another "recommend me a laptop!" thread

[Jae]

i need something simple. something current, that doesn't overheat often, has at least 1 gig, a good gfx card[cs:s,dod:s, other good low/middle demanding games] It will mostly be used for games/web/school/music

[Vormund]

Originally Posted by Jae

i need something simple. something current, that doesn't overheat often, has at least 1 gig, a good gfx card[cs:s,dod:s, other good low/middle demanding games] It will mostly be used for games/web/school/music

I bought one of the latest/high-end laptops on the market, and was incredibly disappointed. The specs outperformed my desktop by far (double the RAM, newer graphics w/more RAM, faster HDD, etc.), yet the laptop lagged on the same games (WoW being one). I ended up returning it, and sticking with a desktop for gaming, and my (not so high-end) laptop for school/web/some music.

If you're one who likes the high settings on the games, even with CS:S, I wouldn't consider a laptop as an option.

Maybe others have had different experiences...but, that was mine.

[jorsoft03]

If you're going to be gaming on a laptop, it's graphics need to be your highest priority. Most likely the reason your gaming experiences didn't go well, Vormund, is because you were using integrated graphics. To game well at all you need a good dedicated gpu in your notebook. I wouldn't recommend going anything lower than a 7600/x1600 if you're planning on doing medium or higher gaming. This laptop is very good and has been recommended a number of times.
Newegg.com - ASUS F3 Series F3JP-AS096C NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo T7200(2.00GHz) 15.4" Wide XGA+ 1GB DDR2 667 160GB 5400rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility Radeon X1700 - Retail
You should be able to play any game out there right now on at least medium settings.

[Vormund]

My desktop had a 7600 with 256 MB of dedicated memory, while the notebook I bought (the best I could find for under $2500), had a 7600 with 512 MB dedicated RAM.

I multitask-to-death on my desktop, with two monitors, a game running in full screen on one, IMs, web-browsing, music, videos, and even occasionally, a second game...on the other monitor. (Idle time.)

The desktop handled this with no constant lag problems, but the laptop, which had an additional gig of RAM, double the dedicated graphics RAM, (correction to earlier), the same 7200 drive, and the CPU was a 2.2 GHz dual-core versus my desktop's 2.0 GHz single-core, couldn't even run WoW by itself, without lagging slightly.

So, no, I was not using integrated graphics or anything low-end...as I said, the laptop was better in all aspects beyond whatever the limiting factor was... I honestly don't believe it's possible to have a good gaming laptop, at least, after gaming on a desktop for many years.