blonde poker forum

Hello geeky peeps, especially Nem.


I am looking to get a new laptop, it needs to have 1600x1200 resolution minimum and be fast enough to run 4/5 different poker sites at the same time with no lag, ideally it will be running Vista (whenever that comes out) but other than that it won't need to have any serious power behind it.

Any tips anyone?

 ;djinn;

when u do decide james let me know and you can put it through the cosmo club business account. If you buy windows xp now u get a free upgrade when vista is released. Just bought my daughter a viao with everything u asked for. Bit pricey but u can get it in pink mate

Your main concern appears to be the resolution allowing you to use at least 4 tables without overlap on a 1600 x 1200. Unfortunately not many laptops come with graphics cards that run up to 1600 x 1200. From the top of my head the only laptop I can recall that definetely runs at 1600 x 1200 is an older Dell Latitude C640. They tend to have a mobile pentium 4 processor up to about 2.4 Ghz maximum and I think the maximum Ram they can run is 1 Ghz, they also have a spare mini PCI slot allowing an inbuilt Wifi card which will run faster than an external card(PCMCIA or USB dongle). Having said that if you are solely using it for playing poker and nothing much else, as long as you have a decent broadband connection you shouldnt really have any problems with lag as long as you stay clear of Ladbrokes which seems to use too much of most people's processor power for some unknown reason.
You should be able to pick up a Dell C640 on Ebay for something in the region of £200.00. it might not be the prettiest of laptops but it will be a solid workhorse and remember you will also be able to connect an external monitor and extend your desktop giving you the opportunity of adding another 4 tables without overlap on an external monitor with 1600 x 1200 resolution.

Ok cool, Jane has a Vaio, i don.t really like them, hers is always having problems and they are very heavy with short battery life. I have only ever had toshiba and gateway (back in the day) laptops, Toshiba i have never had any problems with. I would also get a Dell as they are pretty reliable PC's.



I was looking on Dell and found a few which run at 1900x1200 i am just not sure about the other specs, i am so out of touch with laptop specs, is Vista going to be resource heavy? I won't be buyin it on Ebay thats something i know for sure. I forgot to mention before battery life is quite important too, i notice dell now say they have 5hr+ battery life, how correct is that? I use my current laptop with my monitor some times but it's a pain as if i am running more than 2 sites i get lag on it. I will almost always be using it away from home too so its not really an option. Price isn't really an issue, i guess i am after someone who is into all this lark to give me a few options and a price range, i know if i at least spend a decent amount it will last me a while!

Only problem u get with sonys is they get very hot . they have positioned 6 capacitors right next to the processora which expell alot of heat. I think they have resolved the battery issues now. There are some nice ibms out there but they are serious money

I'm a laptop fish I've never had one but I need to get one soon so I have been keeping an eye out. If you go for a Dell then one of the ones that comes with 1900/1200 has no PCMI???? slot which I think means you can't plug a mobile phone sim card thingy in. the other ones they do are the XPS range I think which are rebranded Alien Ware laptops. These are meant to be hugely unreliable.

How much do you want to spend, fish?

Dual Core or (Quad core - if they're out yet). WUXGA screen. 2GB of RAM minimum with the option to increase it if you wanted to.

NVIDIA graphic cards have compatibility problems with Poker Tracker.

Dell's are good, Alienware are supposedly  better. I've been told MESH are good also.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=4216143&page=0&fpart=all&vc=1 (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=4216143&page=0&fpart=all&vc=1)

9 second battery life :)

every poker player I ever spoke to said Alienware is disgraceful. Small sample, may be results orientated.

I don't want to go crazy buying a top of the range gaming machine, but i want it to last for a few years without worrying about performance. I was looking at the dell inspiron 9400 and the XPSM1710 last night, would they do the job?

