What do people think are the most important things to have in a Poker Laptop. Personally I think the screen is very important, but how big or how high a resolution is good enough? I would like to play 6-9+ tables on average, at various sites.

Apart from having 4gb of RAM, a dual core 2ghz CPU+ and an ok HD for HEM, im unsure...

Some Ideas
-----------

The New Dell Studio 17 - good reviews, but low resolution if that matters?
The HP 18.4" DTR - Good reviews great resolution, but heavy...
A SONY Vaio - 16.4" screen but good resolution and reviews...


What experience do people have, and recommend to look for or avoid in a laptop. I don't mind carrying a big heavy laptop but only if its really needed for playing.

My first response - and this is the advice I give to anyone who asks me about laptops - is to always go for the lighter laptop. The weight of the laptop matters more than most people think.

BUT if you're quite experienced in buying laptops and are certain you don't mind a big heavy one, ignore me completely.

In terms of the resolution difference between the laptops in the links, the Dell has about 100 fewer pixels lengthwise which at the end of the day would be nice to have but shouldn't be a massive dealbreaker - if you're really going to be multitabling a lot you'll probably want an external monitor, after all.

i agree with the point csk has made.

keep in mind that you can always get a 15" laptop and run a 25"+ through the vga port. thats what i'm running right now and have no trouble playing 6 tables at once. my 25" seems to do the trick, but sometime i wish i had gone for the 28".

I think its between the SONY and the Dell.

The dell weighs in at 3.3kg + cables. It has a 17.3" screen at 1600x900.
The Sony weighs in at 2.8kg + cables. But only has a 16.4" screen but at 1900x1080.

The sony is more lightweight but I think just the fact the screen size is nearly an inch smaller than the dell would make it bad for when i just want to play 6 tables without an external monitor. Although I don't know how a lower resolution changes things, as I know some poker websites dont allow you to make the tables that small...

What would you say if you had to make a choice yourself?

The laptop is for when I go traveling and I wont always be able to rely on getting an external monitor. Thats why I am wondering whether its best to get the larger screen? The HP is just too large and bulky...

Resolution is everything.

I am really glad I got a 1920x1200 (WUXGA) screen on my 15.4" laptop. Yes, everything is pretty small, but I have good vision so I love the desktop real estate.

Unfortunately 16:10 is hard to find, and cheaper, smaller 16:9 like 1920x1080 is becoming the norm. It should be enough to get by, but you can still find 1920x1200 15.4" laptops and I highly recommend one. Dell (Precision M4400) sells one but you're looking at $1300, Lenovo (Thinkpad W500) also does but it's about the same price. It's easier to find 1920x1200 screens at 17" but that is getting to be a bigass laptop.

I'd also argue that battery life is also rather important when considering a laptop for travelling. I've noticed very few 17" laptops with reasonable battery life. You pretty much have to turn everything off to get more than 1.5 hours. Which means dim screen no wifi and that just doesn't work to play poker. I think the 15.4" 1920x1200 is a pretty sweet spot for poker. But if you're eyes can't handle that size(mine can't) then you are limited to less tables.

Would you go as far as saying that from two identical laptops you would choose the one with a 16" screen with a higher resolution over a 17" with a lower res.

The two laptops above are either 17.3" at 1600x900 or 16.4" at 1920x1080...

have you considered getting a 17" laptop with high resolution? not sure why you are cornering yourself to that laptop.

Gladly but here in Germany we don't have that much of a large choice and many of the 17" laptops are either not good or don't offer that resolution. For example the Dell doesn't offer an option to upgrade otherwise I would have got it already!

I had a look at the various review sites and not many have that kinda of resolution but maybe ive just not found them...

Yes! I would personally. To me it's a win-win. More portable and more desktop real estate.

Consider these figures regarding how big the pixels are.

My laptop screen has 147.02 pixels per inch.
A 16.4" screen with 1920x1080 has 134.32 pixels per inch.
A 17.3" screen at 1600x900 has 106.11 pixels per inch.

FTP minimum table size 488x363. (FTP default table size is 810x585.)

Thus a small FTP table will be
3.32" by 2.47" on my 15.4" 1920x1200
3.63" by 2.70" on the Sony 16.4" 1920x1080
4.60" by 3.42" on the Dell 17.3" 1600x900

If you tile 3x3 tables at the smallest table size, you get a 3x3 block totaling 1464x1089 pixels. (This technically wouldn't fit on 1920x1080 but 9 pixels of overlap is almost not noticable.)

I'll attach a pic of mine to help as a frame of reference. I'd consider what size you like your tables (pixel wise), how big they need to be for you to read them, and how many you play, and get a resolution that suffices.

In the pic, I have a default size FTP table and a minimum size FTP table, and a lighter for reference. You can also see 2 icons scattered, they are XP's default size. Although the tiny size of the small table might be scary (smaller vertically than a lighter!), you can always make it bigger, but you need high res to be able to make it that small.



I'm glad someone agreed that 15.4" 1920x1200 is the sweet spot. I agree. 1920x1080 at 16.4" I think will be fine though. Someone else said you should be concerned with size, weight, and battery life. This really depends on your habits. If you need to be able to use it on an airplane or "on the go," then yes, these matter a lot. If you just plan on unplugging it from your desk, putting it in a bag, and unpacking it and plugging it in at the hotel, then battery life is less of a concern, and although size and weight matter, they matter much less.

Thanks for the help really helpful, The good thing is that I can remove the title bars from the tables so I have more desktop estate using a autohotkey script. It sounds as though as long as I have good sight, the difference in resolution is more important than a small difference in screen size purely because u can fit more in it.

Do people agree?

I just calculated that it would be impossible to display 9 tables without overlap on any 1600x900 resolution screen as poker stars simply doesnt allow tables to be that small.

So really Ive just got to ask myself whether I really will play that many tables often enough on my laptop.