Gaming laptop for under/around 500 quid

[davek22]

If I was in the market for a 15 incher that XPS looks like the dogs nads. Its a lot more powerfull than the desktop you listed.
I must admit I havent heard of Kikatek but am wary of sites like that with Acer bargains. I bought an 18" Acer Blu Ray lappy a couple of years ago from LaptopsDirect that was advertised at ?480. A day after the order they rang me to say it was out of stock and offered me another more powerfull model for ?100 more so I paid the extra. When the machine turned up it was the original model I had ordered. Took many calls and photos of the model numbers on the machine before they refunded. After that stress I stick to sites I know for buying hardware like this.

[FelixofMars]

I would stick with the Dell one TBH. I recommended them to several friends and they mostly seem reliable. Can always land a duff one but can always RMA it.

[Daragon]

Right, well after MUCH deliberation I've gone for the Dell XPS 15 for 549.00

Feeling slightly nauseous now after a purchase of such magnitude, although hopefully such a feeling will be replaced with sheer excitement at the thought of getting back into PC gaming after pretty much a decade of being out of it XD

[FelixofMars]

Well I paid over ?900 for my G1S back 3 years ago so just to prove the prices are going down on semi decent gaming laptops even

[abigsmurf]

omg why did you pick the dell!?!

Joking aside, that's a pretty good laptop, respectable gfx card for a laptop, looks like you'll get 30fps on most games at high or near high settings. Seems like Dell now actually put reasonable graphics chips in their mid range laptops which is suprising.

[davek22]

Right, well after MUCH deliberation I've gone for the Dell XPS 15 for 549.00

Feeling slightly nauseous now after a purchase of such magnitude, although hopefully such a feeling will be replaced with sheer excitement at the thought of getting back into PC gaming after pretty much a decade of being out of it XD

Hope it is as good as it looks on specs Daragon. Post some comments on here when you get some hands on gaming with it. I will do the same when my AW turns up

[Daragon]

Will do Hope it does justice to something like Crysis 2 - was quite impressed by that video you linked me to. 30 FPS average on advanced settings, all with a slower i3 processor, not bad at all!

[Soundwave]

Will do Hope it does justice to something like Crysis 2 - was quite impressed by that video you linked me to. 30 FPS average on advanced settings, all with a slower i3 processor, not bad at all!

I'll be looking forward to your opinions my laptop at home is dying on it's arse & I fancy getting back into PC Gaming as well & have been looking at these all day to replace it so hoping it's as good as the spec looks.

Keep us posted

Neil

[davek22]

Well my Alienware M11X arrived yesterday after the most bizarre UPS tracking I have ever seen. It went from China to Korea to Kazakstan to Poland to Germany and finally Manchester. God knows what kind of delivery service Dell have going on.
Anyway first impressions. Its very solid with a nice metal casing but its pretty heavy for its size. The Alien FX lighting is great. I have been alternating between blue and red depending on my mood :-)
It came with Steam pre installed and a free copy of Portal 1, which is cool but I already had that as part of my Orange Box. I loaded it up anyway as its a small quick download and it ran maxed out smooth as butter. I downloaded Half Life 2 and that was the same, everything max smoother than I have seent it before.
For some more testing graphics I downloaded Brothers In Arms Hells Highway and Wings Of Prey, both again ran super smooth maxed out.
I currently have Call Of Juarez Bound In Blood, Op Flash Dragon Rising, Far Cry 2 and some others downloading so I will update with how they run later.
In short this machine is everything I hoped it would be. Worth every penny as far as I am concerned. It reeks of quality and really is geared up to the gamer. There was no crapware pre loaded and it was nice to see Windows 7 running well out of the box without those sponsored programs loaded on.