Laptop ideas

[ZGundam]

Ok, the bad news is that I am getting divroeced from the missus after 5 years together and 4 years married.

The good news? I have control over my finaces again. Have a place ready to move into next week. Now the laptop is staying with her and I need a new one.

I may want to make AMVs with it and maybe some gaming, but not online...maybe.

Any ideas? Price range is no more then $800.

Thank you for your advice in advance.

[Stark]

Can anyone really support people making AMVs? And what does 'not online' mean? Do you want a laptop that doesn't have an RJ-45?

[ZGundam]

I meant to say one where I can play some of the latest games, but also online ones like WoW on a wireless when my Cable internet is down.

RJ-45 is standard now, I believe anyway.

[Laughing Mechanicus]

I don't have any particular suggestions for models of laptops, but if you want something that plays modern games then NotebookChecks graphics card benchmark list will probably be very helpful in deciding what cards have the capabilities you need. Just remember you don't get very much power for your money with mobile graphics cards, so getting something for less than $800 which can really properly run modern games might be difficult.

Also remember to check how good the update rate on the screen is if you want to do serious gaming on it.

Oh, and prepare for it to be heavy and have just enough battery life to let you carry it from one power socket to the next.

[General Zod]

Define "latest games". Because you'll be hard pressed to find a new laptop for less than $1000 that's capable of running games like World at War, Dawn of War 2 and the like without serious slowdown. You can get a very capable laptop for less than $1,000, but a gaming machine it won't be.

[Sarevok]

ZGundum by wireless do you mean connecting to the internet via wifi when you dont have cable internets ?

[ZGundam]

ZGundum by wireless do you mean connecting to the internet via wifi when you dont have cable internets ?

Yes.

I just got approved for the Microcenter card so where I get my laptop is limited.

[Lonestar]

I assume you won't be in your house/apartment trying to connect to the internet through wifi while oyur cable connection is diown, correct?

[ZGundam]

I assume you won't be in your house/apartment trying to connect to the internet through wifi while oyur cable connection is diown, correct?

I work for Sprint and have one of our Compass 597C connection USB internet device. I would use this in my home to connect if Comcast is down or is I am traveling.

[Lonestar]

Alright, I wouldn't expect to be playing anything more complicated than Flash games running off of the cellular network.

You might have trouble finding new Laptops that can run Very Nice(tm) games for less than $1000, although you could get lucky if you keep an eye out on Tigerdirect/buy.com/woot and see something that has been refurbished. You would be able to play some pretty good games on a under-1000 laptop, but unless you find a deal I wouldn't be expecting to run Crysis anytime soon.

What games did you have in mind?

[ZGundam]

Dawn of War series, not DoW2

WoW

Halo 2

Mass Effect

NWN 2

and run stuff like YouTube and other video websites.

Nothing very fancy

[Sarevok]

I have ran Halo 2 and first Dawn of War game on a laptop with 2 gb ram, amd turion 2 ghz cpu (single core variant) and nvidia goforce 6100 graphics. The graphics settings had to be lowered greatly but the games were playable.

As for Mass Effect and NWN 2 ? I cant help but I imagine even if it ran you would not enjoy a modern rpg like Mass Effect running with minimum graphics on a sluggish machine.

Regarding multiplayer I will echo lonestar. I have tried many cellular modems and all of them utterly sucked (as in useless) for gaming.

As for other applications you mention almost any device sold today is more than capable.

[General Zod]

Dawn of War series, not DoW2

WoW

Halo 2

Mass Effect

NWN 2

and run stuff like YouTube and other video websites.

Nothing very fancy

. . .DoW2 is part of the Dawn of War series. WoW is 10 years old and can be ran on almost anything. Mass Effect might be somewhat more problematic, and I can't say anything about NWN 2. You can run Youtube from a phone, so. . .yeah.

[Mr Bean]

From store testing Mass Effect and NWN 2 are quite doable on 9600 GS's and above, note the Geforce G series is garbage below the GTS 150m. The GTS 210m (Mainstream) is roughly twice as good as a Geforce 130M and the Geforce 9600 GS is about 150% better than the 130m's.

ATI side of things I don't know but thanks to work I had a chance to play around with various laptops and GTS 250 and above come closest to running everything you want very well.

And whatever you do, stay the !@#$@$ away from Intel cards. My six year old Pentium 4(First gen) with a Geforce 4200 TI mobile graphics card outperforms every Intel card in existence that will run on the laptop. It's not as bad as the last gen of Intel video cards which had had issues running Half Life 1 despite being released in 2005.

*Edit
And here's a handy chart of mobile notebook video card ratings. It's only by 3DMark benches but according to it there are half a dozen cards that might suit.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Gra ... 844.0.html

[ZGundam]

The card for the laptop I want is #166 on the list.

Hmmm. wonder if I should get it?

Here is what I am looking at: http://microcenter.com/single_product_r ... ntbk158691

[General Zod]

The card for the laptop I want is #166 on the list.

Hmmm. wonder if I should get it?

Here is what I am looking at: http://microcenter.com/single_product_r ... ntbk158691

It's shared video memory, so definitely don't expect to be able to play something like Mass Effect on it.

[ZGundam]

Guess I'll wait till I can have an extra $1000 to spare.

[General Zod]

Does it absolutely have to be a laptop? There's plenty of capable gaming desktops you could get for under $800 that would handily run Mass Effect and similar.

[Coalition]

Does it absolutely have to be a laptop? There's plenty of capable gaming desktops you could get for under $800 that would handily run Mass Effect and similar.

You'll also want a good set of speakers (or headphones) for the Conversation with Sovereign. Note: massive spoiler here, but Sovereign has an excellent voice.