Tech

Since the Holiday season is just around the corner, Shane and I decided to work on our Geek Christmas Lists. Luckily, I was given the task of the pricey gifts… Of course this is hypothetical, so I’m not expecting to see these under the tree this year!

In no particular order:

New Gaming Laptop such as the Asus G51J-A1 15.6-Inch laptop that can be found on stores such as Amazon. What’s so special about this laptop? Well, it’s got a 1.6Ghz Intel Core i7-720QM processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 1920×1080 screen backed by a 1GB NVIDIA GTX 260M graphics card based on DDR3 VRAM. Should be just a bit of an upgrade compared to my current laptop, and it’s one hell of a gaming laptop to boot!

asus laptop

While we’re upgrading, we might as well max out the RAM while we’re at it. How about 8GB of DDR3 RAM to spice it up just a bit further? Newegg is great for things like these.

Keeping with the laptop theme, why not a 120GB SSD from OCZ for the best performance money can buy. This wouldn’t replace the main hard drive, though it would be a great substitute for booting and gaming.

On a similar note to the item above, having storage for videos, photos, games, and whatever you feel like saving can always become filled. So, why not give yourself an upgrade? This is where a Drobo comes in handy. With hot swappable SATA hard drives and a maximum storage only limited by the HDD capacity, you can’t get much better than the Drobo.

drobo

No Drobo would be complete without a few drives, so let’s just fill it with 4x 2TB drives from Hitachi.

Now everything so far has been for the PC side of gaming. What happens if you happen to lose interest staring at your computer screen, and feel like staring at a different screen? Well, there’s a perfect answer; the new Sony PS3. After all, we’re all for game time – not downtime.

ps3

It has occurred to me that not everyone has the majority of the wonderful games that Valve has produced, and it’s quite hard to say you’re a PC gamer without having played through the Half Life series. Well no more! Valve has continued to add games to their Complete Pack, though the price has remained the same year after year. You get ALL of Valve’s games ranging from the original Half-Life, to the original Counter-Strike, all the way through the Half-Life 2 saga of games including both episodes. Oh, did I mention you get both Left For Dead games, as well as Team Fortress 2? It’s really hard to pass this up, especially if you haven’t played any of these titles.

Another gaming device that is great to have in today’s wireless world is the iPod touch. Since this is the hypothetical list, and not the realistic list, we’ll go with the new 64GB model from Amazon. I’d expect to see a new iPod Touch coming out sometime after Christmas with a camera, though as long as we’re spending someone’s theoretical money, we’ll splurge early.

Since we’ve already got a great gaming laptop picked out, portability isn’t exactly the first thing that was looked at. This is where the HP Mini 110 comes in handy. With the Intel 1.6ghz Atom and a SSD drive, it’s a perfect model to haul to class or around the house.

HP Mini

Lastly on the list, Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack. It’s no longer on the super-cheap, though $279 for 3 copies isn’t terrible either. This way you can upgrade any computers you’ve got lying around the house, and maybe give a copy or two away.

As per usual, you can message me on Runewire, Twitter, or the Forums if you have any questions, or suggestions for future articles.