Obituary: My Computer

[ibleet]

I hear ya loud and clear! I was sooooo tempted myself to pick one up, but something just kept stopping me. There are a few things I would change about it to make it perfect.

Swap out Vista for XP Pro - easily done
Upgrade to T7300 - Pain in the ass
Upgrade HDD to 7200rmp - easily done
Upgrade Video card to 7950GTX - this is a pricey upgrade
Upgrade to WUXGA+ display - hmmmmm...it already has TruBrite technology

Other than that its a "Dream Machine" for sure. I hear the HK speakers are phenomenal...

If your concern is battery life, then I guess you could pick up an extra battery.

I also hear you about future proofing...having the DX10 card and Vista will one day be an asset...They are gonna fix Vista, right? But who knows, by the time Vista is halfway decent, the 8800M GT will be available with the 256bit interface.

So....having said all that, and due to the fact that I could not make a decision, I opted for the E1705...the price was right...the configuration suited me (for now), and when I decide to upgrade, I will be able to sell it for a good price.

[Dragon_Cooler]

With all the thought on the laptop, and hell, i live in the same house.... are ya gonna fix the PC???

And if you truly want to build the laptop (good reasons for not) I can do it quickly! Did we all forget my wonderful laptop build thread!?!?!!

LOL

[HONkUS]

yeah im gonna fix my pc but Phenom, and rd790 wont be out till november and as far as having you help build it Dragon I doubt we could find all the parts that are in that toshiba for less then 1,499. I mean it comes with an HD-DVD Drive!

[HONkUS]

well i ordered the TOshiba lazst night! ill try to post pics and benchmarks when it gets in!

[ibleet]

Cool...

It just went on sale

Promo Code Discount (EMC1025MMBX02) save an additional $100.

[HONkUS]

I should have known that was going to happen right after I ordered it!

[HONkUS]

clearing off bloatware and installing Steam/maya/etc......

[ibleet]

Those 3DMarks aren't too shabby for a laptop, let alone one for that price! The only current card on the market that can touch that is a 1950GTX. At least until the 8800m series is released, but I'm sure you don't want to hear that already.

So, what are your first impressions? Meeting your expectations?

[HONkUS]

Lol, im very happy with this laptop, those 3dmark scores were with old drivers i updated to the newest laptopvideo2go drivers last night and im hoping i get a chance to to re-run 3dmark this afternoon, I say hope because im actually typing this in class so its getting a "in the field" work out lol. But ill say this the UT3 demo is very playable with the newest drivers and everything maxed out @ 1440x900. Im gonna try the Crysis SP demo tonight. I also read somewhere that the 8700m uses alot less power then the 7950gtx while only being a little slower I still have to research this. Also it Runs the Source SDK like butta, the 1.8ghz Core2Duo in this machine compiles maps roughly as fast as my old AM2 Athlon x2 4200+, both systems have 2gb of DDR2 667. Also I know im gonna catch flak for this but with this being my first time with it, Vista isn't all that bad! It boots quick and besides me not getting any audio in some video files i haven't had any problems with the OS itself. The only problems ive had are with two of the pieces of installed software that toshiba put on here, the first problem is with the camera, when you run the mouse to the left side of the screen a little camera toolbar pops up. This isn't annoying unless your playing a game and scroll the mouse too far to the left and click, doing so minimizes the game and starts the camera. You would think with this computer being marketed as a "gaming notebook" that they would have thought about the camera issue but its no big deal i just told it not to run in msconfig. The camera still works with skype if the toolbar isn't running. a similar problem happens if you scroll to the top of the screen, for some odd reason Toshiba put a utility that has all the options availible with Function+F key commands (volume, brightness etc) in a package that, like the camera, drops down from the top of the screen if you run the cursor to the top of the screen. Again i fixed it via msconfig lol. This is a sweet machine that gets surprisingly good battery life, ive been using it for about 30 minutes now and the battery is at 88%. It feels good to have a computer again!

Oh yeah and one more thing, the speakers on this thing sound better then alot of desktop speakers, it even has a woofer on the bottom which puts out a fair amount of bass!

[HONkUS]

installing the newest NV drivers resulted in a 3dmarks score of 4736. This is without any Overclocking.

[ibleet]

When I did my research on this model, I found the same things you did...all little stuff and nothing major. The HK speakers got accolades from all reviewers, so no surprise there.

Your 3d Marks are above the average of 4600, so thats good also. All in all, I would say that this is an excellent value and I would highly recommend it to friends, relatives and customers. HELL, your laptop even outscored my desktop - I got 4639 (no overclocking)

Just for shits and giggles, I'm going to run 3D Marks on the Dell 1705 I just picked up for under $900. With a 7900GS, it won't score anywhere close to where you did, but it will be cool to see anyway.

I'm glad you like it!

[ibleet]

First run on my laptop = 3534. I'm running it using a "free" version that came with my motherboard. I think my score would be higher if I could optimize the settings for my laptop. There are a lot of things you can't tweak with the "free" version.

I have a couple old laptops here that I should benchmark, but I think it might take a few hours.

I'm anxious for the 8800M GT to be released!

[Sparky]

HONkUS, I have re-read the posts but can't seem to find out which Toshiba you got and where you got it. I too am in the market for a laptop and have been following your posts.
Thanks.

[ibleet]

Thanks Man!

Keep the Dell outlet in mind Honkus in case you don't choose xoticpc.

Or...since you like Vista and DX10 cards, try this Toshiba on for size.

All the rebates and bonuses seem to be gone though.

[Apoptosis]

not bad performance at all.