[firedawg]

Hello guys, I have just joined forum to seek some help with the purchase of a new laptop.

Mine is from the dark ages and cannot cope with my needs,
I recently bought a HDD camcorder so am looking to edit my home movies/photos, also to play some games, and basic computer stuff, also burn dvds.

I saw the one below and wondered if you could advise me if it could do all of the above applications,DELL INSPIRON 6400 LAPTOP
INTEL 1.60 GHZ CORE DUO PROCESSOR (DUAL 2 CORE)
160 GB SATA HARD DRIVE
1024 MB DDR2 RAM
8X DVD±RW CDRW ( BURNS CD's/DVDs )
INTEGRATED STEREO SOUND
INTERNAL WIRELESS INTEL 802.11Y a/b/g CARD
56k V.92 MODEM
256MB nVidia® GeForce™ 7300 TurboCache graphics card NVIDIA®

15.4 WIDESCREEN (1280x800) TrueLife BLACK GLOSSY
9 CELL Battery
WINDOWS VISTA HOME PREMIUM
NEW CANCELLED ORDER
1 YR WARRANTY DIRECT WITH DELL
PRICE INCLUDES VAT
DELL BOXED ITEM
CARRIAGE



My budget is about £500 which this one is, also need to know about graphics cards as I really don’t understand the difference, is this one ok.?

Can a game that says it requires xp be played on a vista machine?

Can the above spec run vista ok?

also i have seen a 2gb version but with a smalller hd(120gb)
and with ati radeon graphics (which is better ati or the above)

Thanks very much for looking ,hopefully i can bring this month long search to an end , cheers

[alex]

Hello again F.D.

Firstly, the 6400 chassis is superb and the screen has some terrific colour reproduction.

You're not really going to be able to game (well, maybe chess and poker) on that so-called graphics card. The 'turbocache' quote refers to the fact the card will nick some of the system ram, probably 256mb, so leaving you with 768mb for other uses, as in running Vista.

Vista is very resource intensive and I'd highly recommend doubling the ram in the unit regardless of which graphics solution you go for.

If you do want to game on the lappy you're going to need a much more powerful solution, whats the ATI model on offer? and how much does the cost increase?

Don't worry so much about losing 40gb on the hdd, you'd be very unwise not to purchase an external hdd anyway for backing up and storage purposes. I'd factor in another 50 or 60 quid and buy a USB-powered external hdd.

Generally games that work on XP do work on Vista but you may need to download a patch for some. But i've not heard of any that don't work at all.

[firedawg]

hi thanks for reply, i am going to with the 2gb version so will this help the gaming or is it just the graphics card.

options available with this laptop are

[FONT=Arial,sans-serif]256 Mb Shared Memory Integrated Intel® Graphics Media[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,sans-serif]or[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial]128 MB ATI® Mobility™ Radeon® X1300 HyperMemory™ graphics card[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial]or[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,sans-serif]256MB nVidia® GeForce™ 7300 TurboCache graphics card NVIDIA®[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,sans-serif]or[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,sans-serif]256 MB ATI® Mobility™ Radeon® X1400 HyperMemory™ graphics card[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,sans-serif][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,sans-serif]which would you go for for games ?[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

[alex]

Originally Posted by firedawg hi thanks for reply, i am going to with the 2gb version so will this help the gaming or is it just the graphics card. options available with this laptop are [FONT=Arial,sans-serif]256 Mb Shared Memory Integrated Intel® Graphics Media[/FONT] [FONT=Arial,sans-serif]or[/FONT] [FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial]128 MB ATI® Mobility™ Radeon® X1300 HyperMemory™ graphics card[/FONT][/FONT] [FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial]or[/FONT][/FONT] [FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,sans-serif]256MB nVidia® GeForce™ 7300 TurboCache graphics card NVIDIA®[/FONT][/FONT] [FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,sans-serif]or[/FONT][/FONT] [FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,sans-serif]256 MB ATI® Mobility™ Radeon® X1400 HyperMemory™ graphics card[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT] [FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,sans-serif][FONT=Arial,sans-serif]which would you go for for games ?[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

The 2gb upgrade will help in a small way for the graphics card in that it will leave the much more ram resource for other things.

The graphics solutions quoted are pretty much all similar in that they all require system ram. From an 'umph' standpoint none of the above are suitable for gaming.

For gaming you need to be looking at a standalone graphics card with it's own ram. To get this from Dell you really need to be looking at the XPS range of laptops.

A word of warning though, if you want to game on a Laptop you're looking near a grand for a decent unit, regardless of which builder you buy from. I realise that's rather a generic view, but you can take it to the bank. Unfortunately Dell see fit to screw the consumer royally on price when you upgrade any component over and above the base spec quoted on the site.

Does the purchase have to be from Dell? or have you considered other makers? Also, whats your budget?

[firedawg]

thanks,
no it doesn't have to be from dell,i just saw this as the highest spec for my money (budget about £500-£550).
i have been looking in currys ,pc world etc but for that money they dont seem as good as this one.
this one is from an ebay seller who sells dell surplus stock ,so it isn't direct from dell.