Would This Laptop Be Decent?

I'm down to two laptops, a Sony Vaio (AW Series) or a MacBook Pro and I don't know which one to pick. The Sony Vaio costs $1,600 and the MacBook Pro $2,200. Honestly, it'll come down to what's better at gaming and multimedia experiences. I'll post some specs. for the laptops:

Sony Vaio:

Processor Type: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor P8400 (Centrino Technology)

Processor Speed: 2.26GHz

Memory Type: DDR2

Memory Maximum: 4GB
Speed: 800MHz

HDD Capacity: 320GB

HDD Speed: 5400rpm

HDD Interface: Serial ATA

Screen Size: 18.4"

Resolution: 1920 x 1080

XBRITE-FULLHD Technology - Yes

Graphics Processor: NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT GPU with Total Available Graphics Memory of 2280MB (max)

Video RAM: 512MB Dedicated video RAM

Chipset: Mobile Intel PM45 Express Chipset

Interface: HDMI and VGA out with Smart Display Sensor

MacBook Pro:

Processor Type: 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with 3MB on-chip shared L2 cache running 1:1 with processor speed.

Memory Maximum: 2GB (two 1GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM

HDD Capacity: 250GB

HDD Speed: 5400rpm

HDD Interface: Serial ATA

Screen Size: 15.4"

Resolution: 1440 x 900 (native)

Graphics Processor: NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT Graphics Processor; 256MB of GDDR3

So now that that's out of the way I can come back to my question - which of these two laptops are better for gaming and multimedia experiences? I'm leaning towards to Sony Vaio because it seems to have a better graphics card, it supports bluray and HDMI, more HDD space, cheaper price. With these laptops will I be able to play games like WoW, or Diablo and stuff like that?

Any help would be great, thanks guys!

yep, i'd also go for the VAIO

The Vaio automatically wins on account of it not being a Mac. Mac's are simply the worst possible choice for a gaming platform because there are no games made for Apple's OS's. If this were the 1980's then an Apple computer would be a good choice though.

Even still the Vaio is a terrible deal for a gaming notebook as you're overpaying for underperformance. Since your price range is $2200 apparently I'll recommend you three notebooks that are great for gaming:

1. The P7811-FX. I own this notebook, it cost me $1250, and it kicks the ass of both the Vaio and the Macbook Pro you have listed. Many people said that they couldn't see how Gateway was making a profit off of these things and unfortunately it seems they were right because Gateway stopped making them several months after release. Still, you can find them on eBay if you're willing to go that route.

2. The P7805u is the replacement Gateway put out after they stopped making the above notebook. It's the same hardware except the screen has been downgraded from 1920x1200 to 1440x900 (which some would actually consider a plus).

3. The Asus W90. This laptop pretty much laughs at everything else on the market. It costs $2200 but you'll be able to get 30+ FPS in Crysis @ 1920x1200 all settings maxed. So if price isn't an issue, go with the W90, you will not be disappointed. If you'd prefer to spend as little as possible and still want a great laptop, go with the P7805u.

The Sony Vaio is the better choice right? Well thanks guys. :)PainGivingLink

Out of those two? Yes. Is it a good choice considering the other laptops out there? No. You can get a more powerful computer for less money in the form of the Gateway notebooks I just told you about, or you can get a MUCH more powerful computer in the form of the Asus W90 for the same price that you would have spent on that overpriced Macbook Pro.

Go ahead and get the Vaio if you want, but don't complain when you find out that people who spent $400 less on their laptops are able to get better framerates at higher settings than you.

vio, enough said macs are not for gaming (or anything else for that matter)

Sorry there gameguy6700 I must've missed your message when I posted. Thank you for those great suggestions, I'll definitely look into it. :) So, a Vaio wouldn't be okay to game on?PainGivingLink

It's a decent gaming notebook, sure, but there are better laptops out there for gaming. The main problem with it is the 9600GT which isn't going to be powerful enough to run your games at 1920x1200 and high settings. You could tone down the resolution and play on good settings that way, but thanks to that 18.4" 1920x1080 screen the picture is going to look worse than if you played on a lower res monitor.

Basically, here's the reason I'm not recommending you buy the Vaio:

That Vaio's specs ($1600):

C2D P8400 @ 2.26Ghz
9600M GT
4GB 800Mhz DDR2 RAM
1920x1080 18.4" screen
320GB 5200 RPM HDD

The Gateway P7805's specs ($1150):

C2D P8400 @ 2.26 Ghz
9800M GTS
4GB 1066Mhz DDR3 RAM
1440x900 17" screen
320GB 7200 RPM HDD

So basically a more powerful GPU, faster RAM, and faster HDD all for $450 less than the Vaio. You could then use that extra money to upgrade the CPU to, say, a P9500 (thus making the processor faster as well) and still have $100 left over, or maybe upgrade to something even faster if you're willing to spend a little extra cash. If you want to keep the 1080p screen then you'll have to hunt down the P7811FX.

The Asus W90's specs ($2200):

C2D T9600 @ 2.8GHz
2x Radeon HD4870
6GB DDR2 RAM
1920x1080 18.4" screen
320GB 7200 RPM HDD

Pretty much owns the crap out of Vaio and the Gateway laptops (though the P7811 is, or rather was, probably the best deal for a gaming notebook). The W90 can get 30-35 FPS on Crysis maxed out at 1920x1080. In comparison the Gateway P7805u would get about 28-35 FPS on Crysis at 1280x800 maxed out using config tweaks, and the Vaio would probably get 25-30 FPS on medium settings at 1280x800.

Thank you gameguy6700! I really appreciate all your help. I may actually go for that Gateway P7805, that's a nice price tag! But, if I do get a Vaio (for any reason) can it play games like WoW, Diablo or Starcraft? I'm not looking to play like Crysis. But nonetheless, I may just get that P7805 because its much cheaper.PainGivingLink

Anything will run WoW, Diablo, and Starcraft. Diablo and Starcraft are very old games and any consumer machine made in the last 5-7 years shouldn't break a sweat playing those games. WoW will probably run on any mainstream laptop made in the last 2-3 years and any gaming laptop made in the last 5-6 years. So unless you buy an ultraslim laptop I don't think that you'll have any issues running those games no matter what you buy. If you want to run the games maxed out, or nearly so anyway, then I'd imagine that any multimedia laptop should suit you just fine. I'd recommend you some cheap laptops to play WoW, but I don't pay much attention to mainstream consumer hardware so I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

Now if you think you might one day play games more demanding than MMORPGs and games made in the 90's then you might want to invest in the P7805 since that will run any game on the market today maxed out. But if not then by all means look only at laptops in the sub-$1000 range. With those kind of games other laptop qualities such as portableness and battery life should be your main concerns.