What laptop should I buy?

[AThousandYoung]

I'm going to buy a laptop for $700 to $1000 maybe from Dell, maybe not. I want to be able to run Civ IV on Huge, Marathon (or Earth 18 civs, Marathon even). I'd also like it to be able to play most current games.

Any recommendations?

 

[Jamesds]

So, you want it to play modern games? Such as....? If you mean graphics-intensive games, you will find it hard to find such a laptop in your budget. However, many modern laptops are so far ahead of my £650 laptop that I bought a year ago (about $1200, considering you can acquire technology cheaper in america), so I think you should be able to run Civ4 great on a laptop in your price range. Make sure you avoid Intel Celeron M like the plague, it is cheap and no good for games. The Intel Centrino Duo is what you want. Also, look for 2GB of RAM (hard to find in that range, but possible) where you can allocate 256MB to VRAM. Unfortunately, at your price range, it will be hard to find a laptop with a dedicated graphics card, but 256 MB shared graphics will work well. 128MB if you must, it is good, but not for modern 3D games. And if you can't get 1GB of RAM, you can always fit it yourself for possibly $100-$200.

That's my thoughts on your situation, anyone else agree, or have more to add?

 

[Quintillus]

Specifically what games and which genres do you want to play? And what settings do you want to play them on? And what do you have now as a comparison?

For Civ4, the Celeron M, XP Home, 1 gig RAM one you were thinking of should work OK, but I don't know about the "most current games". If you do get 1 gig of RAM, get either XP or Vista Basic. The Core Duo processor is a good one to shoot for, and you probably could get one of those. Also try to get something other than an Intel GMA graphics card - they're pretty much the lowest-end you can get.

 

[History_Buff]

I would recommend that you stay far away from Dell unless they happen to offer exactly what you want. They offer very few game capable systems in any reasonable price range. If you want a high performance laptop, check out other suppliers.

I got mine from ACER and it's a damn fine machine, but it cost me about $1300CDN

 

[Wolfwood]

Make sure that the laptop has a graphics card with its own memory. That's what Civ4 wants and many other games want. I've been playing Civ4 happily with my ATI Mob. Radeon x1600 laptop.

 

[Kool Keith]

Is a 15.4" widescreen necessary, or would it be wise to go 17"?

Or, on the other hand, would a 17 incher be a little too big for a laptop?

 

[Comraddict]

I would recommend that you stay far away from Dell unless they happen to offer exactly what you want. They offer very few game capable systems in any reasonable price range. If you want a high performance laptop, check out other suppliers.

I got mine from ACER and it's a damn fine machine, but it cost me about $1300CDN

quite contrary, their latest edition with Geforce 8000 series can run Civ IV

OP, you want many things and yo uare not willing to pay...not gonna happen, you are looking at $1,100+.