Laptop Recommendations!!!

[Inca Cola Man]

Hey guys, I'm getting a laptop for graduation, and I was hoping that y'all could give me some recommendations. Basically, I want a laptop that can run Mass Effect and TF2 at recommended settings but won't cost my grandparents a fortune. I also DON'T want a mac. Thanks for the help

-The Inca Cola Man

 

[trykael]

what's a fortune?

I'm not sure what your pricepoint is, but any decent gaming on a laptop needs at least a semi-advanced setup. The Dell XPS M1730 is a pretty sweet build, but it's also expensive.

In general, you'll want at least:

intel core2 duo processor

2 gigs RAM

DISCRETE GRAPHICS (something like the NVIDIA®GeForce®8700M GT graphics) - do NOT trust your gaming graphics to an integrated chipset

If you can afford it, you want a 7200RPM hard drive

The rest is really up to you. I ALWAYS suggest Windows XP over Vista (what a terrible OS), but that's really a personal call, I guess.

 

[pillar]

ya my dad & i just got a new laptop 4 him & it has vista on it. since im my dads techie, i have 2 deal w/ vista. in some ways vista is better than xp, but majority of it, xp pwns vista big time. also dude, u might wanna check out cyberpower's notebooks esp since we sponsor em.

 

[Ephyu]

Whatever you do, stay away from Toshiba and most four letter laptops, unless it's that three letter series from said four letter company. Also, Alienware's overpriced.

I've never tried CyberPowerPC, but I haven't heard anything bad about them yet (except for the occasional defective part, which they'd replace, albeit slowly). Also, several of the higher end ASUS laptops are just fine for gaming, while some use weird graphics cards that simply won't boot most games because of driver errors. You kinda have to do your research on that, but I haven't seen the gaming quality ASUS laptops go very high in price, usually around $1900. And when I say "gaming" in the same sentence I'm referring to a laptop, I don't mean playing everything on full settings, just being able to play on decent settings.

 

[Thatguy]

If you want a gaming laptop, look for these specs.

Either AMD or Intel Dual Core, about 2.0ghz is fine

2 gigs ram

Nvidia GeForce 8600M

Those specs will run anything, just not with super high quality. You will get like 40-60 FPS on TF2 with that setup. A laptop like that can be purchased for under $1000 from what I have seen. I'll see if I can find a brand that offers a good deal, like Sony or Dell or someone.

 

[Rogue Sniper]

dell offers a
17 inch
2.2 ghz core2duo
7200rpm 250 sata hdd
8700 nvidia graphx card
and 3 gigs of ram
all for around 1300-1600
great deal in my opinion
its the 1720 series

 

[PuddinPop]

It would set you back a bit more, but one of Lenovo's Thinkpad T61's could be a good choice. The things are crazy durable and especially usefull for clumsy college kids.

 

[Frank Booth]

Something like this. Its 150 off right now. I customized mine online, but this is pretty fast.

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11287447