Gaming Is this a good deal on a Lappy?

[Jamstruth]

I'm looking at laptops for going to Uni in September. Been looking on and off because my Desktop is seriously creaky and old. Its got a 2.8GHz Pentium D to give you an idea of age... Yeah its bad.
I'll admit this was on a whim since my friend told me he got a Macbook Pro and I decided to go off and find a similar PC for half the price and by jove I think I have...
This is a Sony Vaio laptop so its gonna be pretty good quality.

Sony Vaio E-Series 15"
Your configuration
Processor: Intel® CoreTM i5-480M, 2.66GHz
Operating system: Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium
Language and keyboard: English (QWERTY)
Finishes: White
Hard drive: 500 GB Serial ATA (5400 rpm)
Memory: 3 GB 1066MHz DDR3-SDRAM
Optical Drive: DVD disc drive
Display: 39.4 cm LCD, 1920x1080, webcam
Graphics: ATI MobilityRadeon HD5650 1GB
Microsoft® Office 2010: Office 2010 Starter
Internet security: No protection
Adobe® Creation: No Adobe® Creation
Also Included
AC Adapter: 1 AC Adapter
Wireless LAN: Wireless LAN + Bluetooth®
HDMI™ output: HDMI™ output
Battery: Battery life up to 3 hours

Total Cost: £669 inc. VAT

500GB HDD, RAM can surely be upgraded cheaply later (they want an extra £50 for an extra 1GB of RAM so screw that), 1080p Screen (worth an exxtra £50 for a Blu-Ray drive?) and a pretty decent looking graphics card for the money (not the greatest but I mainly run Source Engine games so I'll be fine).

Just wondering what you tempers thought of it. If its a really good deal I might try to get my parents to buy it for me sooner rather than later. Been planning on staying off until Easter at least so that I can get the best I can to last me the 5 years at Uni (likely not but I've had my current crumby PC that long)

 

[Originality]

To me it looks pretty average. Good CPU, decent mid-range GPU, and Sony Vaio are usually overpriced so I think it'd a good deal.

You might want to consider waiting until Easter anyway. The new Sandy Bridge CPUs are a marked improvement over the older generation, and the mobile range is supposed to be released on Feb 20th. I don't know how long it takes to take the released hardware and make a laptop out of it, but you might get a better laptop from it.

Either the laptop listed or potential new laptops with newer hardware should easily last you 5 years at Uni, depending on the battery life that is. At Uni I usually needed a good 2-3 hours from my laptops, and only two could provide it (one through a spare battery that came with it).

 

[Deleted User]

To me it looks pretty average. Good CPU, decent mid-range GPU, and Sony Vaio are usually overpriced so I think it'd a good deal.

You might want to consider waiting until Easter anyway. The new Sandy Bridge CPUs are a marked improvement over the older generation, and the mobile range is supposed to be released on Feb 20th. I don't know how long it takes to take the released hardware and make a laptop out of it, but you might get a better laptop from it.

Either the laptop listed or potential new laptops with newer hardware should easily last you 5 years at Uni, depending on the battery life that is. At Uni I usually needed a good 2-3 hours from my laptops, and only two could provide it (one through a spare battery that came with it).

I completely agree w/ Originality, it's worth noting that the new sandy-bridge mobile processors base frequency has increased to 2.0 ghz, (which was the base frequency of this last generations i7-920XM/940XM's unlocked processors). Performance wise they're a major boost compared to this last generation. With that said & out of the way, it's a good deal compared to what you guys in the UK normally have to go through to get a decent notebook.

 

[Dr.Aqua]

no way
i5 laptops should be around the around the 350-500 euro range to be a good deal

and yah
Sandy bridge ftw
i7 2600k so powns
feelz sry for the people who spent $1000 on i7 980x

 

[Deleted User]

no way
i5 laptops should be around the around the 350-500 euro range to be a good deal

and yah
Sandy bridge ftw
i7 2600k so powns
feelz sry for the people who spent $1000 on i7 980x

That would probably be the price for one with the standard intel VGA or IGP, but not a dedicated graphics card like the 5650, or so I'm inclined to think.

 

[Originality]

Firstly, Euros are still rather weak compared to Pound Sterling. The market in the UK is also somewhat different to the rest of Europe.

Secondly, for the £350-500 range (which is a fair amount more than in Euro) will never get you a Core i5 with a discreet GPU. £650-850 is the right price for a laptop with a good CPU and a good discreet GPU. £900+ is for the high-end multimedia/gaming laptops.

Thirdly, the people who bought a Core i7-980X have a lot of money to throw at their uber-powerful computers. There's no reason to feel sorry for them since they'll have had their uber-powerful computers for a while now and can still laugh at people like me with my puny Core 2 Duo E8400 (I don't care because I still run games at maxed settings). Instead, feel happy that Intel are bringing out a much more powerful CPU line for the same price as the older series.

Finally, I don't think you'll ever find a Core i7-2600K in a laptop. That's why my Wiki-link directs to the mobile range. Keep in mind, mobile CPUs are never as powerful as their desktop counterparts. On the other hand, it should still be a big improvement over the older series, especially since they're much more energy efficient. As to how they perform in laptops, we'll just wait and see.