At work we are looking to get some new laptops to compliment a few of our Dell M1710 XPS laptops. Those are great (we have them pretty much maxed out on important upgrades) and we could get more of those, but we thought we would look around a bit. These will probably also be used to at trade shows and that sort of thing to do demos (driving large external displays, etc). I'm not sure if the SLI dual video type getups would be too beneficial, but we saw these. We also were looking at these Sony Vaio ones... has anyone had any experience with those? If you were looking for a gaming/development laptop and money was not necessarily an issue, what would you be looking to buy? (EDIT: I just realized that this would probably be better placed in the hardware forum... I'll let the mods make the call.)

O hardware thread
Although you will be read
It will be in the Hardware Forum
With some of our smartest members' quorum

I'm not a poet. [crying]

Be sure to check out others as well like:
Cyberpowerpc and ibuypower

there are quadcore notebooks around.. well.. transportable desktops those are, sort of.. but cool nontheless :P

The new Macbook Pros are pretty beefy and are competitive with other high-end PCs in terms of price. They'll run Windows just fine in a dual-boot config.

If money was truly no object and I was looking to get a new laptop, I'd probably go for a custom job from Falcon Northwest.

Quote: Original post by eedok
Be sure to check out others as well like:
Cyberpowerpc and ibuypower

I would avoid those two companies - they have a reputation for horrible customer support.

With money truly not being an object I'd look at the Falcon Northwest or Voodoo PC options. ABS also has some very nice 'custom' laptops at more competitive prices - their cases just don't look quite as nice.

If it were me I'd go for a macbook pro. Those are some very nice laptops for a decent price these days.

Thanks for the replies, guys.

SiCrane, what makes the Falcon Northwest laptops so pricey? They are nice and all, but that Eurocom site had some with dual GPU SLI, 19" display, etc., for significantly less. (Of course, I have never heard of Eurocom before.)

The cost is due to a number of factors. Falcon Northwest custom builds each computer; they don't assembly line manufacture. They also reportedly have stringent parts quality requirements and handle tech support in-house (not outsourced). They also offer a 100% pixel perfect guarantee on the laptop screens. And of course, there's the paint jobs. These machines are seriously gorgeous in a way that is really hard to see in pictures online, but come out in real life. Especially if you go for one of the custom paints. (Well, not the stock FragBox which is just an ugly logo.)

But again, this is where I'd go if money was no object.

Quote: Original post by SiCrane
But again, this is where I'd go if money was no object.

Cool. Well, thanks, but money is only not an object to the extent that it is being spent practically, and I'm afraid I'd have a hard time selling them on the paint job. [grin]

Thanks again... I think we're looking at the spec'd out Sony Vaiu VGN-AR570.