This week, MMORPG.com Hardware Guy Jeremy Star takes a look at his newest machine, a laptop built for gaming. In his search to find the best MMORPG-playing laptop, he brings us this review of the model he settled on, the Dell Inspirion 1720 Laptop.

 

Sometimes you have to go to places that you don't want to go to and that have nothing for you to do other than sit around and watch the grass grow. Sometimes you have to travel, and your choice is watching the craptastic TV in the hotel room or counting the ceiling tiles. And sometimes, sometimes you just want to kick back on the couch instead of sitting in your office chair at a desk. It's times like those that make a laptop capable of handling MMORPG games very attractive.

I searched high and low for a laptop that would deliver acceptable performance in today's MMORPGs without requiring me to run on the “ugly” setting and without requiring me to take out a second mortgage on my house. I also took into account previous customer satisfaction reports and warranty.

Lo and behold, I present to you the Dell Inspiron 1720.

 

Read the whole thing here.

Good review overall.

I run an Alienware desktop but switched last year from a rock laptop to a dell M1700. The weight is always an issue with true gaming laptops but what took me by surprise was the clearview black screen - it is absolutly gorgeaus in quality and depth.

The dell runs very quietly unless you block the vents and the fans wind up but thats kinda the users look out. I think Dell are listening ti the user feedback and this can be seen in switiching the massive rundandant software add ons that used to come as standard to being optional - so much useless ram hungry crap.

I run VG, WOW, EQ2 and TR on the dell an wither medium or high settings and rarely do i get a hitch ( even my mighty Alienware struggles with Bree at times).

Having played a Dell, I cant fault it and would recommend them to anyone.

Just wanted to add that Crysis came out a month or so after I wrote the review, and it runs pretty good at the medium graphics setting on this laptop. That ain't half bad, considering Crysis is one of those games that kills even high end desktops.

I am typing this on my 1520 :)

I chose the 1520  for the fact I am 155 pounds

and when I am on the fly I really dont want to be

banging a 8 pound,17 inch monolith around.

I play Eve-Online, WoW,  Tabula Rasa (which is

glitchy atm. The game has just been released

so I am rather thinking its the game's fault, not

the PCs).

The keyboard is smaller yes, but I really

didnt want to be staring at a vast section of my

desk being consumed by my laptop.

When I need it, I plug in an extra monitor and keyboard

and presto, Ive got my full keyboard and a very

nice span of screen territory.

If you are looking for a laptop which is staying put most

of the time, then go for the 17 inch but if you are willing

to sacrifice the size for portability then I say go for the 15 inch.

I did look at the size vs money but as my friend found out the

hard way, his 17 inch didnt "quite" fit when traveling on a plane

or at his favorite coffee place.

my setup is:

Dell 1520, 15" Hi-def monitor (1680x1050), 2.2Ghz Core 2 Duo,

80Gb 5400rpm Hdd (have external hdd for storage), 8600m GT 256,

Bluetooth, WiFi, No Camera, Vista Ultimate x64.

ps.

had 3 issues with my vista. Bluetooth doesnt work well at all, installing SATA

drivers was a pain and finding display drivers for the mobile 8 series nVidia card

which would work was and absolute mission. At the moment Dell does

not support Vista x64. I dont know what they will do later but we will see.

I'm playing with a Dell E1705, which is basically the XP version of the 1720.  My setup is :

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz

2GB 667 MHz RAM

100BG 7200 RPM HD

Nvidia GO 7900GS 256MB

WUXGA Glossy Screen at 1920 X 1200

Creative Audigy SW Drivers

I've really liked this laptop for the games I've played up until Tabula Rasa.  For the records, I've played CoX with all the eye candy at max resolution and about 40FPS, 9Dragons, Rappelz, Dungeon Runners, Exteel and LotR (high settings, not very high or ultra, very pretty with good FPS).  With TR, however, I have to customize the graphics options highly, however, AND run in Windowed mode with a much smaller screen size to get decent FPS.  The game is playable and I have "enough" eye candy via textures , but am missing tons (shadows, lighting, etc...)

Also, there have been reports of problems with the fans not kicking on when they should and--as a result of the fans--video cards burning out.  I had to have my card  AND RAM replaced after about 1 year.  Here are some  links: 

notebookreview.com forums

WoW Forums

LotR Forums

Thankfully, Dell support didn't give me a hard time, but--then again--I did my homework before calling them.  Now, I manage my fans with I8kfanGUI, too.  Also, I did manage to get it for ~$1000 off due to a combo of my EPP (Employee Purchase Plan) benefits and one of their period 30% off discounts.  At the time I bought it, I couldn't have touched another laptop with near the power for at least $500 more (not including additional warranty costs).

~Ripper

1730 is the box I'm looking to buy.....

Nice review, I've always been a fan of Dell PCs, and just bought a new XPS 710 two months ago. Working as an IT manager I made sure that the PCs and laptops we use are Dell. The laptop I use will need upgrading soon and the Inspirion 1720 looks like a good choice, and I can use it for playing games - during my lunch break of course ;)

BTW the fps numbers for the maximum and average fps for the World of Warcraft are the wrong way round.

