Cheap Laptop

[BombaTwist]

Well i was thinking before of a new desktop, now my mom has told me why nto a laptop, >.< she changes her minds on things alot (ex: before she said instead of me upgrading, to get a whole new desktop, then she changed her mind again for me to just get a new laptop.) im not sure if i will get a new laptop or not but i would like to research on it. im looking for those cheap laptops that are around $500-$850, but i would also like at least 512mb ram and a good video card with it also that can at least play half-life 2 at ok fps. i dont want any of those intergrated intel stuff. i dont really care what processor it is, at least its something good with 64bit(not really necessary but would be nice). i could go for those $851-$1100 but i would want to pay for them monthly and not all at one time. i checked compaq, dell, and hp, but they are not that good. i tried looking for acer and i like what they have, i just cant find a store with one. X_X. so can someone help?

edit:oh yea, a dvd dual layer drive would be nice too.

Edited August 24, 2005 by BombaTwist

[ripken204]

well a good vid card in one will prolly be an x700, the dual layer adds alot to the price. it will be hard to find a good one under 1000$. why not just get a desktop, much much much better gaming.

take a look here for some laptops

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....Submit=Property

Edited August 24, 2005 by ripken204

[BombaTwist]

well a good vid card in one will prolly be an x700, the dual layer adds alot to the price. it will be hard to find a good one under 1000$. why not just get a desktop, much much much better gaming.

take a look here for some laptops

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....Submit=Property

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

(ex: before she said instead of me upgrading, to get a whole new desktop, then she changed her mind again for me to just get a new laptop.)

thats the reason. =/, i would like to get a new desktop. but i guess she wants laptop now >.<. she controls what i buy >.<. which sucks.

i guess the video card is out of the question then, unless i get this from cyberpowersystems. pretty good price. now if i could only convince my mom. >.<.

im going to try with This Centrino pentium 4 w/ HT from cyberpowersystems, i guess i shouldnt worry much about the video card, but then again gaming is mostly what i do with computers.

Edit: oh yea, my mom told me that i should get the laptop for my studies for high school since im about to start freshman in 2 weeks. but i also want gaming in it while im getting a laptop anyways. owell, i guess i could put up with laptops than can just run cs 1.6.

Edited August 24, 2005 by BombaTwist

[BombaTwist]

ok, i was thinging again on the specs, how about 256mb ram and any video card, but the cpu to be a pentium 4 w/ hyperthreading

[rikgale]

Go for 512Mb of RAM or you will struggle to do a lot of things with that laptop

[ripken204]

what are you guys smoking? get a gig or ram if it comes with 512. if it comes with 256 then buy an extra 512. 1gig is the recommended ram to have for xp and 512 is pretty much the minimum. now dont say that its 512 and 256, thats what MS says but they are wrong.

convince your mother to let you upgrade your current desktop! tell her that all you need is a mobo,cpu,ram,and vid card

[Zxian]

im going to try with This Centrino pentium 4 w/ HT from cyberpowersystems, i guess i shouldnt worry much about the video card, but then again gaming is mostly what i do with computers.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ok... I'm sorry. I would NOT buy this laptop. There is no Pentium M with HyperThreading!!! They're selling you a load of crap with those laptop specs, so I wouldn't be surprised if they sold you a load of crap for a laptop.

If you want to do gaming, I would recommend something like this. Laptops aren't cheap to begin with, and laptops that you can game with are even less cheap.

And ripken204 - You can actually run XP with 256MB of RAM just fine. If you don't do anything intensive (i.e. surf, type, read), then 256MB will do you just fine. If you want to do anything more than that, then yes, 512MB is a minimum.

[ripken204]

thats what im talking about, for people like us we need a gig and we would hate 512 but we could live with it. 256 is for people who dont multitask.

[Zxian]

Well... you said earlier that 512 is a minimum for XP... which isn't quite true...

And 512MB will do most people just fine even if they do multi task. I ran 512MB for a year or so without any problems whatsoever. A gig is truly overkill for most people. If I didn't run VMWare on my laptop, I wouldn't have upgraded it to 1GB... Most of the time I'm not even using 250MB of RAM...

[BombaTwist]

convince your mother to let you upgrade your current desktop! tell her that all you need is a mobo,cpu,ram,and vid card

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

the only problem is i dont know how to do the thermal paste thing and hooking up the wires that are attached to the case to the mobo >.<

im fine with 512 mb, and i guess the video card issue isnt really something i need to look at anymore now. probably some ok video card. my mom really wants to order from dell, not sure why but she likes it. This Laptop From Dell is what im thinking right now, ill put 512mb ram to the configuration. and im guessing the video card would be ok, something decent. the only concern for me is the celeron cpu, is it any good?

[Zxian]

Well... applying thermal paste is actually much easier than it seems. I upgraded my CPU a while back and put on a new heatsink without any problems whatsoever. It's a piece of cake. Just be careful and you'll be alright.

As for the cables... you can only plug them in one way. It's already dummy-proofed for you and me.

As for the laptop... it's alright. Intel's new Celeron-M is a big improvement over the old Celerons. They're based off the Pentium-M (the standard celerons are based off P4's), and have some speed-stepping capabilities.

I don't know how much you'll be able to game on that computer though... the Intel graphics card isn't much to write home about. It'll be fine for a work computer, but I wouldn't expect much 3D performance out of it.

[BombaTwist]

my mom wants me to use it for school work but i also would like to game here and there. not any intense gaming since those kinds of laptops are over $1000 :/.

edit:just wondering, are amd sempron's for laptops any good?

Edited August 25, 2005 by BombaTwist

[Zxian]

I would not recommend a Sempron for a laptop. They generate a lot of heat...

[BombaTwist]

How About an Amd Turion?

– Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition with SP2

– AMD Turion 64 ML-28 (1.6GHz/512KB L2 Cache)

– 14.0 WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280x768)

– ATI RADEON® XPRESS 200M w/productivity ports

– 512MB DDR SDRAM (2x256MB)

– 40 GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive

– DVD+/-RW/R & CD-RW Combo w/Double Layer Support

– 54g 802.11b/g WLAN w/ 125HSM/SpeedBooster

– 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery

Page Of Source

it all totals out to $799.

Edited August 25, 2005 by BombaTwist

[Zxian]

Not bad... The Turion is much better for heat production. If AMD can get it's power consumption down a bit more, they'd have something that could really compete with the Pentium-M.

That laptop seems alright. The only downside to it would be the video card. It would be comparable to the Radeon 9200 in terms of actual on-screen performance... maybe a little more, but not much.