The laptop I need... please help in the search

L

lokodezine

New Member
Ok many of you probably have read my previous post "Buy from HP or BEst Buy" and with the many responses my views have changed.

I am looking for a laptop in the range of 800 - 1250 (give or take some). Also I would like the laptop to be preloaded with wireless capabilities/card.


This laptop will be used as my home pc and school pc. It's primary source will be for school work (taking to and from school) and entertainment purposes: surfing the internet, streaming, watching dvds, burning cds and dvds, and playing, downloading, listining to music.

Its secondary source will be designing purposes; such as using programs such as photoshop, dreamweaver, picture editing and some video editing.

I really will not be playing that many games on it and if I do it probably wont be the latest cool games, as I figure thats what I have a PS2 for.

So basically if anyone can lend a helping hand in describing what I Should look for int he laptop; such as should my main source be the processor type and if so how fast, what would be some good video cards (as I do want it to be fairly good) or even better point to a good laptop.

Thanks for your time and any help would be much appreciated...
 
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what about graphics card... would an intergrated grpahics such as intel graphics or ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M IGP or what about DDR ATi® MobilityTM RADEONTM 9000 4X AGP... would any of those be fine.

Is the main thing I need is a quick processor?

Any recommendations on a specific laptop?
 
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I agree with kof that you'll probably want a P4 chip for your needs, however if you find a good deal on an AMD, don't completely discount that one either... Furthermore, if you do want to buy retail, don't purely look at Best Buy. I wouldn't recommend Circuit City, but OfficeDepot, OfficeMax and Staples have the same type of electronics for cheaper because you don't have the name backing it up. Furthermore, a lot of people at these other stores also have as much if not more knowledge than employees at Best Buy. Moral of the story, don't just look at Best Buy, if you do, you probably won't get the best retail deal...

If you want to go direct from the manufacturer, then I would go with either HP or Dell, and usually do have various deals going on and then you can customize the laptop to your specifications... Hope this helps you a little more ;)
 
The main thing with graphics in a laptop to watch out for is the fact that most of them are going to have "shared memory." Meaning that if the laptop has 512MB of RAM with 128MB of shared video memory, that means that there is actually only 384MB of RAM dedicated to the system, with the rest routed to the video performance. Just keep that in mind when looking at your different options for a laptop...
 
ok would a ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M IGP 128 mb (dedicated) video card suit my needs even if I wanted to play some games such as Call of Duty or would the 32 or64 MB DDR ATi® MobilityTM RADEONTM 9000 4X AGP be a notecable difference?

And with the processor would a AMD Athlon 64 Processor Speed 2.0GHz or would the Pentium® M Processor 755(2 GHz/400MHz FSB) 14.1-in XGA w/32MB Video be alot better and worth it and take a cut in 20 GB of hardrive space to get it?
 
I am looking for a laptop in the range of 800 - 1250 (give or take some). Also I would like the laptop to be preloaded with wireless capabilities/card.
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nearly all laptops available at dell, hp, toshiba, bestbuy, circuitcity contain wireless b/g cards.


This laptop will be used as my home pc and school pc. It's primary source will be for school work (taking to and from school) and entertainment purposes: surfing the internet, streaming, watching dvds, burning cds and dvds, and playing, downloading, listining to music.
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this does not take much processing power.

Its secondary source will be designing purposes; such as using programs such as photoshop, dreamweaver, picture editing and some video editing.
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probably want a faster processor and an actual dedicated video card. radeon 9000, xpress 300m, and 6800 will all work.


So basically if anyone can lend a helping hand in describing what I Should look for int he laptop; such as should my main source be the processor type and if so how fast, what would be some good video cards (as I do want it to be fairly good) or even better point to a good laptop.

Thanks for your time and any help would be much appreciated...
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are you going to be carrying this laptop around? do you need long battery life? do you want a laptop that doesn't weigh much or does it not matter? do you need wide screen for movies?
 
widescreen would be nice... yes I will be carrying this latop around but if it weighs more than normal that would be fine... Battery life just needs to be decent

Also how much memory and harddrive should I be looking at?
 
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lokodezine said:
widescreen would be nice... yes I will be carrying this latop around but if it weighs more than normal that would be fine... Battery life just needs to be decent

Also how much memory and harddrive should I be looking at?
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you want atleast 512 mb of memory and probably atleast 80 gb for your usage.

and please dont say random things to bump you're thread. we'll get to it.
 
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