Jesus, that thing's going to have a battery life of about half an hour. I really don't see why anyone would spend the best part of 2 and a half k on a laptop to play games on. You could buy a desktop for half that that would work just as well and the bare fact is you're never going to be using it as a laptop because the battery life is going to be far too short. Pus I have to admit I'm dubious about the actual portability of 17" laptops at the best of times.

And they say people who buy Macs have more money than sense.

Jon

But the thing is that most laptops are plugged in most of the time anyway so is it really an issue.

In which case why not get a proper computer?

Portability.

But it's not portable, that's the point. It's got a 17" screen, which means it's a big old unit anyway. Carry it around and you're going to feel like an art student lugging their portfolio around. In any case, as the battery life is poor it's pretty much tethered the wall anyway. You're paying a grand and half extra for a computer that is actually going to be 'portable' probably less than half a dozen times in it's entire lifespan. And even then you're probably going to take it to the same other place on those occasions. It'd be cheaper to just buy another computer when you got where you needed to go!

Jon

I have a 17" laptop and a 24" iMac, I know which one I'd rather lug onto an airplane for a meeting in Munich...

I don't need the laptop on the plane or at the airport, but I do need it for the presentation.

The 3 hours of battery life are more than enough, for the times I do use it on the move, but it spends nearly all its time plugged in to the mains - just not always at the same place.

My 17" laptop used to travel with me every day, to and from work. With my new job, I have a desktop, so I don't need to supply my own laptop.

I don't believe I suggested at any point that a 24" iMac was portable. I think a 15" laptop is about as far as you can stretch the practical notion of 'portable' i.e you can carry it with you wherever you go. Anything bigger than that, be it laptop or all in one, is merely 'luggable'.

You don't need a laptop with that kind of horsepower or cost to run powerpoint or play videos.

Your job isn't 'playing games' though, is it? You can't divorce the size and cost from the function. This is a device that costs about £2200 (I'll say that again - OVER TWO GRAND) and it's expressed purpose is to play games as well as possible. However it still won't play games as well as a desktop PC that's a third the cost and 'playing games' isn't a function where portability is anything like a necessary (or even often useful) feature anyway. Buy a desktop PC and a NIntendo 3DS, spend the extra grand and a half on beer and hookers.

Isn't that the point I made? That's would actually be cheaper to buy two PCs if you were commuting to the same place every day?

No, but I only use it for displaying powerpoint presentations in meetings, the rest of the time, I use it for photo editing, programming and a few other tasks that require the horsepower and bigger display.

And? A decently specced MacBook 15" or 17" also costs the same sort of money!

Which is one of the reasons I bought a Sony instead. To be honest, if that machine was available without the graphics chip, I might consider it as my next replacement.

And synchronising several GB of data every day?

A 2MB DSL connection isn't fast enough for that. The laptop is more practical. Yes, I could have lugged an external drive around as well, but I went for 1 machine.

I think you're somewhat under estimating what a modicum of horsepower will manage and how much silicon this thing had in it. Pretty much any modern laptop (maybe other than a macbook air) will be capable of handling all those tasks admirably. You don't need a 2.8GHz i7 to run a word processor and a 2Ghz i5 will edit most pictures fine. In those two use cases, RAM is the biggest factor really. This lappy has more RAM than average, but RAM isn't exactly expensive.[/quote}
No, I'm not under estimating the horse power. My laptop is a previous generation Core i7, with 8GB RAM. I often wish it had a little more horse power, especially when processing RAW image from my camera. For Office work, yes, a Core i3 will do, for Office an i5 is still overkill. As you say, RAM is the biggest factor, which is why I wouldn't spec a machine with less thna 8GB today - it really shows on my first generation iMac, which accepts a maximum of 3GB, with Snow Leopard, it was a complete dog. Lion seems a bit better - after reformatting the hard drive and re-installing Lion and the key apps I need.


A 15" MBP with i7 2.2Ghz, 8GB RAM and HD display costs over 2500€ here in Germany (with 4GB and non-HD display, it is 2149€). The 17" starts at 2499€, push it up to a reasonable 8GB RAM and it is 2699€.


Too slow and not enough space. I was thinking about an e-SATA drive, a stick is useless for such tasks.