Help me choose: Medium-End, long-lasting laptop for $1000 or less?

[DiegoLisboa]

Hello, I've been currently considering on getting a new notebook. I do not intend to run "heavy" games on it.

Budget: Up to $1000 dollars, or "2000 R$" in local currency.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 15" Minimum, 18" Maximum.

3. What screen resolution do you want? 1360 x 768 at least.

4. 4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Versatile. I'll be using it in bed and to travel around, but of course I'll use a cooling pad in case I use it in bed.

5. How much battery life do you need? 2-4 hours Minimum.

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? Yes, but not "heavy" ones. Civilization IV, at Medium settings, Stronghold 2, at Medium settings, Warcraft III, at Medium settings, Minecraft at Medium settings, and maybe Spore at Low settings if it is possible, but I believe it isn't.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? Nothing out of ordinary, I just want to be able to browse windows and use things such as Microsoft Word without crashing.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? 75 GB or more.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. Not a specific one atm...

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? Three years or more, I need a reliable laptop.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? Just DVD/CD.

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. No HP please, I prefer Dell, but I can take anything else if it is cheaper and has the same settings as one, but please, just not HP. It overheats too fast. We had a dell once and it lasted 2 years with my brother's constantly leaving it charging & turned on, while our mother's HP began displaying large amounts of epic failure before a week had passed after we bought it.

13. What country do you live in? Brazil

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed. Well, I guess all I need is a computer to run like a normal one, without crashing frequently, and that can run those "light" games I listed. Budget is pretty low, I know, and if I can not spend all of it, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[jaguarskx]

From my own personal experience ThinkPads are pretty sturdy, at least back when IBM was selling them. My IBM ThinkPad T40 from 2003 still works to this very day, the battery and the CMOS battery does need to be replaced though. However, these are business laptops, not gaming laptops so they will just use the Intel HD 4000 graphic core. Some models have an expensive option ($200 - $300) to upgrade to a nVidia NVS graphics card, but that is an expensive upgrade for something that performs worse than a GT 610 since the drivers are not tweaked for games.

At 1366x768 resolution the Intel HD 4000 would be fine for non graphically demanding games with medium graphics quality. I have played around with Fallout 3 with a mix of low and medium settings on the older Intel HD 3000 and the performance was decent enough. I also played Mass Effect 3 for the hell of it on Insanity mode using the HD 3000 instead of the dedicated nVidia GT 550m. I was able to complete the entire game just using the Intel HD 3000.

The Intel HD 4000 is about 35% faster than the HD 3000 on average. The games you have listed are relatively old and not very graphics demanding so I really do not see any problems using the Intel HD 4000 for those games.

IBM sold their desktop and laptop division to Lenovo so you might want to go to their site and see what is available in your country and at what price. I am currently using a Lenovo IdeaPad Y470 (from 2011). It's okay, but not built to the standards of a ThinkPad in terms of ruggedness and overall build quality. While good for games, I think that my IBM ThinkPad T40 will outlive the IdeaPad Y470. I may buy another ThinkPad next year.