Living With A Netbook
Recently I had the opportunity to take over my friend’s laptop for a few days while he was away on vacation. The differences between my netbook (I have a ASUS EeePc 1000H) and the laptop (some Dell model) were readily apparent.
The laptop had a huge screen and had a decent amount of computing power which made it good for playing some slightly old games at low to medium settings. The large screen was definitely the main plus. The problem was that the laptop completely failed as a mobile device. It was huge and even though it was not that heavy it was definitely not light enough to place on your lap. It was more like a movable desktop PC that you could move from one desk to another once in a while. The left side of the laptop near the exhaust vent also got uncomfortably warm. Packed in its bag with the power cable it was definitely a pain to lug around due to the weight.
In comparison, the small form factor and the weight of my EeePc is an invitation to place it in various configurations on your lap. I can carry it around like a large book easily in the awesome slip case that ASUS provided and I don’t even need to pack the power adapter due to the battery life. In contrast carrying around the other laptop was a pain since I had to take it in the padded laptop bag and also had to take the power cable if I wanted to run it for more than a couple of hours. The main problem is that the screen of the netbook is small and that makes watching movies not very enjoyable. Additionally, it is completely unsuited for running any game due to the inexpensive nature of the device. What is it good for is reading text (I’ve read 5 or 6 novels on it so far), comics, anime (since screen size and quality are not an issue) and connecting to the internet. I also play some old games like Counter Strike Condition Zero.
Now I’m glad that I bought the netbook instead of an expensive ‘performance’ laptop. Sure, I miss playing the latest games but I’d rather wait a few months and play those games at maximum settings on a powerful desktop than shell out cash for an expensive laptop that won’t even run the latest games at maximum settings for the obscene price I’d be paying for it. I’d rather have my EeePc and use the Rs. 30K I saved to buy a desktop when my geographical position stabilises. Then, my desktop would be the gaming and entertainment machine while the netbook would be the device I would take with me when I was going outside or when I wanted to settle down in a quiet corner and read something in peace or bother people who were unfortunate enough to be on instant messenger at that time.
June 13th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Dell’ Studio 15 laptop offers perfect blend of computing power and gaming with a 512 MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570. In any case, I think PC suits gaming a lot better.
June 13th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
A laptop can never have enough power for gaming. Desktops are the way to go.
June 19th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Yeah.. And I got Graphics card as well and started playing left 4 dead and call of duty 4.
June 20th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Ha ha, with that 5 series card?! Good luck.
September 20th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Netbooks are costly compared to their features. Only thing that I like about netbook is, its light!
You better go for a PS3 rather than playing games on a PC. If you need to run your game with max settings you need atleast 2 high end GPUs + Power supply with atleast 750w of power and GPU must have a min of 4 4-pin Molex power connectors to power up 2 GPUs, converting desktop into an ultimate gaming machine requires a lot of money than getting a PS3. If you own any one of the consoles you can be sure that all games will run in max settings.
I bought ATI Radeon HD4870 for my bro, I was also forced to buy a new PSU to supply enough power to the GPU. Total money spent was 16K, still I couldn’t play GTA 4 Maxed out even in 1024×768 resolution! Other games were just fine. Now he is also running into some CPU issues, he says CPU gets heated soon and shoots up to 90C. Now I gotta get a new CPU cooler and thermal paste also. Moreover to stuff more GPUs you need to change your motherboard to high end one which supports upto 4 GPUs ( 6 PCIe slots or more in near future, guess MB with 6 PCIe exists already ), you need to change your Casing to hold all these stuff, since high end boards will be so BIGGGGG and New High end GPUs are long too! You need to look for liquid cooling, which is costly too!
Recently checked out the price of PS3, it was around 19K. Lot cheaper if you are planning to upgrade your PC, I would suggest to go for PS3.
September 24th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
You’re right, getting an awesome gaming machine is very difficult in India. But you can get a good one that can run most things in medium settings. I looked up all my options on the internet and concluded that I simply didn’t have the funds to get one.
If GTA4 doesn’t run properly then the engine is inefficient. You can do a lot without sucking up all of the PCs resources as demonstrated by many games.
Did you just recommend a console to me?! What exactly am I supposed to do with a PS3? You can’t play any FPS since there isn’t a mouse. You can’t play multiplayer on any of the games without going for some stupid lobby service that won’t be available in India anyway. You can’t play any MMOs cause they are all PC only. No browser games either. And I have to go with the limited selection of games available for that console and use the silly gamepad instead of the comfortable keyboard. Consoles are for casual gamers. And a casual gamer I am not.
September 25th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
You can get anything up to a ATi 4890 here, and even an Nvidia GTX 295. Those are pretty much the ultimate in everything until the ATi 5870 is released.
September 25th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
That’s not the issue. There is some kind of mismatch between the high end power supply units and the power provided by the UPS. Some technical thing. Not to mention the totally unstable power supply we have and the corrosive air. And the dust.