Gaming laptop with docking station?

[gerardolm]

Hello, everyone.

I'm moving away this summer and I was looking to buy a powerful laptop (for gaming, mostly, so a nice gfx card and some nice RAM is a must) that offers the option of using a docking station. I've seen some older models from DELL, Acer and HP have docking station connectors, but none of the new laptops seem to have them. All I see now are USB docking stations (2.0) that compress video using free GPU and CPU, and therefore seem to suck when gaming.

Is there any manufacturer out there who still makes "old-school" docking stations?

I'm going to use a 22" monitor with a VGA cable and a 1920x1080 resolution, if that's an issue.

Thanks.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I loyal DS user for about 12 years, I have given up on finding anything decent. At least I am down to 4 plugs .... power, external mouse, Ethernet and SPDIF.

 

[Chainzsaw]

First off, why would you want a docking station?

Secondly, a lot of gaming laptops come with either VGA or HDMI output so you could use an external screen such as the one you are going to use.

The MSI GT680R has a VGA and HDMI output. This is one of the fastest laptops currently thats not in a CLEVO case.

If you want to shell out some extra money you could go for a CLEVO P170HM which has a Nvidia GTX 485M video card which is very powerful.

 

[iieeann]

Old post, for reference of gogglers on similar topic.

If course this type of laptop exists, but it has other limitations. As at March 2012, Dell & HP has this. Lenovo and Toshiba not offering good spec.

First limitation is the size, only 17" offers good GPU up to the world fastest (MXM 3.0b) during launch of that laptop, no SLI/CF, slow update of GPU. 15" offers only medium GPU (MXM 3.0a).

Second is the speakers, extremely poor compared to gaming laptop.

Third is the soundcard, poor without 5.1 and spdif out. Only way to get digital audio is through the HDMI, Displayport or external soundcard.

Forth is non-overclockable CPU even with Extreme Edition. It is locked in bios, only bios hack can overcome it. No software in the world can do that.

At the moment the laptop from Dell is Precision Mobile Workstation series (15" M4600, 17" M6600), HP is Elitebook Mobile Workstation (15" 8560W, 17" 8760W). The price is much higher than gaming laptop of similar spec by Clevo or MSI.

Pros compared to normal gaming laptop are better security feature, IPS screen, excellent support/warranty, stability.

Dock Station is very useful and important. Those who think it is not useful is either they have not used it; are not working; or not carrying laptop to and fro a few fixed locations. Imagine you can save the hassle of connecting/disconnecting power adapter, network, mouse, speakers, monitor, keyboard, USB devices etc everytime you move between office and home.

None of the Docking Station has USB 3.0 port except for Toshiba as at this post.