Curse

Raiin Maker · Oct 24, 2007, 04:39 PM // 16:39

I've decided its time to purchase a laptop-i need it for school, because the PC's there are always being used and are useless (most functions disabled) anyway.

Now its fairly easy to get a laptop which can do word etc, however if i am going to get one, i would like to get one on which i can play games on. This leaves me with a problem, there are lots of possible laptops i could choose (more options than when i chose my PC anyway) and i am not sure where to get it.

Vista home premium, 2gig ram, 15 (ish) inch screen would be most desirable. Hard drive dosen't have to be huge, 50-100gig would be fine. Ideally a Geforce graphics card. Pricewise nothing much over £800 tops.

If anyone knows a great reliable website for laptops i would really appreciate it, any tips would also be great.

You guys have really helped me in the past, helping me choose my lovely PC and fixing various problems with it when they have occurred.

Thanks so much once again for your help and time!

~Raiin Maker

Lucifer PVP · Oct 24, 2007, 04:57 PM // 16:57

what type of geforce 7or8
800 pounds is like $1600?

Quaker · Oct 24, 2007, 04:58 PM // 16:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raiin Maker

Vista home premium, 2gig ram, 15 (ish) inch screen would be most desirable. Hard drive dosen't have to be huge, 50-100gig would be fine. Ideally a Geforce graphics card. Pricewise nothing much over £800 tops.

Basically, you've summed it up yourself. There are super uber gaming ready laptops that are very expensive, but most of the ones in your price range can do the job.
Most new laptops come with at least 1 gig of RAM - 2 gigs is even better with Vista.
Most new laptops come with Vista Home Premium (not sure that's a good thing

)
Hard drives are usually 160gig or more.
Yes, ideally you want a good graphics "chip", such as ones by nVidia or ATI. Stay away from ones with low-end in-the-chipset graphics.

Bang-for-the-buck wise, (or bang-for-the-pound in your case) you're usually better off with a AMD based unit.

Raiin Maker · Oct 24, 2007, 05:01 PM // 17:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lucifer PVP

what type of geforce 7or8
800 pounds is like $1600?

Doesn't matter, and yeah its around $1,600 with the current exchange.

moriz · Oct 24, 2007, 05:23 PM // 17:23

dell inspiron 1520, with upgrades to video (geforce 8600M GT), ram, and processor. that amounts to about $1300, which should be in your price range.

Raiin Maker · Oct 24, 2007, 11:34 PM // 23:34

What do you guys think of this for casual gaming on low-med graphics, price etc.

I've bought of them in the past and they are great, and my current PC is a Zoostorm and i love it to bits.

http://www.pcnextday.co.uk/products/...Code=3384-5628

What do you think?

Josh · Oct 25, 2007, 01:07 AM // 01:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raiin Maker

What do you guys think of this for casual gaming on low-med graphics, price etc.

I've bought of them in the past and they are great, and my current PC is a Zoostorm and i love it to bits.

http://www.pcnextday.co.uk/products/...Code=3384-5628

What do you think?

1GB RAM. >_<

Find a laptop with a decent Intel C2D Processor, 2GB RAM and either an ATI/NVIDIA graphics chipset, like a GeForce 8 Series or any of the latest ATI mobility chipsets..

Although upon arrival, I'd strongly recommend formatting it and sticking XP back on.

Raiin Maker · Oct 25, 2007, 07:53 AM // 07:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Josh

1GB RAM. >_<

Find a laptop with a decent Intel C2D Processor, 2GB RAM and either an ATI/NVIDIA graphics chipset, like a GeForce 8 Series or any of the latest ATI mobility chipsets..

Although upon arrival, I'd strongly recommend formatting it and sticking XP back on.

Yeah 1 Gig ram is a little low, however i can easily add more and Vista can run quite easily with just 1g.

This laptop isn't going to be my main machine so i am going to leave Vista on there and get used to it, soon XP will be out of date anyway and we will all have to get used to Vista so i might as well start early.

Josh · Oct 25, 2007, 09:31 AM // 09:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raiin Maker

Yeah 1 Gig ram is a little low, however i can easily add more and Vista can run quite easily with just 1g.

This laptop isn't going to be my main machine so i am going to leave Vista on there and get used to it, soon XP will be out of date anyway and we will all have to get used to Vista so i might as well start early.

Yeah but if you plan on playing games on Vista you really do need that 2GB of RAM.

Sure Vista runs nice and smooth on 1GB, I've tried it myself! But games have a major hit compared to the performance of XP.

Raiin Maker · Oct 25, 2007, 07:38 PM // 19:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Josh

Yeah but if you plan on playing games on Vista you really do need that 2GB of RAM.

Sure Vista runs nice and smooth on 1GB, I've tried it myself! But games have a major hit compared to the performance of XP.

