[SpeedofLight]

Ive been out of the loop for quite a while. The latest games Ive bought were in the Halo/Call of Duty 1 era. Im looking for a laptop, and Id assume now even the weakest laptop would be able to support these games, would you agree? They all blow my old desktop comp Im using out of the water. Im also looking at stores for one and none of them have a graphics card listed, do I not need one?
for example, the computer Im most interested in as of now: Toshiba Sattellite Notebook Pc, AMD V series 2.2GHZ, 2GB DDR3, 320GB HDD

Im basically just a recently out of school graphic designer and need something to play games on, surf the web, and design. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Boydwazup]

I would not waste my time on a laptop if you are wanting to use it for the list you gave

it would cost alot and would not be as good as a desktop

But if you really want a laptop look in the expensive ones AMD dual core 2.4 at least and the more ram the better 4 gig same with hard drive 500gig 1 tb is the better if they make one for a laptop they fill up fast with these new games

Video card is the hard one 512 mb is nice but 1 gig is better and will keep up for at least a few years for you and remember with a laptop it brakes you have to send it away or pay alot to fix it

Desktops are way cheaper and better bang for the buck

[schang626]

graphics card is acutally the most important component in gaming imo which will be the majority of your cost...
like boydwazup said, u need at least a dual core and 3gb ram (4 if you have a x64 OS).. i think 320gb hard drive is sufficient for bare minimum

[SpeedofLight]

So Im guessing most laptops just dont come with graphics cards then? What do you think about that Toshiba?
BTW, Im not planning on playing the latest hightech games really, maybe games as recent as Halo2, but thats it.

[schang626]

most of the laptop comes with an onboard video card which share memory with your computer.
you will need to find a laptop that has a dedicated video card that uses it's own memory for gaming.
if you dont see video card in the spec then most likely it has an onboard video card meaning the laptop is not suitable for gaming.

[dave0700]

right now i am using a sony viao vpccw15fn,
has a nvidia on it, plays games like: cossacks 2, call of duty 2, age of empires 3 and others, but would get a little hot ( normal, not too hot ) worked with dell, the laptops will just go too hot at palmrest, sony is cooler here, acer is another one i have in the house, its cool too, HP is equally good, go for an i5 processor based, nvidia powered laptop, atleast 4 gb mem, have a dell 1525 customised for employees, did not work too good with many games, would play AOE3 though, but slow, so go for a discreet card, however batt life is affected a bit.

[Courtneyc]

I currently am using an ASUS G73jh, which has an i7 processor a 1GB RAM dedicated 5870 video card, a Blu-Ray drive, and 8 GB RAM (and two 500GB hard drives). It also has a back-lit keyboard. So far, it can play any game I throw at it.

Battery life? About an hour for web surfing and about 20 minutes when gaming.

Courtney

[schang626]

that's a crazy laptop..
but the battery life sux..
i guess that's the trade-off

[Boydwazup]

another Idea is buy a MacBook Pro they are solid laptops but it is an apple computer so new software and everything but solid gaming is not too big on them but they are one of the best laptops out there as i worked for apple and they rock i still love my PC but they have there big advantages

[dave0700]

you can even look at workstation class if you feel you need the power, but for games i think you can look at 4-6gb ram, i5 processor , a decent discreet mid class card, should get an hour and a half idealy from most manufacturers on batteries on a config like this

[azariah007]

Ok this is gonna sound noob but honestly, Laptops with decent GPU's are exceedingly hard to find. Basically your going to have to look at an Alienware, Origin PC, sort of deal to do what you want to do. I've seen stores here in Australia namely JB Hi-Fi with laptops that I would be willing to put to the test with games like this for around the $1,800 to $2,500 price range. If you want a laptop to do that sort of thing you've got to be willing to spend big. Usually these laptops are from companies like HP, ASUS, DELL, all names that in the computer industry are Mud but.... when it comes to laptops you don't have much choice I'm afraid.

I'm not sure where your all from but chances are the US so things are probably different for you. Here in Australia we have a few "major" technology chain stores, as I'm sure you guys in the US do to. However there is a thriving computer market for the little guys. We (I work at one such store) take care of a lot of repairs and I'd advise talking to someone at one of these small stores and getting there opinion because they've got a pulse on what's good and bad. How? If somethings c**p they'll know about it because they'll get lot's of that device coming in, in need of repairs. Which is great. So they'll be able to warn you off the worse products and be able to recommend the best ones.

I've got to admit that I'm currently searching for my first NEW computer so I understand all of the confusion. But as someone has already said desktops are much easier to buy so I haven't got as hard a job ahead of me. Although I've also got to get a laptop as well, trying to do similar things to what your doing so I'm not completely out of the woods yet.