Laptop with 17" screen for games for $2000. Dell Inspiron 1720 the best bet?

[Bedford]

Hey guys.

I'm after a laptop with a 17" screen to do some casual gaming on. I was thinking the Dell Inspiron 1720 looked ok for around $2000.

Just checking before I make a purchase that no one can reccommend anything else worthwhile to look at?

[BuzzPuppy]

Describe what do you mean by "casual games"

At that level, an 8600GT-Mobile with a lower-resolution screen (1440x900) could be had for even less. I'm not too sure how this compares against ATi's X2600 Mobile.

[Bedford]

I play a bit of WoW. I might try Pirates of the burning sea. Maybe the odd older game like Rome: Total War.
Some BF2, and I just bought ArmA.

I do most of my gaming on my xbox360 these days.

I wanted something capable of playing games without having crappy looking graphics or chugging along too much.

My current pc is p4 3.0gig with 8600gt and 2gig ram. I'm pretty happy with how that runs things, and it seemed as though the Inspirons were a pretty similar kind of thing.

[BuzzPuppy]

BF2 no problemo (I had a Dell 9400, running BF2 @ 1680x1050 on the 7800 Geforce Go), just remember to modify your desktop shortcut to display the proper resolution (ah yes, good ol' +szx 1440, +szy 900 and if that's your resolution it'll be fine).

I downgraded to the laptop in my sig (Compaq C302TU). The onboard Intel 945 graphics chip handles Quake3 Arena and Aliens vs Predator GOLD EDITION at 1280x800 resolution very very well. Mind you, they are eight year old games but it sure beats minesweeper, mahjong and texas hold'em in the Virgin Blue Room lounge

Don't forget to d/l the latest modified *.INF files to use the latest drivers from nVidia @ laptopvideo2go. Let us know how it all goes in this thread