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[hockeyfrk5]

Hey guys, I've been out of the PC loop for a while so I have a question or two.

I'm in the market with an August deadline of getting a new laptop for college.

I want a 17" screen, but I also want a killer graphics card.  I want something that'll play WoW and probably CS Source.  That's all I really care about.  Any particular laptop you have in mind?

[blame canada]

it depends on how well you want to play WOW or CS:S, as in really well, or in between, or just barely enough to play them?

to run them kinda in-between shoot for this one:
http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834114234

if you want to be able to play them both nicely, its gonna run you $2k+

[hockeyfrk5]

How do you define "in-between?"

I dont want amazing gameplay, but I don't want it to be choppy or jumpy.  The graphics dont have to be the best as long as it doesn't feel like im skipping.  I'm mainly going to play WoW

[blame canada]

then that laptop should be perfect. Pretty much any laptop with a 6600gt or better (I advise you to stay away from onboard graphics or ATI video cards) will do just fine

[blame canada]

dell FTW. my family has owned 5+ dells including 5 pc's and a laptop, and most worked flawlessly. The one that didnt dell came out and replaced it with the next model up. dell = 12/10 IMO. Theyve got nice prices, but STAY AWAY FROM the xps series. They charge 4x more than what it would caost to buil the system yourself. I would say either HP, Dell, or buy one from newegg (I vote for newegg)

[damam]

my dell story goes as follows -

I bought 300 laptops abt 5 or 6 years ago.  None  of them worked out of the box.  Would not even boot.  they did not honour their warranty.  It took me about a year and a half to get dell to actually replace them.  as it turned out each one of them had a faulty bios that caused the issue (the actual chips were damamged so reflashing etc did not help).  by the time the laptops were replaced the project i was working on had finished so it was a complete waste.  any company occasionally builds a lemon, the test is in how they respond to it.  Dell completely failed in my book.  I will never buy a dell again.

on the flip side, it appears that they have changed there ways as far as supporting there warranty as I know many that are very satisfied.

[blame canada]

yup, dell seems to be a hit-or-miss company, but for me theyve been perfect.

[lebriznon]

check out www.notebookreview.com and www.notebookforums.com

lots of info and reviews.

post questions there to get more useful answers.

personally for 17" ones i like the Asus notebooks for great build quality.  See the w2Jb and A7J.  Will be a bit pricey though.

17" is far too bulky to carry around at school IMO, so be sure you actcually want that big of a notebook.

Dell notebooks just look plain ugly and generic to me.

watever you get i suggest a core duo and geforce7600 or ATI X1600 or higher.

Another option is to buy a barebone notebook from Asus and customize your components.  will save your some money and you'll get what you want.

[grogger13]

i was thinking about just getting the standard ram in my laptop and then upgrading from newegg, becuase the upgrades always seem so overpriced.  
1.Is this a smart idea
2.Why do some ram sticks that have the same specs have such a wide price range, whats worse about the cheaper ram?

[patrick2269]

QUOTE(grogger13 @ Jun 17 2006, 11:20 PM)

i was thinking about just getting the standard ram in my laptop and then upgrading from newegg, becuase the upgrades always seem so overpriced.  
1.Is this a smart idea
2.Why do some ram sticks that have the same specs have such a wide price range, whats worse about the cheaper ram?

1. I think it is.
2. Brand name, manufactures, quality of parts used, how well the product was built