Google for it ya lazy B'stad!!!!! lol

Plenty of sites m8 and reviews

I bought a Dell Inspiron 9400 with WXUGA in September. No problems at all with it so far. Four tables with no overlap (and a bit of spare room), it doesn't get particularly hot and a 3-4 hour battery life. I would definitely recommend getting it, it was about £900, and make sure you get WXUGA (which is basically the code for widescreen).

Rob

Would rather get some first hand experience!

Yes and yes. Like Rob said, just make sure the screen is WUXGA and get 2GB of RAM.

Cool, i just looked at it now and came up with this:


Components
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5600 (1.83 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 667 MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 (incl Operating System Re-Install CD) - English
Basic Package, 3 Year At-Home Service
17" UltraSharp™ Wide Screen WUXGA (1920x1200) TFT Display with TrueLife™
2048MB 533MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x1024)
120GB (5,400rpm) Hard Drive
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW with Software
256MB DDR3 nVidia® GeForce™ Go 7900 graphics card
9 Cell, 80Whr Lithium Ion Primary Battery


The basic 9400 with the WUXGA screen +£100 2GB Ram instead of 1GB +£225 GeForce Video card +£210 it all comes out at about £1550

If i remember rightly dell in January always offer free double Ram so will probably save £225 of it then but otherwise is that a good price?

Forgot to say Rob, well done in the poker dome, win that damn thing!!

Can you plug a mobile phone thingy in it to get internet access? Or do you not need it on your travels cos everywhere's wireless now?

£225 for 1GB of RAM is a joke. Apart from that it looks good. You should find out what is the maximum RAM you can install in this computer.

Fair point, was just messin with ya anyways

Not sure about this, I don't think I got an enhanced video card or extra memory, and I definitely didn't get the 3 year insurance package.

As for Poker Dome, cheers the $1 mill would be nice! Semi-final to be recorded Jan 20th.

I guess you can but I've never tried, everywhere seems to have either broadband or wireless so I've not looked into the mobile possibilities.

On the "mobile phone" point, I use Blue Tooth to connect my mobile to both Laptop and PC - as a backup connection if my broadband ever goes down, or when say Fishing and have no broadband access - seems to work well enough.

Yeah like i say i am pretty sure that 1Gb will be free if i wait till the Jan offers. The max it lists is 2GB, not sure if it takes more.




Yeah it comes blue tooth enabled so could be useful with hotel disconnects.






If you lost to those animals think how little respect you would have!

Nice result in the Bellagio too, nice to see someone carry Green to a final :D

Now be a good lad and when you return to Vegas get on the dice!

All fair points apart from the dice. Maths lectures are more interesting than the dice!

You will never reach the pinnacle of poker like your m8 TJ if you don't learn correct dice strategy.

If you want a Dell, www.dmxdimension.com usually has links to some of their better deals. They get commission if you click through from them - I'm nothing to do with them but have found them useful in the past.

Following their link for the 9400 and doing a bit of customisation, I come up wth this:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5600 (1.83 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 667 MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 (incl Operating System Re-Install CD) - English
Collect & Return, 1 Year Service only
17" UltraSharp™ Wide Screen WUXGA (1920x1200) TFT Display with TrueLife™
1024MB 533MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x512)
120GB (5,400rpm) Hard Drive
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW with Software
256MB DDR3 nVidia® GeForce™ Go 7900 graphics card
9 Cell, 80Whr Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Dell™ Wireless 350 Bluetooth 2.0 Module (up to 3Mbps) with Enhanced Data Rate

Cost is £945 delivered. Take out the two RAM SIMMs and flog them on eBay for £50 each, buy 2x1GB from www.crucial.com/uk for £165 and you've got a very nice machine for £1000.

I downgraded the support to 1 year collect & return as I've done with the Dells I've recently recommended for various relatives. If something goes wrong in year 2 or 3, a bit of determination and the Sale Of Goods Act should suffice...

HTH.

I really struggled with this problem on Ladbrokes, but I found a solution.

