NoteBook but which?

Ok so saddly I'm limited to where I can get my PC from I want a nice notebook, I dont have a lot of room for a desktop. My options are retail stores like best buy,, etc. I have a budget of around $2000 I want the best I can get for around $2000 and please dont go over. all I will be playing on it is GW and 2 other small games that run on Java that even my current PC could play, and maybe GW 2. I know fairly well what specs to look for, its just I like other opinoins on things and I dont feel like going into a store and listening to the sales people try to sell me a Piece Of junk with stuff I dont need.

Any other things you need with it? Do you want it to be very portable, as in small and lightweight? Screen Size requirements? Any brands that you hate? Any brands that you prefer? Also $2000 for Guild wars is Super Over-kill.

Really, the big thing w/ a gaming notebook is to look for one that has an nvidia or radeon video card that has its own, dedicated video memory. Other than that, 2+ gigs of ram would be nice, as would a dual-core processor. Other than that, the only thing I'd suggest would be to get a hard drive that is faster than 5400 rpms; anything less will have noticeably long load times...

Anyway, $2000 for a laptop is actually quite steep...

Could I also suggest Windows XP? It's a much more game friendly system, Vista has many things going for it... but those are not really gaming related.

Unless it's a clearance item, or you're buying from an online store, it's very unlikely that you will still find a laptop loaded w/ XP. Regardless, you can disable most of Vista's Aerio stuff to improve performance, but that usually doesn't come into play if you're playing in full-screen mode.

As long as you have 2GB of ram or more, you should be fine w/ Vista.

I think IBM still lets you choose the option of getting WinXP and they now have new consumer laptops. That's the one I am thinking of getting...

the new DELL XPS m17XX i think, im gonna get one soon ........

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/pr...hs1&l=en&s=dhs

Other names to goggle:

Zepto
Gateway - Has a poor rez screen though
Clevo
MicroPC
Voodoo - Might be a bit too expensive
Asus
Acer


Minimum specs you should aim for:

XP/Vista
2GB RAM
7950GTX 512MB (Ideally the 8800m)
200GB HDD

the CD re-writer ect

At the price point your talking, you should have no problem getting a more than adequate laptop. I would say your main considerations should be:

- ATI or nVidia video "chip" with it's own dedicated memory. Most chipset based graphics will only share main RAM, but separate graphics chips usually come with some dedicated RAM, plus the ability to share main RAM. 256meg (or more) of dedicated RAM would be best.

- at least 2 gigs of RAM.

Other than that, if you make sure you have those two things, the rest of the laptop should have enough of all the usual bells & whistles.