For what I need, it doesn't have to be fancy. I just want it to be good. I'd like to be able to watch movies on it, do some typing, maybe play a few games like LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth or Sims 2. Nothing too great. Is this decent? http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/prod...&subcat=Notebook Computers&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes I'm limited to what I can get by the fact that I have a $1,000 sears gift card. So It's gotta be from this website.
Yeah, but this one will save you money and for what you need it's still more than enough. The other notebook is just way overpriced. -J.
I'd agree, except for the screen size. I want one that's small enough to be easily transportable on planes, buses, in classes, etc, etc. At 17 inches, that one would be just too unwieldy to lug around with me, especially on an airplane.
Try this one. Trust me, you can get great performance at a much better price than that $1049 price tag. That way, you can use the rest of the money for accessories you might want. This particular laptop uses AMD Turion 64X technology. It's way, way more powerful than what you'll need, and can still play modern games with ease. -J.
My sis knows all the specs on the Sims 2 and what computers can run it. I can ask her to look at the list of specs for both PCs and get back to you on that.
Recommendations from Sis: The double processor on the first two is better for gaming than the single processor on the third one. If you put a slightly faster processor on the third one, or a slightly faster hard drive (try one with more than 5400 RPM), it should run the Sims 2 just fine. The graphics card isn't on the specified list, but it's a pretty good one and you should have no problems. The QuickPlay option is always good for movies. I really wish my computer had that. Isn't LightScribe the type of CD burner that lets you label your CDs however you like? If it is, that's pretty cool. You just need a special kind of CD and your burner will label them. Looks like option 3 is almost perfect.
True, in a way. The Turion processors are built very powerful, and have a very high performance rating for a single core. I play Sims 2 on an AMD AthlonXP 2800+ (3-4 year old technology), an nVidia GeForce FX5200 (5 year old technology) and 756 Mb of RAM (at the time). Playing everything at it's highest setting didn't even cause a hiccup in game play. Double & Quad cores are nice, but unnecessary expense for what he needs. Like I said earlier, my older technology plays high end games without flinching. I played FEAR online the other day at mid & high res settings on my current AMD AthlonXP 2800+, nVidia GeForce 7300LE (not GT), and 1.5Gb of PC3200 DDR400 RAM. Yeah, a faster drive would be better, but remember this is a laptop. A faster drive means greater vibration and much more heat. I see thousands of these drives come through my station every day, overheated, data destroyed by heavy vibration in such an enclosed space. Actually, 5400 RPM for a laptop is quite fast. The previous standard was 4.2K, so this is a great improvement. Yep. Lightscribe is pretty neat. The disks are a little expensive though. -J.
Dual-core isn't going to help you run the Sims any better. Game is not optimized for more than one core. If you want to run games, like LoTR BfME2 or Sims 2, what you need to look for is your graphics card. The processor could be 1ghz and hard drive 4200rpm, but as long as you have a nice video card the games will run fine. Now, I'm not saying only go with a 1ghz processor, but it is one of the last concerns. For gaming it goes: Video Ram (total and speed) Processor HD speed If you're running XP, you want at least 1GB of Ram, Vista 2GB. Processor can be anywhere from 1.5-3.0Ghz, your choice. I'd suggest at least a 5400rpm drive in your laptop. 60GB and higher is more than enough as far as size, IMO. As far as the graphics board, I'd suggest at least an X1600 or GeForce 7600 or higher. Could probably get by with a 7300, but I wouldn't suggest it.
A refurb laptop is a refurbished or "rebuilt" laptop. In other words, something happened to it and it was repaired. Usually it's something as simple as a hard drive failure (which is expensive, but easy to fix). So someone sends it back instead of just getting another hard drive. I DO recommend a refurb laptop. I work for DELL Warranty as a Systems Software and Hardware Technician, and I can tell you our laptops are better after they've been refurbed. New laptops are usually trouble, and the first thing that will go out on them is the hard drive, then the fan, then the video chip, and you have to get all of that repaired, and if it happens while not under warranty, you're going to pay big to get it fixed. Believe me, I work on about a thousand systems a day, 3/4 of them are laptops. I have a good friend who works for HP and tells me it's the same for him. New laptops are more prone to failure, while refurbs have the problem resolved and the system works better because of it. -J.
They have to tell you on the price tag, in the description, things like that. There has to be something that says either "refurb" or "refurbished". Otherwise, you'd never know. -J.
I have to agree... I used to do work for Gateway... now I work for a college service dept. The college contracts with Dell, and we get plenty of "refurbished" things to replace systems and system parts that die. As often as not, these refurbished parts and systems have issues that were not caught by QA, and they have to be sent back a second time. If you do decide to get a refurb (or even a new laptop) get a good warranty. If you are unlucky enough to have a hardware failure even once in three years (and a lot of ppl are) the warranty will have been worth it. Laptop repairs can be expensive. I would also reccomend accedental damage protection... It sucks to buy a new laptop, only to have coffee get spilled in it after 6 weeks.
People have hardware failures because laptops are being used in place of desktops, and they're overheating. Until very recently they were not designed for such long term use. -J.
Aye, this is one reason for hardware issues; generally speaking it is hard to engineer something so small to be reliable to the same degree as somethnig larger. Another reason for issues, IMO is the declining quality of parts. Regardless, I think warranties are a good idea. Besides, I'm a clutz, and I work around other clutzes... Generally a warranty ends up paying for itself...
Mine's a 7200 or so and has no vibration and doesn't overheat. I have to agree on the warranties. New or refurbished, you always want to have a warranty on the laptop. My dad went crazy and got me 4 years of gold technical support and super insurance (for a laptop I'll use to write papers ), but it really is worth it to have some sort of warranty, because your hard drive or motherboard could go on the fritz after less than a year. Accidental damage protection is, IMO, very necessary if you'll be drinking stuff around the laptop or taking it out of the house/office often. Oh, and on the topic of processors, I AMD Turion. My laptop's got 'em. Quiet. They don't overheat at all, and if I play Sims 2 with my laptop on my lap for 3 hours, it won't come anywhere close to burning my lap off.
For Dells, I've got to agree with your dad's choice. I've seen far too many of them crash and burn while I was the university's in-dorm tech support. There is a bonus, though. If they continually repair the laptop and it continues to fail, eventually, most on-site techs will call up and get you a replacement laptop - in the case of my friend, he got a top of the line XPS system that has more horsepower than most desktop systems that are being sold today. Of course, even I'll say the thing weighs a hell of a lot, so that should tell you something.
I am what you could call an AMD fanboy but I must tell you that AMD is not what you should be buying at this point in time (if you can help it). Intel Core 2 Duo is just plain better. Keep in mind that Core Duo is NOT the same as Core 2 Duo... go for Turion over a Core Duo. C2D of the same clock speed will perform much better. Also it will use less battery. However, Turion has a better idle state so if you happen to leave your laptop on, unplugged, while you aren't doing much with it for long periods of times (who does that?!), then Turion will give you more battery life. Oh and C2D also gives off less heat than the Turion, but not by a wide margin. It should be noted that with laptops and gaming, you are almost always limited by your GPU, not your CPU, so if that is what you are interested in, focus on the GPU that is offered and "pretend" that a Turion X2 and a Core 2 Duo are the same. The price on Turion should be lower (although only slightly) than a similarly clocked C2D.
