Solved! Best laptop to take to Afghanistan?

bull2118

Distinguished
Apr 8, 2009
5
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18,510
Hooray, I get to go back to the mountains. I intend to bring a laptop with me this time. I expect to use this mostly to:
1. Look at pictures of my wife and kid
2. Watch videos of my wife and kid
3. Watch DVDs
4. Listen to music
5. Surf the web

My family in-law is going to throw in and get me a laptop for Christmas so I would like to keep the price pretty close to 500USD. Quality of parts is obviously and issue since I wont be doing any reasonable RMA/repairs over there. Scouring the web and reading all the brand wars I think I'd like to stick to a Toshiba (best price/performance and good reliability?) or Asus (best quality?) Ive narrowed it down to

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Satellite+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i3+Processor+/+15.6%22+Display+/+4GB+Memory+/+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Black/1552571.p?id=1218268438309&skuId=1552571

or

http://www.officemax.com/catalog/sku.jsp?productId=prod3211067&history=ylesmgrc|prodPage~15^freeText~asus^paramValue~true^refine~1^region~1^param~return_skus^return_skus~Y

I know I get more with the Toshiba but I looked at a Toshiba and they seem like they have a lot of wasted space (looked approx 15% larger than comparable notebooks) and the Asus I looked at appeared to be built a little better. Should I sacrifice processor and GB for the Asus brand?

If its possible I'd like to take CIV IV and V and play them, maybe SC2? I know you need a discrete graphics card for any big stuff but I'm kind of hoping these are not so GPU hungry I cant run them on integrated graphics?

Any help, advise, or other purchase ideas are greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
 

mothekiller

Distinguished
May 7, 2010
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0
18,510
the both laptop aren't good for that kind of thing's you want cuz the graphics card is crappy they both have a shared integrated graphics card i would recommended a laptop that has a dedicated graphics card the games run better on a dedicated and not so good on a integrated i would recommended this laptop its fast it has a good graphics card and its in your budget :)