A little introduction / A Couple of Questions

Hey All!

You can see that I am brand new the the forum. I am saving up to buy a super nice laptop for college in the fall of '13. All of my friends are telling me to buy a macbook pro, but I think they just don't do enough and aren't that exciting. I go PC all the way. I have been looking at many brands including --------. Digital Storm Computers seem to be the best deal in terms of pricing, and customer service.

In terms of my needs, I will have Steam on my laptop, playing medium intensity games like Sonic Generations but also much more intense games like Call of Duty and Far Cry. I currently use a 4 year old HP Pavillion that allows me to run medium graphics at about 40fps. It would be awesome to run them to their fullest potential. I don't spend half of my life gaming, but I will dedicate a solid 8 hours a week to games. I also do some light video editing, using cheap software such as Windows Live Movie Maker. My main requirement is the ability to run Pro Tools 10 as I am a novice recording engineer. Because audio files are so big, I plan to save then on a small external hard drive. My friends have also been showing me how to bitcoin mine. It would be cool to do that a little and maybe make a little bit of money, though that is not how I plan to finance this laptop.

I have a few small questions about Digital Storm Computers. In Particular, I am looking at Level 1 x15E

1) Is the SD card slot the kind where you push the card in all the way, and push it in further to pop it out? Or is it the type of slot where you insert the SD card and the back half sticks out of the laptop?

2) How long does it take to charge the battery from 0-100%?

3) Can the fingerprint reader be turned off?

4) Why is there a difference in 16GB of Ram 4x4 vs 8x2? Why should      I pay 30$ extra? Does 8x2 give better performance than 4x4?

Here is the main thing I would like to know. First of all, here is the current system I plan on buying: A x15E

- Matte Screen with 95% NTSC Color Gamut
- Intel Core i7 3740QM 2.7GHz
- 16GB DDR3 1600MHz 4x4
- 750GB Hybrid 7200RPM with 8GB SSD
- DVD/CD 8x Multi-Drive
- Bigfoot Networks Killer Wireless-N 1202
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX 4GB with NVIDIA Optimus
- Premium IC Diamond CPU and GPU Thermal Compound
- Windows 8

So I'll be honest. I have some great general knowledge of using computers, but I am not any kind of super guru at it. This is where I really need an honest answer. The computer I just described above costs $2075 before tax. For the needs I described above I need somebody to tell me the truth: is this overkill for what I am seeking? Am I spending too much? I want a computer that will get me through 4 years of heavy use in college. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Glad to be on the forum.

[EDIT: Competitor names removed - Alex]

Edited by Alex - 07 Dec 2012 at 11:58pm

Thanks a lot, that was a great response.

I am a pretty big person (6 feet 4 inches)and about college aged, so weight will not be an issue for me. I understand this is a heavy laptop, but I will be able to carry it. I suppose good battery life would be a good thing, though I don't plan on gaming unplugged. When unplugged, I plan to use low settings, low screen brightness...all that good stuff. And yes, I do plan on using it during class. If I were to do that, how long do you think the battery could last?

I am also curious to know, how is the track pad? Does the mouse ever jump around unexpectedly? How is swiping and scrolling with it using multifinger gestures? Gotta admit that the Macbook Pro has the best mousepad I have ever used. How does one on a Digital Storm compare? Thanks!

I believe the battery is somewhere from 2 to 3 hours, which for a gaming laptop is pretty good. If you won't be able to get to an outlet in this time you can buy a secondary battery as well.

The track pad is decent, nothing compared to a MacBook though. Apple definitely has the trackpad and multigestures down. I generally use a mouse, but when I use the trackpad I don't notice any unexpected jumping around. Scrolling and swiping are pretty good, but again not much in the way of gestures.

Overall I would say that the trackpad on the DS laptop is pretty typical for a non-touchscreen PC laptop.

For sure.

I still have to save up a few hundred more dollars to begin with, but I will order it in June at the earliest. Though, how long does it take to receive it after ordering?