The Alienware Graphics Amplifier: Finally, desktop quality graphics on your laptop http://www.extremetech.com/computin...nally-desktop-quality-graphics-on-your-laptop
Basically you could just choose a micro-ATX or ATX motherboard and then heavily customize a casing and attach a wall mount on the screen but then attach the wall mount piece to a lever attached to the casing and make some sort of fold up storages for mouse, keyboard, headset and cables. Voilá! Game-Laptop and it would be about as elegant as this monster. I would personally just buy a traveller backpack and throw my 18kg (~40lb) case and all that comes with it to the backpack and call it a True Gaming Laptop.
So in addition to the $1800 laptop, you also have to buy this $300 Amp unit and the $300-$??? graphics card. Oh by the way, the amp is not really mobile so you just defeated the purpose of having the laptop. Makes no sense to me.
The only way this makes sense at all is if you don't want to have a laptop and a gaming desktop. This way you could still carry your laptop around wherever but when you're at home you can still have real gaming comp without spending another 1500 to duplicate what's inside the laptop. I certainly wouldn't call it a "portable" solution though.
I see your point there. Basically it's a dock for improved graphics. I still think you could build a gaming desktop and have a basic laptop for less tho. By the time you load that amp unit with a GTX980 you've got almost $3000 in your whole setup.
Oh definitely, but not a gaming desktop and a gaming laptop. In that one narrow category it makes sense. That's a pretty narrow sales target though, especially considering most of those people are going to want separate comps just for convenience sake. The people I see buying this are the lan-party tryhards that have to have the latest and greatest, but even then I bet it doesn't last long at all.
Woah, apparently I was waaaay off on my price sources. The Alienware 13 is only $999. I take back my previous statements, even with the dock and GPU you'd still be a good bit under $2000 and still be mobile with the laptop. That's what I get for making statements without researching.
This makes a ton of sense. Not sure why it already has not been done. You cannot squeeze the performance of a desktop graphics card into a laptop. This gives you the ability to have a gaming desktop card when you are at your desk. I think it is a fantastic idea. I have a desktop, so it is not for me. But for someone who travels a lot.. I can see it.
I came up with a similar concept a few years ago while trying to play Modern Warfare 2 on my macbook pro. I concluded there wasn't a market. I think Alienware is shooting themselves in the foot by making it proprietary, though I'm sure they did their market research.
Eh, not exactly a "gaming" laptop at that price. You'd need to step up to at least the 1400$ model to get into that category. 999$ only gets you 8GB memory, a 500GB HD, and a 1366x768 screen. Personally, I think if its within a few hundred bucks either way I'd just have two comps. Laptops are just inferior to desktops in every way except portability.
It's not just weight and size, they're designed to be bumped around a bit. Desktops don't have the kind of internal component support laptops do. If I did the whole Lan-party thing I'd build a portable desktop case that actually supported things like the CPU and video card instead of them just hanging there.
Good point. I actually got one of those cases with handle on top and locking mechanism for Video card and such. It's built like a tank.
As soon as you detach the amplifier thing the laptop becomes hardly any more usable than a cheaper one - it won't run half the stuff it otherwise runs and it will overheat considerably, have very poor battery performance and overall just suck. My recommendation: Get a ~1300 gaming desktop for home and ~600 laptop that merely has matte screen. You'll usually have better battery with lower performing laptops and they don't overheat on your lap as badly and are lighter to carry. This way you'll have better mobile solution and better gaming solution and you're still saving money. And you can setup the two systems to sync bookmarks and everything so it's not a biggie.
