Laptop Shopping Woes

When my laptop died, there was — I admit it — that little voice inside me that said “Goody goody! I get to get a _new_ one!”

That voice is silent now. Weeks later, I still haven’t bought a new laptop. Not because the purchase hasn’t been cleared during spousal deliberations — it has — or because there’s something in particular I’m waiting for. I just can’t find one that fits, one that makes me feel eager to get it after shelling out all that money — at least, not one in my price range.

Laptop shopper, be warned: it may _seem_ as if laptops are surprisingly inexpensive these days, but here, as is the case with computer shopping generally, you always, always get what you pay for. When you see that killer deal for a $800 laptop on the manufacturers’ website, you can be sure that once you get in there and configure it to the point where it’s actually _usable_, instead of with all the barebones options they gave it by default so they could brag about the price, you’ll be up to $1300 or so. And that $1000 notebook that you saw in the Circuit City flyer? You’ll have to do a bit of poking around to discover just what corners they’ve cut on that model. But you can be sure they’ve cut them.

Admittedly, all of these el cheapo laptops _work_. But I’m working from a basic principle of computer buying, which is that, for the same amount of money, I should be able to buy a laptop that’s way, way better than the one I bought two and a half years ago. And that is patently not the case today. I’m having to pay extra to even get more RAM than what my current one has. Screen technology hasn’t appreciably advanced. Video acceleration usually happens via shared memory, which is little better than no acceleration at all. There’s all sorts of cool stuff going on with desktops these days (64 bit architecture, PCI Express) but the laptop market seems to have absorbed almost none of it. They’re stuck in a rut.

Part of the problem lies with me, though. I waffle back and forth between my desire to have a light, portable laptop — under 6 pounds — and to have a powerful one with cool stuff on it. You can’t get both without paying through the nose, and I can’t seem to decide which I want more. So I wait and I watch. What I’m watching for is a deal — a special offer, a new model, something — that, whatever side of that divide it falls on, calls out to me because it has _value_. Bang for the buck. But it ain’t there.

The distinction between this and the desktop couldn’t be sharper. The desktop was going south in minor ways, too — on-board sound giving out, occasional hiccups and freezes. All I had to do was order a new motherboard — $80 — put it in there, and things are groovy again. I even got one (Abit NF7) with onboard video so I could return the replacement video card I bought recently. If I had wanted to I could have upgraded the RAM or processor just as easily, if not as cheaply — but performance is fine, and if I need to do so in the future, it’ll only be cheaper than it is now.

And yet, it’s hard to be without a laptop. Ella finds it easy to get lost in her own activities when I’m sitting on the couch with the laptop — I guess she figures I’m right there should she need me. But as soon she realizes I’m sitting at the desk, she’s right there tugging at my leg — partly because I’m facing away, but probably more because that’s where the _pictures_ are, and if I’m sitting right there, why aren’t we looking at pictures?

I will have to bite the bullet soon. But I never thought I’d think of laptop shopping in terms of bullet-biting.

Major League Halo

“As promised”:http://www.polytropos.org/archives/2005/01/h2online.html, I stopped by the big “Halo 2″:http://www.bungie.net/Games/Halo2/ tournament sponsored by “Major League Gaming”:http://www.mlgpro.com/ this past Sunday. Some general interest cultural anthropology tidbits follow, with Halo-specific observations (for fellow players) under the fold.

The tournament took place in one of the big conference rooms at the local Sheraton. The room was filled with pairs of long tables, each with four TV monitors, so that teams of four players could sit next to each other in a row, facing their opponents. A big poster at the front of the room showed the double-elimination bracket for the day; near it, spectators could watch the top-ranked match on four big projection screens.

At first, the demographic represented there seemed quite familiar to someone like me, who has attended more than their share of collectible card game tournaments. But I gradually became aware of the differences — chief among them, that of age. I had assumed that, since competing here meant flying in from around the country and shelling out for a hotel room, the competitors would skew a little older than what you find on Xbox Live. But the vast majority of the players were evenly split between teenagers and college-age guys. There were a handful of mid-twenties types, but no one there my age. There were a fair number of females present but none of them actually competing that I saw.

When I arrived, a match was underway to clinch the winner’s bracket. All the players on one side had ‘StK’ in their usernames — an indication that that’s the clan they belonged to. StK (Shoot to Kill) is probably the most famous Halo 2 clan; most of its members dominated the tournament circuit for the original Halo. Knowing that, I thought that maybe at least _they_ would be a little older, but no — they were kids. One of them even had pimples.

So how did all these kids _get_ here? My first theory came about while sitting near the StK guys after their match. They were talking shop when a middle-aged woman walked up and addressed the pimply one.

“Danny, did you want to get something to eat?”

“No,” he replied sullenly.

“But you haven’t had any lunch yet!”

“NO, mom . . .”

“All right, well, _I’m_ going to Subway with your sister.”

Danny managed to roll his eyes without rolling them, and went back to the post-game analysis with his friends.

After that I looked around and realized that Danny was by no means the only one with a parent in the room. That was it, I thought — the college guys are cramming into cars and driving across the country, and the teenagers are convincing their families to take a vacation in Washington D.C. on the weekend that coincides with the tournament.

But I didn’t _really_ understand what was going on until I talked to a couple of the college-age guys for a while. One of them, you see, had made $80,000 on the MLG circuit the previous year, and so had dropped out of school to play video games competitively full-time. He explained that most of the people at the tournament had gained their slots at regional qualifiers, and so enjoyed free hotel accommodations and registration. Factor those out and the airfare isn’t as big an obstacle. So Danny’s not leeching off his parents at all — if anything, his hotel room is what’s making their D.C. vacation possible in the first place. (Mr. $80k commented that the StK guys were playing at a “completely different level” than what he was capable of — so how much money are _they_ making?!)

That’s when I realized: this is a sport. Professionally speaking, it’s very small — the number of people making a living at it number in the dozens, or hundreds if you count PC gaming in there as well. The physical knack for playing seems to peak in the 18-20 year range — nothing unusual there, sports-wise. If the number of spectators are small, it’s because everyone who has an interest can easily _play_ instead of watching — it’s easy to participate, and the training regimen isn’t very rigorous. There’s athleticism involved, but it’s all in fine motor skills. When you get to the tournament level, the strategy, the team dynamics, and the mental game all come into play, just like in other sports. The popular conception of events like this lags behind reality, and will probably continue to do so for a few more years. The culture at large still don’t have a handle on just how many people play and video games, and how much complexity and depth is involved in doing so. But we’ll get eventually.

Keep reading for all the Halo-specific stuff . . .