Ah well, 1gig of RAM is hardly expensive, and i can see why it would need more than 1gig to be effective, like i said its only for very casual gaming, and when i want to play out and about, however 1gig of ram isn't hard to grab my hands on.

Now i just have to email them about when they get the next batch in stock!

lord_shar · Oct 26, 2007, 05:55 AM // 05:55

If you want low cost with lots of hardware, the Dell Outlet would be my recommendation:

http://www.dell.com/content/products...n&s=dfh&~ck=mn

Although these systems are generally refurbs, many are marked scratch/dent returns that look new out of the box. They tend to sell very fast, so just refresh the web page often and see if you find one that meets your requirements. One of my buddies just grabbed an Inspiron 1520 with 2.0ghz core2duo and 8600m-gt 256mb video for under $1000USD.

Joshthor · Nov 04, 2007, 02:24 AM // 02:24

ok so go to www.cyberpowerpc.com soon im going to buy a laptop from this site, mine will be 15.4 in monitor, 2.4ghz processor, 4gb of ram, 512mb (graphics card geforce 7600 or somthing i think), 250 gb hard drive, xp media center or vista home, webcam, 9 cell lithium battery, fingerprint scanner, 2 free games and a free case, tv tuner and ac adapter.

guess how much for?

$1560 (shipping and tax not included though)
i personally think this is a GREAT price for the laptop

Biostem · Nov 04, 2007, 03:09 AM // 03:09

The most important things to look for, when considering a gaming laptop, are a dedicated video card, a relatively fast hard drive, and a good amount of fast ram.

Nowadays, ram is generally good on laptops, so I give the speed of the ram the least importance. You will want as much as you can afford - 2GB is great.

For hard drives, you have to be careful. Many laptop manufacturers will try to sell you on a high capacity hdd, but watch out for 5400 or 4200 rpm drives - you want 7200 or better (otherwise your load times will be high).

Lastly, you want a video card from one of the major companies - Nvidia or ATI. Furthermore, you want one that does NOT share ram w/ your system. You want one that explicitly says it has dedicated memory. You'll want at least 128MB of dedicated memory.

Other than that, and this is just personal opinion, I'd go w/ a laptop that has the standard 4:3 screen ratio - the widescreen laptops look nice, but very few games properly adjust for that ratio - they tend to act like the standard resolution of the screen's width, and shrink the height (not act like the standard resolution of the same height but w/ more room on the sides).

Hope that helps...

therangereminem · Nov 04, 2007, 03:21 AM // 03:21

dont geta laptop tp play guildwars waste of money cant upgrade the way you cana desktop

Biostem · Nov 04, 2007, 03:44 AM // 03:44

From the OP's description, it sounds like he *needs* a laptop - a desktop isn't an option.

To the OP: Guildwars is relatively light on the graphical demands it places on the computer - it should run fine on a laptop w/ a dedicated video card.

lord_shar · Nov 04, 2007, 04:12 AM // 04:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Biostem

...<SNIP>...

Other than that, and this is just personal opinion, I'd go w/ a laptop that has the standard 4:3 screen ratio - the widescreen laptops look nice, but very few games properly adjust for that ratio - they tend to act like the standard resolution of the screen's width, and shrink the height (not act like the standard resolution of the same height but w/ more room on the sides).

Hope that helps...

Almost all modern games support wide-screen aspect ratios since they go through the OS video driver. My XPS laptop runs 1920x1200 (16:10 aspect ratio), and none of the games I have loaded have any distortion problems.

As far as the video card: I completely agree -- dedicated video memory with a fast GPU is definitely the way to go. The NVidia 8600M-GT is probably one of the better choices for a mid grade gaming laptop.

Quote:

Originally Posted by therangereminem

dont geta laptop tp play guildwars waste of money cant upgrade the way you cana desktop

Desktops are very upgradable, but they tend to be boat-anchors. Laptops are great for mobile game play, but they do expire sooner as game title requirements rise with available market hardware. The key is to find a happy medium of price vs. performance.

tijo · Nov 06, 2007, 09:34 PM // 21:34

Dell is a good place to look. Toshiba might have some nice models too but some people i know had problems with their Toshiba laptops, mine works fine though. Asus has some very nice models too altough those may be a bit more expensive.

iridescentfyre · Nov 07, 2007, 03:01 AM // 03:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Josh

Sure Vista runs nice and smooth on 1GB, I've tried it myself! But games have a major hit compared to the performance of XP.

I can confirm this. Having switched back and forth several times between Vista Ultimate and XP x64, Guild Wars runs anywhere from 80-100% faster in XP. Its a staggering difference.. like, I could manage +/-60fps in Vista, now I'm starting to see 100's and 120's. And that's on a machine with 2GB of RAM.