Maximum PC

I don't keep up with new tech for laptops, so I don't know if there is any upcoming tech I should hold out for. With that said, is there any upcoming laptop tech that is a must-have?

Here's the laptop I am considering.

Gateway P-173X FX Edition

At $1500, it has to have the best bang-for-the-buck value out there as of right now. The biggest negative I see with this laptop is the lack of Draft-n capabilities. But I could just add draft-n notebook adapter, so its not that big of a deal.

I did configure a HP that was very similar, but I could only get a Nvidia 8600M GS. To me, the 8800M GTS chip is easily the deal closer for the Gateway.

I appreciate any advice in helping me making my decision.

Thanks.

You should wait for Centrino2 who's coming in August!

Thanks for the info, but I went ahead and bought the Gateway. It seems to be a pretty good machine, especially for the money. I'll post what framerates I get on Crysis so everyone can get an idea of its performance.

ok bud! good luck with that!

You could've even picked up a nice, high-end Asus M50 for that:

ASUS M50 Series M50Sa-AK023C NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo T9300(2.50GHz) 15.4" Wide SXGA+ 4GB Memory DDR2 667 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 - Retail

Yea but the 3650 is nothing compared to the 8800m gts

Well, true, but I don't see anything that uses a Mobility HD 4800, now do I? Anyway, here's what shied me away from nVidia, it's kind of a scary article. If it weren't for this, I definitely would've considered an 8800M:

http://www.techpowerup.com/index.php?64683

The article is somewhat old and incomplete at this point. Only the 8400m and 8600m are affected, and nvidia's official party line is that it only applies to a certain batch that went out to HP. There is market speculation that it goes beyond HP to a much larger swath of vendors, fueled by a report at the Inquirer (which fails to name any sources).

There has been no speculation or reports at all about other cards (such as the 8800m) being affected. So if you want to go 8800, I'd say you don't have anything to fear.

You're right... Maybe that was sort of speculative. Anyway, I notice that Toshiba actually has a nice config over at Best Buy that uses a 9700M, and that may probably take that a few pegs further. However, knowing that it is a Qosmio, you know that they won't put Blu-ray drives on their laptops, since they don't want to adopt the competing format. RIP HD-DVD, I would've went with that drive for a laptop... Ahh well, guess that a laptop's the only way to have a portable Blu-ray player, since who knows when standalone portable BD players will be released.