Be Excellent To Each Other

Hey Guys,

I recently received some cashy money from the council in return for effectively signing my soul away regarding new pay scales. (Actually, it wasn't a bad deal.) And with this money burning a hole in my pocket I decided to buy a laptop with it. I had the idea that it'd be quite nice to write in the kitchen, or the awesomely comfy lounge, rather than up in my slightly cramped bedroom. Also, I wanted to round off my back-up options for my photos by having an external drive in addition to the DVD's. Plus I've never had one before and - y'know - toys!

So anyway, there's this refurbished laptop on offer at Curry's Online, so I decided to go for that. It cost me £319.99.

HP Pavilion G6 1220SA

It may be a boring grey colour, but the gubbins inside seem impressive. Here's the specs:



Here's the pleasant surprise. I bought it as a media centre and word-processor, and to edit photos on the go, but it turns out that it's no mean slouch at gaming either. Apparently it can run Portal 2 on maxed high settings at 50+fps and even Battlefield 3 at medium at a minimum of 25fps at 1366x768 resolution. And so Skyrim now becomes an intriguing temptation for me.

I now expect you all to howl with laughter and point out something obvious and massively deflating that I've forgotten. In the meantime here's the thread noting its performance:

Gaming FPS Benchmarky Waffle

So, anyone else got one of these or anything similar?

I agree, it seems nice.
However I know nothing about laptops, I just point to the most expensive one and say "that one" whenever work tell me my renewal time is up!

You could've got a 360 instead. Bad Pete.

Nervous Pete is flying high like a G6.

Sorry Myp - I'll endevour to buy the 720 or whatever when it comes out.

Anyway, it seems to be working nicely now. It didn't like Steam at first but has inexplicably got over its beef with it. I'm currently suffering under an enforced trial of Norton Security and am just waiting for Microsoft security to get its thing installed so I can get shot of it.

But Bastion's installing now, so everything's going to be okay. Phew. Plus this laptop is keeping my legs nice and toasty.

My wife had an HP Easynote laptop, and the HP logo on the lid was nicely lit with the users choice of seven or so colours. I believe the general consensus on here is that coloured lights on computers are pretty pro, so i hope yours has some too.

Alas, no shiny lights and a boring charcoal grey colour. It looks all very accountancy.

However! It runs Saints Row The Third on medium settings at 1366x768 at 25fps, Shogun Total War 2 on high at 1366x768 at 30fps and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 at 1366x768 on medium at 30fps - so I have some compensation for the external dullness.

So hopefully it'll run Skyrim okay!

It's probably overkill for my parents' needs, but I've just bought my Mum one of these (well, I say bought.. she's giving me the cash for it later), so if it's crap, Pete, I'll be blaming you.

Pete!

I'd be interested to hear how you're getting on with your laptop. I'm probably going to have to get two of the bloody things in the fairly near future (one for my son at uni, the other to replace my wife's increasingly knackered Dell) so I'd like to know if you'd recommend the model you settled on. Cheers!

Hey dude!

Yeah, the laptop's good. Battery power's not great - about three and a half hours in practice, though I do a bit of gaming on it. When word processing it's about five. But for tactile keys, gaming power, good screen and decent speakers combined with chunky hard-drive and fast loadup time, it can't be beat for the price. HP Assistant comes preloaded though, and is occassionally a bit annoying. And after a fair bit of use and carrying about its still good as new.

So yep, recommended.

yes buy HP...