Buying a new laptop help...

[gamemaker]

archive

[Subtle]

Okay. My first peice of advice is DONT GET A LAPTOP. They're exponentially more expensive, break easier, cost more to repair, get lost/stolen more often, and are EXTREMELY difficult to repair yourself. Unless your a tech wiz, you'll probobly want to plan to triple the price of that laptop in repairs.

Also, if your expecting to game on a laptop, dont hope for too much on a 500 dollar one. That can run older games, but not modern ones.

[gamemaker]

You have got to be kidding me. Well, the computer has to be mobile. Notebook?

[Subtle]

I can't really offer advice on what models to purchase or which to avoid, as I try to stay away from them so heavily. Do you have any specific games you want to run, and along with that any programs you think you'll always have running?

[gamemaker]

Let's see here, Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Publisher, Xcell, Powerpoint, and the lot), Photoshop, the internet (of course), the call of duty series, and I'll probably think of a few more later.

[Subtle]

I highly suggest you don't get vista for one thing. Vista is a resource hog of epic proprtions, and offers little features in exhange for what it asks of your poor, poor proscessor. The Office aps are heavy for what they do, I would suggest getting some open source softwear instead, like OpenOffice ( wikipedia it for more info)

www.bestbuy.com/site//olspage.jsp?id=pcmcat103700050018&type=category check around here. These are the cheapest Notebooks best buy has to offer.

One of the biggest problems with laptops is their lack of longevity. Their technology goes out of date fast unless you want to morgate your house on a nice one. I'd really suggest getting a crappy, but opperable laptop and a nice desktop.

[gamemaker]

Me and N4 know about Open office. Oh, and it just so happens that I have 130 dollars in gift cards for best buy. Thanks subtle.

[Subtle]

No problem. I'll be glad to answer anybody's tech problems to the best of my ability.

[Subtle]

Vista is more then not worth it, vista will make your computer substantially slower without having anything to redeem itslef other than, " It's pretty"

[Subtle]

gigahertz is the processer speed. Both of these laptops arent that great for anything but base line programs, and they'll be hell to run with Vista. I would suggest XP or maybe even 2000 for these specs. This is probobly what you can get for this budjet though, laptops are always horribly over priced

[Teh Donut]

Alright, coming from someone who remembers the days of the Pentium Processor and the 3.1, the 2 gig comp is all you're going to need; subtle is highly exaggerating...well, except about the OS, and laptop prices...

The only problem is when you're running Call of Duty, you're either gonna have to have a hella good internet, or close down most programs running in the background; the processor speed is more than enough for what you want to do, but your computer doesn't have that great an ability to multitask...desktop is so much better...never seen a dual-core in a laptop. I so need one of those...

Anywho, to be honest, I'm comparing those specs to my computer, since they're about the same, minus the extensive graphic and memory modifications for the architectural and animation work I do. I've never had issues with any of my games that comes from anything other than internet connection problems (I'm on wireless most of the time. -_-) or the fact that a laptop can't seriously multitask for shit, no matter how fast its processor or how large its memory are.

Go for the 2 gig.

Or better yet, get a Linux and build your comp from scratch. It's cheaper, and since only the software you want is on there, it's also really fast and powerful compared to anything you can get from a factory.

At least, that is, on the budget you have...

[Teh Donut]

You gotta be careful with those prices I'm seeing. They're most likely telling you what it costs after you send in the mail-in rebate. I'd advise you to read the fine print before buying whatever you're going to buy...

Oh, and whatever you do, don't even think of getting a Compaq. They're probably one of the worst computers in terms of longevity and the amount of problems you get. I also wouldn't recommend Hewlet-Packard; I don't know how they're doing these days, but last I knew them, they were going down the shitter, too.

Yea, but besides that, what you've looked at already is fine for what you're going to be doing.

[Subtle]

Keep in mind donut, that while those specs are fine, the avarage uninformed consumer has a large amount of spyware eating ram, so they need beefier PCs.

and I also suggested Unbutu earlier =P

[Teh Donut]

Oh god, no need to remind me of spyware...that stuff was hell to remove from this computer. Still haven't fully taken care of it all, but at least Winfixer and all its associated crap is gone for good...

You mean Ubuntu?

Never heard of it before, but I'll keep it in mind when I eventually have enough money set aside...

[Subtle]

I'm sure you wont hate vista. Your laptop could just run better with xp.