Looking for a notebook
I want to buy my daughter a notebook for college and I want it to be good enough to play World of Warcraft in her spare time, but I really can’t afford a lot. I know you need a lot of ram and a good video card for that game.
What would be a good choice and around what price would I have to pay?
I’m sure one of our visitors will be able to give you a great suggestion, but Tiger just offered a World of Warcraft barebones desktop bundle the other day that’s still valid. Great deal too!
Ed.
I feel her pain! when I got my laptop I couldn’t play warcraft III on it. It was a real bummer, but that was a long time ago. Now with my acer 5000 series 15.4″ widescreen laptop WOW (World of Warcraft) plays just about as good as on my desktop.
Here’s my spec that I got:
amd turion 64 processor
1 gig ram (upgraded to 2 gigs I think the upgrade cost me $150.)
120 gig harddrive
15.4 widescreen monitor
the exact model I got is a 5003 but just about all the 5000 series are the same.
I apid $850 for the laptop and about $150 for the ram upgrade.
The next thing I ran into is while at the airport waiting three hours for the plane the battery was fine, but the bottom of the laptop got so hot I couldn’t keep it on my lap without a magazine for insulation. (WOW beats up the processor real good). but I got myself one of the targus laptop coolers, I havn’t tried it yet but I bet it’ll do the trick. That cost like 25$
`Mitch
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Here’s a good compromise - build her a MicroATX gaming rig. You see, I purchased an Alienware 7700m gaming laptop in June, 2005. A few months ago it died horribly: dust built up between the CPU chip and fan. I took good care of it, including regular compressed air bursts, but to no avail. Furthermore, it was at least 15 pounds and generated enough heat to warm a room. I decided to buy a high-end lightweight laptop and go back to desktop machines for gaming. But what about portability for LAN parties, transportation, and simple convenience?
I had a pile of salvaged hardware from mid-tower ATX PCs built before the Alienware arrived. To achieve portability, I ordered an Ultra Microfly micro-ATX case; a Gigabyte-brand micro-ATX motherboard; and a P4 3.6MHz CPU.
The other hardware was already at hand. This box gets 7800 3DMarks (2003 edition) and plays Doom3 with 1024×768 and all enhancements enabled @ 33.8 FPS. It can handle WoW.
FYI, Alienware laptops are Chinese-manufactured Clevo’s with a *huge* markup, and the case engineering was average at best. I recommend against ordering from Alienware!
I wish it were possible to buy a micro-ATX motherboard with an ISA slot. My antique Ensoniq SoundScape is going to waste.
I agree with vaustein. Earlier this year I bought an Ultra microATX cube case for TigerDirect (because it was a good price and didn’t have a stupid rebate attached to it). It’s maybe 1/3 the size of a mid-tower and even has a handle on the front for easy carrying.
It’s loaded with about 400 GB of drive space, 2 GB RAM (2 lots still available), a GeFore 7600GT overclocked, all powered by an AMD Athlon X2 3800+. A cute box that whips any other PC I’ve ever owned for less than $1,000 - and it’s easily transported. Prices have dropped since then, so you could get an AMD Athlon X2 4400+ with bigger hard drives for the same price. Get a 17″ flat panel and smaller-sized keyboard, and she’s golden.