Purchasing a laptop - new to them.

Airek

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Jan 23, 2007
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1_What is your budget? 500-600ish

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 16" or bigger.

3_What screen resolution do you want? Not important.

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Portable.

5_How much battery life do you need? Not too important, nothing drastically bad though.

6_Do you want to play games with your laptop? Yes... games like Heroes of Newerth, some ARPGs like Titan Quest, Diablo. Anything else is just extra. Would like to run at med+

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? General movie watching, music listening, photo viewing. Not much editing.

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need? 320+

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them. None.

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop? 3+ years.

11_What kind of Optical drive do you need? Any DVD rom... writer would just be extra.

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 preference.

13_What country do you live in? USA

14_Please tell us any additional information if needed. This laptop will be a Christmas gift to my fiance, but used by both of us as a family portable computer. I'm buying an HD Camcorder for "me", which will also be used by the both of us.

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Now, with that done, as I said this will be for the both of us. She mostly does normal web browsing for Facebook, MySpace, email, etc. with some music listening and movie watching. I, on the other hand, do the same as her with the addition of some gaming.

I am a somewhat experienced PC builder, with around 4 builds under my belt. I've been out of the loop for a while as far as tech goes, so I'm not sure what is current.

Now for my biggest question(s) that may differ from a PC is... video cards. Of course, with gaming video cards are important, but from what I've seen nearly all laptops I've looked at are listed as "integrated graphics card", with a variety of names. I know for a PC build that nearly anything integrated is a big no-no. Especially graphics cards. Does this change with laptops due to limited space, or are these laptops I'm looking at just flat out not used for gaming?

Next question is where to buy a laptop? Again, with a PC build, you order your parts from your favorite site (newegg) and proceed with the build. I've been browsing Best Buy lately for my video camera purchase as well as a laptop. I've found a few for around $600-$675 with good all around specs, but then the dreaded(?) integrated graphics card.

If anyone can shed some light on these issues for me it would be greatly appreciated. Also, some suggestions/recommendations overall for my purchase, or some specific models to look at.

Thanks! =)

Airek
 

Airek

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Jan 23, 2007
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Wow, that ASUS seems really nice. Sharp look, full num pad, etc... I showed it to the lady nonchalantly like I was just getting ideas and she seemed impressed. I can't think of much that is lacking from that computer for the price point. Any other input?

Also, I'm not familiar with AMD Turion - is that just a mobile processor name?

Any further input is greatly appreciated. Right now that looks like the front runner, and may order as soon as tomorrow so it has a chance to be here by Christmas.

EDIT: After reading some reviews, one person said "Nowhere in this description is mention of a 64 bit system, yet that's what I got - not compatable with anything but itself." -- What exactly was meant by that? I haven't heard of any problems of late with 64 bit systems, but as I said, I've been out of the loop for a bit.
 

ibnsina

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Considering your budget, this is a good offer. AMD Turion with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 should give reasonable performance in most games, with some games you have to use lower resolutions. Most companies will charge you around $100+ for the extra one year warranty with Accidental Damage Warranty.

You can get other laptop with faster cpu from Toshiba or Asus, but nearly most of them have intergraded gpu, which means poor gaming performance with exceptions of few games.
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That reviewer is complaining about windows 7 64 bit, looks like he’s got some application which doesn’t run on his system. Any way most modern applications/games these runs on windows 64 bit system, so I wouldn’t worry about this. One of the advantage of the 64bit system it will recognise your 4GB memory.
 

Airek

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Jan 23, 2007
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Very cool, ibnsina. Good to know about the Windows 7 64 bit, and good to hear some more feedback as any purchase of this size is not one I like to make without opinions.

That warranty definitely isn't something to overlook either. Nice.
 

Airek

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Jan 23, 2007
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Thanks again for the links. Think I'm going to end up grabbing one of those Logitech MX518's for my desktop and throwing my current standard USB mouse for use with the laptop. Good idea.