Laptop

[Rastan]

The only advice I have is check the specs of it out carefully. If you need a crash course on computer hardware specs you could learn all you needed to make a good purchase in a few days really. I7 is the newest line I think of Intel processors with I5 being its "budget" counterpart. Some of the I5's are close to actual performance with the lower end I7's. Before that was the Q lines. I'm not big on AMD tho I'm sure they're very competitive. A lot of laptop dealers like to do crap like give you some nice features and then slide a 1.3ghz processor in there on you in the fine print on the ads so watch out for that.

Usually laptops are the size they are for cooling purposes. The same reason they went with dual/quad cores instead of having 5-6ghz processors. If you get around a lot of the thin laptops you'll notice fast that you don't want some of them in your lap. They heat up like a stove top. Others do well but some are just like that.

I so far have owned a viao it was pretty durable. I have owned a Toshiba. Mine was crap my buddies same model one ran forever a HPaperweight(yep thats what it does)and a Dell. The Dell actually did well but... yeah all the giant computer companies are so terrible at QC and support. It's hard to say which might be the best one to get now. HP actually imo used to be great till they merged with compaq. My first computer purchase experience after that with them was abysmal. As for me now I build all my desktops and I haven't had use for a laptop much. Mine just sits around.

For the Video card conversation. I'm an Nvidia fan. I have had 1 good ATI and one poor ATI other than that I've had all Nvidia cards. At the moment I'm using a GTS 250 on 2 machines. Before that I had an 8800(it sorta shot sparks out all over the inside of my computer one night after a year and a half lol. Thats the only issue I've had in 10 years with an Nvidia tho.) The 250 is a decent budget card. I refuse to pay 400 bucks for a video card lol. MY FFXIV benchmark test says I will barely be able to run it on standard soo I would imagine that I will be impressed with the graphics on it.

[hallsofvallhalla]

wow good post, i agree with all that.

[hallsofvallhalla]

not a bad deal

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... 445-170017

[Jackolantern]

For a little more here is another Gateway with an i5: here. Well, more than a little bit more, but I think only a few Euros over 500. It also happens to be the exact same laptop I have I am very happy with it.

As far as video cards go, while it is complicated and very technical, you can buy a mobile nVidia card later and have it installed I believe. If you know any serious computer hardware professionals they could likely do it for you. Probably not a-do-it-yourselfer unless you have experience installing mobile video cards, though, because you basically have to pull the whole thing apart and re-assemble it to get it in the slot. You would also probably get away with paying a lot less, because laptop manufacturers scale up the entire specs with the video card. You really can't get a good video card preinstalled without it having an i7 processor, Blu-Ray drive, etc. But if you get it yourself, you can put a good video card in a mid-range system like one of these Gateways. Just be sure to speak to the laptop manufacturer and make sure your model has the slot and the room to have it installed.