Laddies uses a lot of processor power because of the way it updates the lobby, if you click on say, the MTT tab, but don't click "regular" or "all" the list doesn't populate or update.

Hey presto! No heavy processor usage.

ive got a dell inspriron 9400 laptop with 1900x1200 resolution, can fit four tables perfectly BUT i have had nothing but problems with it. the service is really poor, speaking to asia to trying to get it fixed doesnt help! 3 months and they still haven't fixed the problems yet... AVOID DELL!!!!

Is it a hardware problem or a software one?

Forget Asia , post your lappie problem here.
im sure youll get it sorted asap if its software related.

ok worth a go...

my computer is lagging, and every so often a blue screen comes up and says there is a  kernal_stack_inpage_error  i have reformatted my computer a few times but the problem still comes back. other problems which might be linked are, when i start the laptop it takes about 3/4mins for windows to load. and lastly when it does load the usb's dont work i have to unplug my mouse then replug it back in for it to work.

cheers in advance!

www.short-media.com/forums

I find the Dell customer service pretty good. My laptop is out of warranty, I phoned them the other day and they phone me back and spent nearly 2 hours with me on the phone trying to sort out my problem - even though it was a software problem and I was speaking to the hardware department! :D

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315266

Do you have anti-virus software installed that can check for a Master Boot Record virus?

http://free.grisoft.com is free, good anti-virus software.
http://uk.trendmicro-europe.com/consumer/housecall/housecall_launch.php is an online free virus checker.

If it's not that then it's likely to be hardware. Use http://www.memtest86.com/ to test your RAM. If you have both RAM slots populated, remove one, test and then swap to isolate the problem. If it's not that, identify your hard disk manufacturer via Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager and we can probably find a diagnostic tool to check if that's the problem.

My father's ancient laptop exhibited the same symptoms - even though the diagnostics said it was OK, swapping the hard disk fixed it.

Be aware that the 1 gig might be 2 * 512meg sticks and 2gig 2*1Gig sticks meaning you will have to buy an extra 2 gig.

cheers for the help guys there sending someone out at last!!

i want a new laptop too. in fact im asked everyone to buy me PC world vouchers for xmas so im off down there in abit.

i havent got a clue when it comes to laptops/computers in general. i have no idea what 1gig 2056whatsit and 1900/1200 res means.

All i want is a laptop that i can play 1 maybe 2 screens of poker and surf the web whilst playing, what would be minimum requirements then i can decide what to get from threre.

also what makes are ok and what makes should i avoid.

thanks and hope you all had a merry xmas and have a happy new year.

dan.

Dan,

The worst thing you could have done is to ask for PC World vouchers - LOL

Longines has given some good advice on here and he has posted a link for a site which sells Dell's at a reduced price.

You would be far better off buying a Dell, instead of anything from PC World.

Dan,

How much do you want to spend? Do you already have the PC World vouchers?

As Nemesis said, I would take PC World advice with a huge pinch of salt. However, I bought my last laptop from there (my home insurance company had a deal with them and buying from elsewhere was going to be a huge pain in the arse) and I spent quite a while on the PC World Business website http://www.pcwb.com choosing the right one for me. It was then just a case of walking into the store and doing an Andy - "I want that one..." and waiting 3 days for it to be delivered.

If all you want to do is play a couple of tables of poker and surf a bit, most current laptops will be adequate for you. Jsut make sure it has at least 512MB of RAM and the processor is at least a 1.5GHz. The decision (and cost) comes down to how large a screen do you want? Apart from the physical size (15", 17", 17" widescreen etc.), laptops also have a fixed number of pixels (or squares) that make up the screen. The more pixels it has, the more you can fit on the desktop, irrespective of the physical size.

My screen is 1280 wide x 800 deep. This size is called WXGA. All screens that are 1280x800, irrespective of their physical size, will be labelled WXGA.

