- Average user rating:
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
-
10 out of 10 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"The M140 and Gaming... integrated graphics, but new technology integrated graphics..."
Pros: Battery Life, Size and Weight, Special XPS only support, PRICE!!!
Cons: Integrated intel graphics with shared memory.
Summary: The first thing you have to remember about this laptop, is that it is in the 'Thin and light' category (barely, weighing in at 5.9 lbs). This means that battery life and portability are a major factor in the design of this laptop. Having a GeForce or Radeon chipset graphics in a laptop puts alot of demand on a battery and can reduce its up-time by several hours. The M140, with its integrated graphics boasts a battery life of up to 6 hours!
Now, the integrated Intel Media Accelerator 900 graphics that comes with the M140 is actually a new chipset designed by Intel. for the first time this integrated chipset supports Transform and lighting, and Pixel Shader 2.0... two very important specs when it comes to modern gaming.
I've played Halflife 2, Battlefield 2, and Eve Online without ANY problems. Eve online, runs perfectly at the highest settings (but native resolution of 1280x800). HL2 and BF2 need a few very minor adjustments to run perfectly smooth, but nothing detrimental or even that noticeable. A framerate hiccup here and there... thats all!
I attribute this performance to the new Integrated Intel 915GM graphics chip (Media accelerator 900). It borrows up to 128 mb from your system memory, but this is DDR2 memory, found on most high-end video cards, and if you order the pc with 1 gb ram, you wont even miss it.
Remember, this is not a "gaming" pc. If that is what you're looking for, look at the XPS M170... quite possibly the best gaming laptop available. Now, the battery life on the M170 is worse, the thing is gigantic and heavy as a bag of bricks. It also costs an arm and a leg. The M140 is a lightweight, inexpensive media center laptop that can handle just about anything, and do a decent job at it. Mediocre gaming capability. If you keep that in mind, the M140 will not dissappoint.
- 3 replies to this review
-
I have the XPS M140 and also Battlefield 2. I was wondering what the minor adjustments were that you spoke of. I just bought BF2 and I can't seem to get it to start up. Any help would be appreciated.
-
i was thinking about getting an m140, but the whole video card situation is kind of confusing me. on one hand there are a lot of people that are saying that it lacks a dedicated video card, and then there is your review saying that you played half life 2 and some other games as well. i wouldn't consider myself a hardcore computer gamer by any stretch, but i would like to be able to play some rts's every now and then, namely warcraft 3. if you have tried this game on the m140, how did it run? is there a site i can go to that breaks the "media accelerator 900" down? thanks a lot.
-
Yes, you are correct. I also own the XPS M140 and gaming hasn't been much of an issue with me. My specs are:
1.73 Ghz Pentium M w/ Centrino Technology
512 MB ram PC-3200
100Gb Hard Drive
DVD/CD-RW
802.11 b/g Wireless
and when I load up the latest RTS games such as Warhammer 40000, Age of Empires III, and Civ IV, my notebook performs admirably! Of course, I run Free Ram XP Pro right before I load up the games so that my system memory won't be so clogged and everything runs smoothly, even at the max resolution of 1200x800 for AoE III. Very detailed textures and beautiful colors. I plan to upgrade my memory to at least 1gb to see how far I can push the Integrated graphics chipset. Good laptop overall (for the price I paid of $690 refurbished!)
