Question: What's your guys thought on laptop which are sold as desktop replacements for poker?. 17.3" screens with 1600x900 or on the highest end 1900x1080p resolutions. Can they 4 table zoom while having everything visible without eye strain?.

Im currently using a 20" 1600x900 monitor(wasted my $ like 6-9 months ago), it only holds 2 tables without eye strain, 4 tables with some eye strain but playable & 6tables with alot more eye strain but i guess semi playable.

Basically desktop computers are expensive as fuark in my country due to custom duties & double taxation, but laptops are alot cheaper cause individual sellers bring them down to make $ bypassing the duties & whatnot.

Hence my options are mostly buying a laptop, would love to spend $600-700 & get something but solid.

anyways anybody have experience with these 17.3" screens & resolutions with regards to 4+ tabling without eye strain?.

Secondly i found that toshibas website allows you to customize your own laptops but umm it doesn't give me an ssd hard-drive option, any other sites for cutomizable laptops out there?.

No wonder you get eye strain with 1600x900 on a 20" monitor…No way to up that res?

As far as customisable laptops not having an SSD option, you can always order the cheapest HDD and then swap it for an SSD yourself. Not hard at all!

^^^ im ******ed when it comes to computers bro trust me hahah, feel like ide break something.

& no the monitor is 20" 1600x900 monitor i bought for $160 u.s.d & yes it was an old model they stored in the back. The guy selling me told me they had a cheaper 1080p monitor & well i didn't know any better & bought this 1 & then my uncle scolded me for wasting $ as it still uses vga only connectivity hhahaah.

Exo, me too, but nevertheless I am just about to replace my laptops hdd with ssd this week. I will let you know how hard it is for a dummy !!

I use a 17" mobile workstation similar to your description (mine is a HP 8740w), but my screen resolution is 1920 x 1200.

I have no problems 4 tabling zoom - the max session length I have played tho is only about 6 hours, but still no eye strain.

I have just tried it at 1900 x 1080 - the tables overlap slightly (top to bottom) which would annoy me personally as I like to see the entire table but the detail is large enough not to cause any problems.

The only thing that causes me a problem with the laptop is the heat it generates - in the summer I HAVE to have something on my lap between the laptop and me otherwise it burns my legs.

Oh, and depending on the laptop it can be anything from super easy to amazingly difficult to swap a hard drive - mainly depending on where it is in the case and whether you have easy access to it. Most these days have an easy access panel so it is really really simple to do.

If you want to consider buying a laptop without an ssd and swapping yourself - Best thing to do is look up swapping the hard drive for the model number on You Tube.

Thx for that info, so seems like the 17.3" screen & 1080 resolution is enough to get the job done.

The other thing is ive never owned a laptop b4 & i dont see myself using it on my lap when im grinding at home, ide def get a external keyboard & mouse for sure n mounting the laptop on top of books like i do my current monitor.



Btw using toshiba site my total comes to $800 http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/...oid=2000101912 17.3" 1920x1080p resolution, i5 processor up to 3.2 ghz, 6gb 1600mhz ram, & i will i guess look for a ssd 240-250gb for $200 or so. So for the people out there thinking you cant get a 1080p laptop for under 1k, custom laptops from sites like this seems the way to go .


p.s will be making my order during black friday or christmas most likely to get as much of a discounted price as possible.

Most laptops are easy to replace the HDD. Except for the 10"-11" most of the times, and macs. Everything else is pretty straight forward. Unscrew 2 screws, pop open the lid, unscrew the hard drive, slide it off, insert the other one, and close it up.

I'd try to get an i7 there instead if the price doesn't change much.
If you don't plan to go around making downloads of games/movies, don't bother with an expensive 200+GB SSD. They're too expensive right now.

I agree, especially with the "Most" part - learned my lesson the hard way, when someone asked me to do a HDD replacement. I ended up having to take the screen off and the keyboard out to get access to the HDD.

Laptops like the Ultrabooks have returned to the "you cannot do it yourself, send it back to us" type statement from the manufacturers - at least they are from HP.

Forgot to add ultrabooks on the list. Any computer that is made to be extra thin will have it's components locked away.

ughh marco well with my budget its either get an i3 or i5 at best along with an ssd or i7 with std hdd, but i always read on 2+2 that ssd's are needed for hem2 hence why its my preference.

Im looking to get a new comp only cause windows xp will soon stop being updated & so will hem1, so i just want a laptop that will last 2-5years for poker & other trivial things, 200gb is more than enough for me.

Alright then, get the i5 And 120SSD should be enough aswell

Btw how come nobody talking about these hdd's?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HUgpSiZ0Cc

hybrid hdd.....

They haven't been around long enough to be a purchase for a long-term computer IMO.

The hybrids were looking to be popular when ssd's first came out, as the ssd was very expensive. So the hybrid filled a gap in the market for bankroll nits like me You get a performance increase over the standard hdd without the price tag for a full ssd.

Then the cost of ssd's came right down. At current ssd prices, there doesn't seem to be much benefit in having a hybrid when you can have a full on ssd.

Exo,
I got my Samsung 250gb Evo SSD (in kit with USB/Sata wire & Samsungs migration software) yesterday.
I cloned my hdd to the ssd with the software provided and swapped the drives. Works perfect in my old laptop.
Eventually (next few months) I am going to build a tower or buy a new laptop and put the ssd into that, but I decided to get ssd now and try and speed up my old laptop while I am waiting.

So you can be confident that cloning/swapping hdd to ssd in laptop is easily done by computer novice.

^^^ im so stupid i didn't even realize you can had to close the hdd contents onto the ssd, thought you just install the ssd n boom windows is on it hahahah.

It would work like magic if it was like that huh? :P

Computer technology is like magic to a lot of computer owners

And the way some people let their computers get infected by trojans etc makes it look like witchcraft!