hello, help with laptop please!

firedawg

New Member
Hello guys, I have just joined forum to seek some help with the purchase of a new laptop.

Mine is from the dark ages and cannot cope with my needs,
I recently bought a HDD camcorder so am looking to edit my home movies/photos, also to play some games, and basic computer stuff, also burn dvds.

I saw the one below and wondered if you could advise me if it could do all of the above applications,DELL INSPIRON 6400 LAPTOP
INTEL 1.60 GHZ CORE DUO PROCESSOR (DUAL 2 CORE)
160 GB SATA HARD DRIVE
1024 MB DDR2 RAM
8X DVD±RW CDRW ( BURNS CD's/DVDs )
INTEGRATED STEREO SOUND
INTERNAL WIRELESS INTEL 802.11Y a/b/g CARD
56k V.92 MODEM
256MB nVidia® GeForce™ 7300 TurboCache graphics card NVIDIA®

15.4 WIDESCREEN (1280x800) TrueLife BLACK GLOSSY
9 CELL Battery
WINDOWS VISTA HOME PREMIUM
NEW CANCELLED ORDER
1 YR WARRANTY DIRECT WITH DELL
PRICE INCLUDES VAT
DELL BOXED ITEM
CARRIAGE



My budget is about £500 which this one is, also need to know about graphics cards as I really don’t understand the difference, is this one ok.?

Can a game that says it requires xp be played on a vista machine?

Can the above spec run vista ok?

also i have seen a 2gb version but with a smalller hd(120gb)
and with ati radeon graphics (which is better ati or the above)

Thanks very much for looking ,hopefully i can bring this months long search to an end , cheers.
 
Unless you want to use it for heavy gaming, the graphics card is fine.

Most games/programs will run just fine on XP and vista, but some do have issues. It's best to just research them.

The laptop would run vista just fine.

I would need to know the model of the ATI card to say if it's better.
 
the machine looks good. it will run vista, but expect it to get slow at times. i would suggest upgrading to 2gb of RAM sometime in the future, that will help alot, especially with video editing. your GPU looks fine, i see no reason to get a different machine because of that, plus, you will definitely want the bigger HDD. im not a huge fan of dell, i fact i rather despise it, but this machine should do you well for the money.
hope that helped!
 
thanks guys, i think i will try to get one with 2gb ram,
but it is still the graphics card that is worrying me

there is the one above and also

128 MB ATI® Mobility™ Radeon® X1300 HyperMemory™ graphics card
or

256 Mb Shared Memory Integrated Intel® Graphics Media

they are available with this laptop

could iupgrade thegraphics with a dell machine ?

also i have looked at many pc games in the shop and hardly any say vista in the requiements section. must it say vista on the back for it to work?

if anyone knows of any alternative laptops avaiable for similar money please let me know, i could stretch a little but not a lot
thanks again
 
with the minimum requirements thats exactly what ti means, minimum so it need s a minimum of say, Windows 98, windows 98 onwards, many of the newer games e.g. halo 2 require vista. Also, sadly the graphics in your laptop are not upgradeable :(
 
these are the options i have found for this laptop

256 Mb Shared Memory Integrated Intel® Graphics Media
or
128 MB ATI® Mobility™ Radeon® X1300 HyperMemory™ graphics card
or
256MB nVidia® GeForce™ 7300 TurboCache graphics card NVIDIA®
or
256 MB ATI® Mobility™ Radeon® X1400 HyperMemory™ graphics card


which would you go for for games ?are any of them really pants!!

i am going to get a 2gb version and the largest hdd i can get.
 
these are the options i have found for this laptop

256 Mb Shared Memory Integrated Intel® Graphics Media
or
128 MB ATI® Mobility™ Radeon® X1300 HyperMemory™ graphics card
or
256MB nVidia® GeForce™ 7300 TurboCache graphics card NVIDIA®
or
256 MB ATI® Mobility™ Radeon® X1400 HyperMemory™ graphics card


which would you go for for games ?are any of them really pants!!
i am going to get a 2gb version and the largest hdd i can get.

the last two options are good. the geforce 7300 is ok, not spectacular. i dont know much about ATI, so you may wanna research it.
btw, what do you mean by "pants"?
 
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