[RayFung]

Hi everyone, I'm planning to get a laptop for school use and sometimes for a little gaming, but not that much since I have a desktop. The types of games I play are sorta 3D, but they're mostly online games, not anything fancy smancy. However, I dunno if the integrated graphics thingy will be very good at playing these games. I know it's not as good as a NVidia, but htey're integrated so what can I do. Anyways, I know very little about computers and the parts and etc. I just know pricing XD. I've found several computers I think that are pretty good... but I dunno which one to consider. It would help me greatly if anyone can give me some advice, so thanks in advance! Here are the tech specs for a dell model, the inpsiron 1525, since I can't give direct links to the parts I'm getting. They're all 15.4" laptops if that accounts for anything.

Base Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5450 (1.66GHz/667Mhz FSB/2MB cache) English
Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
System Color Midnight Blue
Memory 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
LCD Panel Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)
Video Card Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Hard Drive 160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
Network Integrated 10/100 Network Card
Modem Integrated Modem
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 8.1
Combo or DVD+RW Drive CD / DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW Drive)
Sound Card High Definition Audio 2.0
Wireless Networking Cards Intel® 3945 802.11a/g Mini-card
Camera Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam
Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) Microsoft Works 8. DOES NOT INCLUDE MS WORD
Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) PC-Cillin Internet Security 30-day trial
Batteries 56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
Hardware Services 1 Year Return to Depot Service and Technical Support
Online Data Storage DataSafe Online Backup 3GB (included with price)
ISP Please contact me with more details
Bluetooth Option Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Internal (2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate) - Dunno if I'm gonna actually get this.
Total = $939.00 with the Bluetooth, $919.00 without the bluetooth. I only have a cell that uses bluetooth and not very many other things, so I most likely won't get it, but yeah, don't mind the bluetooth. Please lookat the processor, memory, hard drive, weight, SEXYNESS, etc.

Here are the other three laptops I'm looking at. They're direct links to the futureshop website.
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetai...10097944&catid=
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetai...10095609&catid=
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetai...10097940&catid=

P.S. I capitalized "sexyness" cuz some of them like the sony one look, in my opinion, very bland and ugly, but the tech specs seem very good for its price. Actually, all of them look a little bland since they're only black and white except the dell. However, their prices are what makes them even noticeable to me. I would really like the dell one cuz it looks the best and it's tech specs are good, but with the sales futureshop is having with these comps, it's price is not as competitable anymore, but still within range. Also, please don't complain about any past experiences you've have with these companies such as customer service, or anything else that doesn't relate to the effectiveness and efficiency of the comp.

[Help1inghand]

For work and school... You could get anything, any laptop these days will run school equipment!
MOST will run Games too!
the big list you made looks good
2 GB of ram, seems cool!
Good processor + amazing graphics and processor!
The choice is really up to you
I am only a kid myself but i have had plenty of experience
Have fun with your new laptop ;]

[Carbon]

Integrated sucks - but if they're online ones (like in a browser) should be fine.

Otherwise it looks great. Core 2 Duo is great in a laptop, the RAM looks good, the price looks good.

[epicz]

before you order anything id strongly reccommend www.pcspecialist.co.uk their sercive is amazing and very cheap.. plus you can custom build a Desktop or laptop which is awesome.

you can get a laptop with:
core2duo 2.0ghz 800mhz processor
512mb nvidea 8600gt graphics card
2 gig ram
firewire usb, the usual stuff for a little over 600

[Carbon]

£600 != $600 :p

[luke robinson]

Well i dunno if you want to go second hand but IMO I got a very good deal on my laptop. Mine's a Dell aswell and i'm very happy with it. It's the Inspiron 640m (otherwise known as Dell Inspiron 6400). I paid £350 for it ($700~?) and it was only about 3 months old in perfect condition.
The specs are:
1.66 Ghz Core 2 Duo
1gb Ram
Vista Home Premium
120gb HDD
9 Cell battery & 6 Cell battery. (I can get 7 hours out of the 9 cell and 3 hours out of the 6 cell. Thats 10 hours battery life on my laptop)
15.4" True Life Display (1440x900 I thought this was quite high for a screen this size. Great picture out of it.)
Wi-Fi
And all the usual stuff (4x USB 2.0, DVD RW, etc)
Oh and a very nice laptop bag

The thing that stood out for me was the extra battery, upgraded display and the upgraded wireless card. I've had the laptop for about 6 months and at the time this laptop without the upgrades was still £500-600 on Dell's website. I myself bought it for my school work. Throw in an extra 1gb ram for £30 and it can still easily compete with todays laptops.

It just shows you that you can get a lot more for your money is you look for second hand stuff. Btw, I reccomend dell. They seem reliable, tough and are really nice to type on. Hope it was some help to you.

[luke robinson]

Actually I forgot to ask. Are you using this laptop to carry round with you to school and friends houses etc or just really round the house?

[RayFung]

Umm well, in my original post, I said I was gonna use it and carry around a stairs-built school XD. So if you have any further suggestions, it'd be really helpful luke robinson. Thanks!

[luke robinson]

Ok I think you'd need a portable laptop if your carrying it round school for 3 reasons:
1. It's smaller.
2. It's lighter.
3. It's smaller screen size gives it better battery life.

When I say portable I really mean nothing bigger than a 15" screen. I say that anything between 12"-15" is ideal. I found that somthing small and light is a lot more pleasing to carry round. Also a good battery life seems a must since there might not be a plug socket anywhere for a full lesson. I think you should be aiming at, at least 3 hours battery life. IMO 17" are only any good as a desktop substitute. Their large screen size puts a huge drain on the battery and the extra size of the case to hold the screen makes it too big and heavy.

Also what type of school work would you be doing? If it's just word processing, excel spreadsheets and a little internet surfing then i think that a 1.6ghz Core 2 Duo would be fine or even a Pentium M since both of them seem quite efficient and use little power. A widescreen could prove useful because it allows you to veiw two windows side by side.

The only time i'd say go for a 17" is if your doing a lot of graphics work on the laptop such as 3d CAD and using Photoshop or somthing since I find it hard to do that on my 15" laptop.

Also would you be using the laptop for a lot of multimedia things such as playing lots of DVD's, music and viewing photo's? If so I'd say go for Vista Home Premium or XP Media Centre since it's ready to handle these things straight out of the box. If your only listining to some music then i'd say XP since it seems a lot faster than vista even though the Interface isn't as nice (actually XP Media Centre falls nicely into both catagories as it offers the media side of vista with the performance of XP).

Also if your using the intergrated graphics then I don't think you could really play any games newer than 4 years old.

I hope this was some help to you. These were what I considered when I was in your position. Also if you want a very portable, cheap laptop (i think you can get them for under £200 ($400) second hand) then try the Dell Latitude D400. It's a few years old but a pretty decent spec. Just don't take my word for everything. Pretty much all the guys here know more about computers than me