Laptop buying help

**Rakoua** · July 12, 2011, 09:38 AM

OK, so I'm buying a laptop. Thing is, I want it to also work for gaming and be somewhat portable (since I need a laptop for school and can't afford both a destop and a laptop). I don't need ultra graphics, just something to run Shogun 2 and Men of war and such games.

Note that I'm also buying a very large monitor.

OK; so I live in Croatia and everything's ultra expensive for some reason and there are no ultra laptops here. I have a budget of 1200$ but note that that's worth about 900$ in America.

Here are some I've been looking at:

FUJITSU Lifebook E780

ACER ASPIRE 5745G-464G50Mnks

TOSHIBA Tecra A11-1FM

The thing is, I know nothing about buying laptops =P So I don't know what to look at (I read the guide but still don't get it =P). So please help.
Oh, and I'd also like to hear if any of you use a laptop that can run some games to tell me which one it is.

**karamazovmm** · July 12, 2011, 12:23 PM

Since my msi ex625 gpu gave me some grief (the basterd just died!), I bought a new mbp 13 (hides from the angry mob

), I can play some games with it.

Sincerely since you are going to go for a large monitor, I would grab a thinkpad x220/t420, toshiba r835/840, or even the mbp. So that you can have the mobility and the performance at home, how you ask, via the egpu:

basically its a desktop gpu, connected via the expresscard slot or the thunderbolt port, thus giving you the power that you need for games and keeping the mobility

this is a good thread about it: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gami...periences.html

I only bought my mbp due to the thunderbolt port, and the pcie 2.0 x4 slot that it packs, thus giving me more bandwidth to run the egpu

the cards are bandwidth starved, so a example: a sony vaio Z13 is a good lightweight notebook, it packs a great 13'' screen, however the gt 330m is extremely underpowered for the FHD res that the lappy packs, thus people got a gtx 460, then connecting it via the expresscard slot they have achieved the power of the gts 450, with thunderbolt the performance difference should be even minor, something around 1-10%, due to the expresscard slot possessing only pcie 1x or 2x (while thunderbolt is pcie 2.0 4x)

**Rakoua** · July 12, 2011, 03:05 PM

Those are pretty small, I think I could go with a 17" or so, with OK battery life.

And unfortunatly, I didn't find any of those on the market in Croatia...

**karamazovmm** · July 12, 2011, 03:47 PM

you dont want to bring a 17'' to school, trust me on that

well you could look for 15''models, there is the hp dv6t qe, lenovo y570, dell xps 15, sager np5165/np8130

**Rakoua** · July 12, 2011, 03:56 PM

17" should be OK for school for me, I viewed all the possible places to put it and they're all big enough.

I'm gonna check those out tho, unfortunatly the selection here is rather limited.

**karamazovmm** · July 12, 2011, 09:06 PM

think about that laptops are supposed to be mobiles, thus, the larger the less mobile they are, and they become quite heavy to mention the least.

I forgot to mention some models, like the vaio C series, edge e520/e420s/e420, dell vostro 3550/3450/3750, there is supposed to be readily, the asus N series, N43, N53, N73, although I dont like those at all, the build quality is worse compared to others, keyboard is just terribad...

I know when you mean the selection is limited, in Brazil its quite a pain to buy a pc, specially a notebook, not to mention the staggering prices

**Rakoua** · July 13, 2011, 07:19 AM

I know, but I don't need something I can put in my bag and carry around like that, I need something to bring once in a while or carry on a trip, which I've already tried with 17" laptops.

Anyway, I only found E520. Looks pretty good for me, and a reasonable price, but could it run some games?

**karamazovmm** · July 13, 2011, 09:53 AM

depends does it packs the 6630m? if yes it can, if not you are like me playing with the intel hd 3000

**Rakoua** · July 13, 2011, 10:12 AM

There is a version without it with an i3 Processor, and a version some 300 dollars more expensive with a Sandy Bridge i5 and the 6630.

Hmm... What do you think about the ASUS K52JE? It's 15.6", Intel Core i3 370M 2.40GHz (3MB cache), ATI Radeon HD5470 512MB?

**karamazovmm** · July 13, 2011, 11:27 AM

I would grab the e520 with the i5 and 6630m

that asus, terrible, its old tech, with a gpu that you are not going to game anything on it.

remember how the numbers work on desktop gpus? yeah its the same in the mobile world.