Getting a laptop...

[ew0054]

I have been seriously considering getting a laptop for college... and nothing else. Surely not to play Civilization between classes.

Anyway, the one I have is a 1994 Compaq LTE Elite, with a 50 MC processor running Windows 2.0... just a bit below the minimum specs for Civ4.

So I've been considering this one:
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=328873&pfp=BROWSE

I should be able to afford it in a couple of weeks. This brand, Toshiba Satellite P35-S605, got great reviews everywhere, and for $1600, looks like a great proce. Does anyone else know of this and has had good luck with it?

Also, should I be wary of service contracts? I mean, if they're product is so great, why should I need to buy a service contract?

I realize this post may be a bit off topic but I hope it well help others whoa re in a similar situation. After all, we don't want something that will run the game slow as mollasses. Nor do we want to buy junk. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ainwood]

Moderator Action: Moved to computer talk.

You'll get pretty-good responses there, and others with similar issues can follow the redirect as well.

 

[Meleager]

He he, I though that laptop was really well priced till i saw it was american dollars.

I've never seen a company request extra for a warrenty. Toshiba are a fairly well known brand, weather you want to pay for a waranty is up to you.

Someone else might have better input.

 

[Grisu]

looks like the model you picked sports a regular Pentium 4-CPU. these beasts may be very fast, but they produce a big amount of heat (and as a result fan-noise) and the battery propably won't last long. I'd suggest you have a look at models with the Pentium M Processor (a Pentium M at 2Ghz gets nearly the same perfomance in most applications).

furthermore it looks not too well balanced: you have a really powerfull cpu here, but the graphics card is only third rate (still better than some embedded intel-chip, but just not good enough, IMHO). If you want to play any halfway recent games, I'd suggest you get a model that has at least a 9600 GPU, or better still a Geforce 6800 or the latest ATI-Model (forgot what exactily its name is).

another thing: I'm not really a fan of WXGA-Resolution especially if the screen's as big as this, I'd suggest you have a look at a model with a higher resolution, others might disagree here though, but I'm a sucker for resolution

hope this helps a bit

 

[Grisu]

as for the service plan: Dell offers similar things, but I never bothered with them. One year is enough to detect any major mistakes. and after that I was willing to take the chance, and I wasn't disappointed (my old dell-notebook ran 3.5 years without a single failure, only the battery's a bit weak now).

of course if your notebook breaks after 1.5 years you're out of luck......

 

[Speedo]

If you're not really into gaming, it's far more than enough. I'm not sure what the gfx card requirements are for Civ4, but I'd guess that that radeon 9000 is *adequate*... but certainly not high end.

It is a P4M CPU, not a standard P4, but he's still going to be more power hungry than something like a Pentium M.

I've never seen a company request extra for a warrenty. Toshiba are a fairly well known brand, weather you want to pay for a waranty is up to you.

I don't think you read quite all the way through. It comes with a 1 year warranty, and you can pay extra to have the warranty last longer. That's pretty much standard.

 

[dannyevilcat]

Seriously, get the extended warranty. But don't get it through CompUSA, call Toshiba and buy it directly from them. If there is a problem, it will get fixed faster.

Laptops are delicate, and very expensive to get fixed.

 

[ew0054]

I would like to thank everyone here for your advice and help!

It is a P4M CPU, not a standard P4, but he's still going to be more power hungry than something like a Pentium M.

Is that good? I know P4 is better than Celeron but I've never heard of P4M.

I'm not really a fan of WXGA-Resolution especially if the screen's as big as this, I'd suggest you have a look at a model with a higher resolution, others might disagree here though, but I'm a sucker for resolution

I usually run on 800x600 but it looks like Civ4 will require a higher resolution (i have to scroll in the screenshots), but i'm sure it'll handle it. I dont like the res to be too high (its difficult for me to read text). My main concern is if it will stretch the graphis or not if it's wide screen. 16:9 ratio is 1.7777, 4:3 (like a TV) is 1.33333. So I hope my games dont get stretched. Ive been looking for 4:3 ratio but all they're making is 16:9 these days

Yeah Im kind of a serious gamer. But moreover, I want to get a relatively high end system so that I dont have to upgrade for at least a few years. It's rediculous really. No sooner did I get my 486 DX/2 (66 MHz) PC in 1998 then I hear about the DX/4 and then the Pentium!

 

[Speedo]

Is that good? I know P4 is better than Celeron but I've never heard of P4M.

P4M is Pentium 4 Mobile. I don't know enough about it's specific architecture to tell you any details, but basically it's a P4 designed to use less power.

Yeah Im kind of a serious gamer. But moreover, I want to get a relatively high end system so that I dont have to upgrade for at least a few years.

Then you definetly want to look for a better graphics card. That Radeon9000 is two generations old, and is a low-end model for its generation. I honestly am not very familiar with the graphics cards available for laptops, but I would for something in the nvidia GF6800 series.

If you're looking at other laptop models, I would seriously consider a Pentium M. It's an excellent processor, much better than the P4 line. If you do want to go several years without an upgrade you should consider getting 1GB of RAM. Again I'm not familiar enough with laptops to tell you anything about how much extra that would cost.... it all depends on what you're willing to spend.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Look at some alienware laptops to get an idea of what you should get

 

[IglooDame]

I've had three Toshiba laptops, they've been fairly solid, and I'd recommend the brand.