
Core™2 Duo T9600 2.8GHz or Intel® Core™2 Duo P8700 2.53GHz
on the processor I am leaning more twoards the T9600 w/6mb of cache

Single NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260M, 1GB
17-inch WideUXGA 1920x1200
500GB 7,200RPM
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz
Slot-Load Dual Layer DVD Burner

Thanks,
Eddie

[moiraesfate]

Don't bother with alienware. They charge way too much money for the same thing you can get for half the price elsewhere.

This laptop is almost exactly the same as the one you posted but without as good a graphics card and slightly lower processor for about half the price.

I know alienware sounds good but mostly you're paying for the name.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9172511&type=product&id=1218043606827

As for the rest, it sounds good.

[shazza]

Alienware used to be much more expensive than others, but their pricing has changed a lot in the last year or two. They are still one of the better ones if you want the high end GPUs. Although I agree you can shop around and find comparable machines at better pricing, it's worth comparing to what you can get from Alienware . The other potential downside to owning an Alienware is you will be required to send it back in if anything is wrong, but this is much the same with many others. Also, it's possible their service may improve as they are more and more integrated into Dell ... dunno.

(I have owned two Alienware notebooks, and fortunately have had no issues with either one)

[BucNastyHater]

Sorry to just jump in, but doesn't Alienware send people out to you also for repairs? Or am I thinking of something else.

Shazza, I remember you from notebookforums.com when I used to go on and surf the Alienware section years ago when I got my Aurora in '04

[ILikeCosmosS]

asus w90 has a 4870x2, but my favorite for like movies and such was the HDX18 because it was 16:9 and looks sleek or the dv7z because Hp sells them with 8gb

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220527- just checked this has a quad now :D asus w90
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834147924- the HDX18 but better deals at hp

[shazza]

Sorry to just jump in, but doesn't Alienware send people out to you also for repairs? Or am I thinking of something else.

Shazza, I remember you from notebookforums.com when I used to go on and surf the Alienware section years ago when I got my Aurora in '04

Hi there. Yeah ... they used to send out techs for desktop systems ... but even that seemed to be rare. Not sure what their policy is now. I have heard they've been shutting down the Alienware facilities and transferring more to Dell, so maybe they have a larger service network now. Of course, even with Dell and the other brands, you're often required to send products in for service.

My m9700 notebook is still going strong, gave my m5500 away, and used my Aurora 7500 desktop as my first guinea pig to start building pcs :)

[inCore]

Around a year ago, a friend of mine's Alienware desktop broke down and they told him to send it to England from Switzerland. Yay.

[Anemone]

Moderately configured M6400? (Dell)