The other popular laptop screen sizes are:
1024x768 (XGA) ('normal shape')
The rest are all widescreen shape:
1440x900 (WXGA+)
1680x1050 (WSXGA+)
1920x1200 (WUXGA)

Obviously, more pixels cost. The entry level prices at PCWB are:

XGA £398
WXGA £398
WXGA+ £488
WSXGA+ £563
WUXGA £1433

The next two links are screenshots of my laptop so you can see what the screen 'real estate' looks like to help you decide if WXGA would be OK or if you'd want bigger. I can't play two 'normal' sized tables without a bit of overlap.

http://www.mason.sh/minisize.jpg
http://www.mason.sh/normalsize.jpg


If you want some more specific buying advice, feel free to post and I'll try my best to help.

HTH.

I recently bought a XPS M1710 and i'm very pleased with it, I wish I'd gone for the inspiron 9400 now though as I didn't realise you could get 1900*1200 resolution with any other model and its probably more mobile than my XPS. 

Every time I've spoken to Dell for support they've been superb, seem to care about their service as well as I got put through to a manager at the end to check the call went ok and got sent a satisfaction survey.  I think it was a foreign call centre but it was a much better experience than I have had with most British-based call centres.

thanks for the advice guys.

i think i like the look of this 1. i think it will be ok for what i want to use it for.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/889047

Looks good. Nice spec for the price.

You can get it for £404 delivered from Currys with a web discount code. See http://www.hotdealsuk.com for the details.

I think it's just splendid how so many peeps are so helpful with advice on blonde.

More of the same in '07.

see also how much you can save by ordering on line with the call and collect facility

Makes my decision easier then! ty WC, 9400 it is.

PC world, currys etc etc all the same really. Nothing wrong with them if you know what your after and they have it on sale. Dell are rather decieving on their products, nice price untill you add the extra's you might want. Not any cheaper than most places if you look about and do your research imo.

Dell are the mutts nuts when it comes to reliability. I have had 2 Dell PC's over the last 10 years, i have had to get 1 job done on them which was a faulty cd drive.

Just don't expect PC World to fix anything - even if you're paying them!

Better Still, build your own

That way you get EVERYTHING you need and NOTHING u dont need!!

Desktops are alot easier than laptops, but still cheaper either way.

Desktops are a lot easier than most people think to build as well.

I have heard negative and positive comments about dell products so i guess it depends on who you talk to.

Like  you say m8boy build yer own pity can't do this with lappys.

You can put together a laptop but you'd have far less choice about things.

Don't go there!

My wife's Compaq Laptop which I foolishly purchased fom PC World has been back and forth over 20 times!!! And I've had the Laptop exchanged once already as well. I sent the laptop away for about the 15th time because the Laptop wasn't holding it's charge. They sent it back saying that it was the battery and that isn't covered by my 5 year warranty plan. I then bought a new battery and hey presto it still didn't work. It then goes back and forth another 3 times and eventually they fix it - absolutely nothing to do with the battery!

Rant over.

ANYONE, and I mean ANYONE could build a desktop, it really is a piece of pi55!! - a few pitfalls yes, but common sense really.

I have built my own now for 6 years.

WOW that is quite unbelievable!!















Nemisis is married?  :dontask:

 ;bat;






































 ;D

 ;scarymoment;

Right im off to get the lappy now, i reserved it online and im going down to pick it up shortly.

Just 2 more questions before i make the purchase,

1, the lappy comes wiyh 1 years free warrenty, is it wise to take out the optional warrenty for £6.99 per month.

2, which is the best deal on security/ antivirus to get for it.

many thanks.

1: If you're buying from PC World then get the longest warranty possible!

2: I'll sort you out with the best  - send me a pm when you get back  ;)

Ive had a HP laptop form pc world and its been perfect.

Good Luck!

Nem im getting it from curry's but i guess its pretty much the same.

dont i need to but the security package when i buy the lappy??