Ok the family's put me in charge of finding a decent laptop computer for my brother. He's in the Army and is shipping out to IRAQ in November. He loves to play games and believe it or not there are wireless hotspots around Baghdad from what a friend who went over there told me. He also told me that having a laptop to play some games on really helped his sanity over there.
Now if he could get a desktop computer I'd build it for him but I have no clue what's good for laptops except to avoid integrated graphics and to go with a Gig of Ram.
Right now I'm between Dell and HP because I'm looking around the 1500 dollar range. Might be more because I'm going to go ahead and get accident insurance and a full warranty because of all the sand over there. Checking to also see if he can get a military discount on this.
Got some questions though...
1)Would the AMD 64, the AMD Turion, or Pentium Mobile processor be better? What's the target speed I should go for?
2)Is a dedicated video card with 128 megs of ram good enough or do I need to get a card with 256 megs of ram?
Side note: On HP I've seen the mobile ATI Radeon® XPRESS 200M graphics with up to 128MB of dedicated video memory. It says you can configure it to also share an extra 128 of system for a total of 256 megs of memory if needed. Anyone have this card, and if so would this work?
3)How important is the hard drive speed. I've seen 4200 rpm to 5400 rpm?
4)Should I go with an 8 or 12 cell battery?
5)What else should I look for and what other brands are out there that I shouls look for?
Any help would be appreciated. I need to the laptop ordered before the 15th of Oct.
Now if he could get a desktop computer I'd build it for him but I have no clue what's good for laptops except to avoid integrated graphics and to go with a Gig of Ram.
Right now I'm between Dell and HP because I'm looking around the 1500 dollar range. Might be more because I'm going to go ahead and get accident insurance and a full warranty because of all the sand over there. Checking to also see if he can get a military discount on this.
Got some questions though...
1)Would the AMD 64, the AMD Turion, or Pentium Mobile processor be better? What's the target speed I should go for?
2)Is a dedicated video card with 128 megs of ram good enough or do I need to get a card with 256 megs of ram?
Side note: On HP I've seen the mobile ATI Radeon® XPRESS 200M graphics with up to 128MB of dedicated video memory. It says you can configure it to also share an extra 128 of system for a total of 256 megs of memory if needed. Anyone have this card, and if so would this work?
3)How important is the hard drive speed. I've seen 4200 rpm to 5400 rpm?
4)Should I go with an 8 or 12 cell battery?
5)What else should I look for and what other brands are out there that I shouls look for?
Any help would be appreciated. I need to the laptop ordered before the 15th of Oct.