Originally posted by Deflux

BTW the fps numbers for the maximum and average fps for the World of Warcraft are the wrong way round.

WoW Performance 

17" HD displays (1920x1200) are not good for gaming, as OP said.

it's nice for HDTV, but it literally burn you
videocard if you don't use Notebook coolers

Edit: btw, I would prefer Acer Aspire 7520G-702G32Mi to Dell Inspiron 1720

or even Acer TravelMate 7720G-302G25Mi - with Radeon HD 2400 :)

---

Originally posted by mikevrk
17" HD displays (1920x1200) are not good for gaming, as OP said.

it's nice for HDTV, but it literally burn you
videocard if you don't use Notebook coolers

Edit: btw, I would prefer Acer Aspire 7520G-702G32Mi to Dell Inspiron 1720

or even Acer TravelMate 7720G-302G25Mi - with Radeon HD 2400 :)

---

I got a Vostro 1700(2Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2gb ram, 8600GT, 160gb HD @ 7200rpm), which is the corresponding model to the 1720(Just the business model, same case, different color/name).

And I'm quite happy with the high resolution, and I play CoD4 in 1920x1200, all maxed out. It does get warm, but its nothing serious. I've turned down some of the details and view distance, since its just 256mb ram on the gfx.

Great laptop, but not the most portable one...

PS: I run vista on mine, and it suits me fine when u get to tweak it.

FYI - there have been numerous complaints regarding the lifespan vs. expected lifespan of the batteries in the E1705 (the laptop I have).  I don't know if the same batteries are used in the E1720, but they may be.  I had an interaction with Dell Support this morning to have my dead battery replaced (it died at almost exactly one  year).   Unfortunately, it turns out that Dell batteries only have a 1 year warranty (vs. the 3 year warranty I purchased for my system) and that my battery was no longer covered.

When I went to price the new battery on the Dell site, I noticed two things:

1) The price is outrageous - my jaw dropped.  I hve to spend $165 + tax + S&H for a new battery
.
2) The battery had a 2.3 rating out of 5 from 29 reviews. 23 of the 29 reviewers complained about the battery dying from 9 - 15 months. There's clearly an issue with the batteries used for this model.

/grrrrrr

The link for the reviews (on the Dell website) is:  E1705 Battery Reviews

~Ripper

Originally posted by rhinok

I'm playing with a Dell E1705, which is basically the XP version of the 1720.  My setup is :

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz

2GB 667 MHz RAM

100BG 7200 RPM HD

Nvidia GO 7900GS 256MB

WUXGA Glossy Screen at 1920 X 1200

Creative Audigy SW Drivers

Also, there have been reports of problems with the fans not kicking on when they should and--as a result of the fans--video cards burning out.  I had to have my card  AND RAM replaced after about 1 year. 

Thankfully, Dell support didn't give me a hard time, but--then again--I did my homework before calling them.  Now, I manage my fans with I8kfanGUI, too.  Also, I did manage to get it for ~$1000 off due to a combo of my EPP (Employee Purchase Plan) benefits and one of their period 30% off discounts.  At the time I bought it, I couldn't have touched another laptop with near the power for at least $500 more (not including additional warranty costs).

~Ripper

 

My girlfriend wanted a laptop.  When I bought the E1705 the Core 2 Duo wasn't out yet.

Other than that the specs are pretty much the same (think ours has a 120GB hard drive).

I've been happy with ours even tho I'm not really into laptops.  She plays games on it and they run fine.

We did just about on our 1 year anniversary have the sudden blue screen... corrupted graphics.  This was on a sunday and the system was just not going to "come back".  It was obviously a video problem and you could boot into safe mode fine.

Contacted Dell support online on a sunday night.  The session timed out and the support rep called me.  Had me do some diagnostics, was very patient and seemed to really know what they were doing (it sounded very much like a support center in India but I'll admit they were VERY good).

He setup to have a call back.. and this was like 1am monday morning by them.  Asked if I'd be awake or if it should be some other time (the call would be like 3am).  I said .. I'd be awake.

Anyway to make a long story shorter we had a guy here on tuesday morning and the laptop was back to normal in under an hour.  I forget what they swapped out but the tech had everything on hand and we haven't had any issues since.

So I can honestly say I was pretty impressed with the support from Dell.

Speed and quality of the contracted tech etc etc.

Still happy with the laptop and as the person I quoted stated.. for what I got it was price wise a good deal under what anyone else had.

I've had Dells for 8 years.  I've never had problems with any of them (and I have 6 of them running in my house right now, 4 I own and two company-owned laptops for my clients) until this laptop.  I've now had 3 total failures for one machine and/or it's components/peripherals in ~15 months:

• Video card and RAM was replaced
• AC Adapter died
• The battery died

Performance-wise, I've loved this laptop.  I'm disappointed in the amount of issues I've had, however.

~Ripper

I currently use the 1720 black ~ Awesome notebook. I went ahead and got the camera option and have found it a nice touch. I've had it for over a year (running almost all the time) with no problems at all. I use it a lot for working on the road and at customer sites and have had a lot of compliments on it.

 Loved your review! Did wish there'd been some pictures, I'd love to see the Green Skin outside of the Dell site.

Waiting for your Alienware notebook review! 

Keep up the good work!