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View Full Version : Do the majority of you who play poker on laptops use an external monitor?



Drew1
10-20-2010, 06:23 AM
I am in a predicament right now so sorry for asking this question and looking for opinions. I asked a few other players who multitable 12+ tables with HEM and TN on or so like me if they play on a laptop and most of them say yes. I play on desktop almost all the time. I find it weird that they play on a laptop as oppose to on a desktop which is a lot easier because of the bigger monitor. But then i found out that even though they play on laptop, almost all of them have an external monitor they tell me.

I bought a sony vaio 15.5 laptop for about $950 10 days ago which had i3 processor, 4gb ram, 320gb hard drive 7200 rpm and 1080P. I was recommended by few other posters here to get 1080P since theres more space and i can put up more tables. When i experimented it and noticed that it does look good. However, 1080P is really hard for me to see things on the laptop such as using a firefox and its very tiny. I am used to my old laptop which is 15.4 and has 1280X800 resolution but its a pentium m processor and very slow since i run HEM and TN on. I will return this laptop to sony mainly because the left/right touchpad does not work, a noise that is known of sony vaio laptops that i wasn't aware of until i got the laptop. To all you guys who want a new laptop, avoid sony at all costs. I still need to purchase a new laptop because my old laptop is too old and people tell me upgrading that would be useless. I will return my sony vaio back to sony for my refund.

My question is do the majority of you guys who grind on laptops 20+ tabling with HEM and TN on use an external monitor or do you just play on your laptop? I think you guys who have those 17' laptops can probably do it but what about you guys with 15.6' and below? I do not stack nor cascade. I basically let the tables just load on my screen. If you do use an external monitor, does it really matter then what size laptop you buy whether its 13.3, 14.1' or 15.6? Resolution for laptop shouldn't even matter then since I can hook it up to my external monitor right? Only thing i would do on laptop is play many tables with HEM/TN on, web browse and that is pretty much it. Maybe watch a movie and listen to music.

And to you guys that grind on your laptop when traveling, i know you bring your laptop but do you bring your external monitor with you with your luggage or is that too inconvenient for you? I will going to Vegas in about 1 month and want to bring a new laptop there to grind as well while enjoying vegas but grind there on my laptop at my hotel room and wanted to know if you guys bring a monitor with you as well? Also, am i right in assuming that the majority of you who grind on laptop with an external monitor the majority of the time just play at home and rarely move your external monitor and laptop around just like with a desktop? By the way, my monitor is a 20.1' that i use for my desktop and would like to use that as the external monitor for laptop.

I'm just wondering if its just a waste of buying a bigger laptop 15.5' now since the majority of the time i will play poker on my desktop or play on my laptop and hook it with my external monitor. I keep thinking a laptop SHOULD BE PORTABLE HENCE THE NAME. The reason is i want to get a small laptop 13.3 because its light and has a strong battery life even though i will be staying at home or staying at one place the majority of the time. Would you guys say its fine to get just a 13.3 laptop' then since i can just hook it up to an external monitor where i can get my normal 1600x1200 resolution? The problem is its 5400rpm hard drive and i know 7200rpm is preferred for HEM. Would it be a good idea to buy the laptop and then just buy a 7200rpm hard drive from newegg and then install it into new laptop?

Someone also told me that if i get 1368X766 Resolution as oppose to 1080p, i might as well just get a smaller laptop size than a 15.5' since i see the same thing. Would you agree?


Hope someone here can answer my questions. Sorry for asking so much.

netsrak
10-20-2010, 08:34 AM
My main workplace is a 17" dell studio notebook with 1920 * 1200 screen resolution and 2 harddisks: a 80 GB SSD for the operating system and a 500 GB SATA for data and database.

I use no external monitor.

Drew1
10-20-2010, 04:38 PM
Hey netsrak, based on what i said about myself, what size laptop would you say is best for me since i will be returning my sony vaio 15.5 that has 1080P.

I noticed that when i open 4 tables, its really good because i can still see the cards okay even though there is overlap. But when i'm playing, i also like to browse using firefox but wow the letters are so tiny. Do you think 1080p on a 15.5 laptop is just not optimal? I mean i know i can change the font size etc but if i do that, wouldn't the font size get bigger with my HUD or will it be a same size?

Is just getting a laptop with the regular resolution 1368x766 a bad idea since i will be 12+ tabling at least? Mostly will be 20 tabling with HEM/TN on but again i would say 95% of my playing will be on my desktop that i have at home with a 1600x1200 20.1 monitor and will only use laptop if I'm traveling to vegas or using it at home while watching a football game in the living room. Heck football season is only 5 months and the other 7 months i won't be watching any tv the other 7 months. Someone tells me if i get 1368x766 resolution, it shouldn't really matter whether i get a 13.3 or 15.5 laptop since the table is the same size. Is this true?

netsrak
10-21-2010, 03:27 AM
The standard table window size is something like 640*480. This means on a 1368X766 resolution you can hardly open 4 tables without overlapping.
So if you play up to 20 tables i think a higher resolution like 1920*1200 (or 1920*1080) is required.

But you can't change the windows text size because HM doesn't support other than the standard text size.
The hud character size is fully customizable.

You should go to a computer shop and test the different resolutions.

Drew1
10-21-2010, 04:47 AM
The thing is this i will play on desktop 95 percent of time. Only time i play on laptop is if i travel and i rarely travel. But i will be heading to vegas next month and wanted to grind on my laptop in hotel room for a few hours a day there which is why i wanted to get a laptop with 1080p. But if i'm at home, only time i would play on laptop is if im in my living room watching the football game and thats once per week. If its not football season, i rarely watch tv and will grind on desktop almost all the time. Would you suggest i just get the default resolution then? And if i do, would it really matter if i get a 13.3 , 14.1 or 15.5 laptop since they are all the same 1368x766 resolution? I normally 20 table on desktop but laptop i would do much less. Also, i changed my sony laptop resolution to 1280x766 and noticed that about 3/4 of an inch on the left and right side of my laptop screen is black and not used. Is there a reason for this?

1080P is really straining on the eye. But is 6 tables the default tile for 1080p? I noticed that if i do 4 tables, then theres a lot of space.

I went to sony shop last time and couldn't dl stars because it was gambling site:eek:


Hey netsrak so you are basically saying that if i have laptop at 1920x1080 resolution to play 20 tables of poker, then i will be sacrificing viewing the text as if its 1366x768 resolution correct since i can't have it both ways at same time? That really sucks if its true.

netsrak
10-21-2010, 08:16 AM
Please go to a computer shop and take a look at notebooks with different resolutions.

I can't give you any recommendations as i'm not a hardware seller.