Laptop purchasing help needed!

Technology and Gaming
#1

My old laptop shit out on me, and I need a new one before classes start in winter. I hope not to spend over $600 (I’m really tight on money), but still be able to play BFBC2 smoothly. These are the base requirements set by the school:

2GB RAM
200GB Internal Hard Drive
DVD+RW (Win)
802.11g Wireless Card (Win)
15.4" Display (1440 by 900 pixel display minimum)

Some links to specific models or configurations are appreciated. Thanks!

Edit: If a mod would like to move this to Help and Support, then great.

#2

I’d start with some benchmarks.

Graphics card: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html
Processor: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html

#3

You want to be able to play BFBC2 on a laptop and keep it under $600? Good luck.

My suggestion: Get a netbook for class, and then spend the rest of your money on a desktop. You’re always going to get more gaming mileage out of your money if you focus on getting a high-spec desktop, since those parts are much cheaper than their laptop counterparts. Further, a netbook is a bagillion times easier to carry than the 5kg monster you’ll end up carrying if you go that high spec.

#4

If you want to play good games with great graphics you no need loptop…loptop is a work pc like work with programs and etc. If you want to play games on good graphic buy PC…I bought mine for 2kdolars. And it’s perfect.

#5

Holy shit, your school has some stupid requirements, my laptop only has a 160GB HDD (upgraded to 1tb) is 17" and the resolution is only 1280x800, plus the GMA uses 256+ ram so with 2gb of ram I only have 1.75GB, and my last laptop was a 1024x768 screen, 40gb hard drive, 512mb of ram and it was still 10 times faster than this laptop in games.

#6

Spend $600 on laptop and be annoyed and frustrated, or spend $600 on an averagely good little solid machine.

Question is, do you NEED a laptop, or just want one instead? (class dependant.)

#7

I do need a portable PC for school. I sometimes have to use AutoCAD programs between my apartment and studio, and netbooks aren’t going to run them very well. Thought gaming might be a little extra requirement that won’t add much.

Any suggestions? Although $600 price ceiling is probably absurd…

#8

This would be the best for your money-
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220715&cm_re=Asus_laptop_260m--34-220-715--Product

#9

basicly your best bet is that one ^^

#10

Don’t know if other users have shared my experience but I’d warn you to stay away from anything with a dell logo on it. My dell laptop was a box of trouble ever since I had it, marred by dreadful performance, severe running issues, poor battery life and a very short own life xD it was short lived at 1 year before it gave up completely.

#11

Stay the FUCK away from H3LL laptops, their chargers are designed to fry the machine and when you buy a new charger it will refuse to charge the battery and run at 25% speed because of a secret chip inside the charger that’s only in original dell charger that came with your laptop. No way around it, otherwise it doesn’t charge the battery and runs like a crippled turtle, on purpose. DeLL is the only known laptop maker to do this.

I’ve owned dozens of laptops, all previously used… HP, TOSHIBA, IBM, ASUS, ACER, DELL, SONY, COMPAQ and the mmmmmacintosh, the best by far is ASUS.

#12

I had that problem actually ^^ my mother owned the same model laptop and we once swapped cables and that happened.

#13

The Newegg one sounded good, but I really needed a laptop in a week. One more question: are these specs okay?

Processor: AMD Phenom ™ II N640 Dual-Core Processor 2.90 GHz
RAM: 4.00 GB
Graphics: AMD M880G with ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250

#14

No. Not even a 43xx, you need to go 5xxx series if you want to buy one with a low-end Radeon card.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYbAvQtKsL8

#15

shit…I think I may have just downgraded. Is the HD 4250 that abysmal for gaming? And compared to the HD 4570 (my old laptop’s card), how much worse is the 4250?

I think I may have to return the new one and go for the Newegg suggestion.

#16

https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-graphics-card-recommendation-upgrade,review-32078-7.html

#17

Keep in mind laptop graphics are worse than the desktop version in most cases.

#18

They’re listed separately in the chart.

#19

Apologies for necroing this long dead thread, but I need a last opinion: How are these specs for running BC2 smoothly?

Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
AMD Phenom™ II Dual-Core Mobile Processor P650 (2.6GHz, 2MB L2 Cache)
512MB ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 6370 switchable graphics [HDMI, VGA]
6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
640GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
Wireless 802.11b/g/n Card

Turns out the one I bought had a HD 4200, which was shit.

Also, will it run into heating or power supply problems?

#20

How are we supposed to know about heating or PSU if none of those specs mention a case or power supply model?

Anyway about the 6370 well, if it’s got a 3 in there means it’s a low-end card… Maybe better than a 4200 but a HD5770 would have been faster.

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