laptop purchase

Bettyboop

can anyone give me some advice as to which laptop would suit a 13yr old
boy who plays a lot of pc games?? the likes of fifa manager 06
age of empires conquer etc.something that wont have to be upgraded
for a while.i looked on the dell site and put one together for €1,335
but i really know nothing about what about these and just went for a
inspirion 6400 doesnt have to be a dell one though.
Thanks

uberpixie

Bettyboop wrote:

can anyone give me some advice as to which laptop would suit a 13yr old
boy who plays a lot of pc games?? the likes of fifa manager 06
age of empires conquer etc.something that wont have to be upgraded
for a while.i looked on the dell site and put one together for €1,335
but i really know nothing about what about these and just went for a
inspirion 6400 doesnt have to be a dell one though.
Thanks

A laptop for pc gaming will cost around 2000+ euro, at the very least 1800 euro.

Anything else is just half assing it, the laptops in the lower price ranges just don't come with good gfx cards for gaming.

How serious is the lad into PC games?

Does it have to be a laptop?

You can get dacent Dell machines that will play games well for 1300-1400 euro.
(as good as laptops for 2000 euro...)

8T8

Having a quick look over Dell laptops it seems they offer three graphics solutions if you ignore the top of the line gaming focused models;
Intel integrated graphics [total crap avoid]
ATI X1400 [low end GPU]
NVIDIA 7800 [high end GPU]

It depends also how much your are willing to sacrifice details in games if that sort of thing doesn't bother him too much you should be able to use one of the cheaper Dell laptops with the ATI X1400 GPU in it like the Inspirion 6400.

If on the other hand you do want all the eye candy on then you’re better off going with the 7800 GPU.

So far the cheapest one I've spotted that allows the 7800 to be selected is the Inspiron 9400 if you go with the €1,299 base configuration and un-tick the added on extra warranty for €1,795.10 you get a decent high end machine with the 7800 added on.


Disappointingly it seems Dell don't offer an in-between solution with a decent mid-range GPU.

Edit: Oh yes and what should be customary for when buying a Dell take a look at the Dell De-Crapifier which will purge a lot of the bundled software that comes with Dell systems though they have been dragged over hot coals in North American gaming sites for this recently and have pledged to change their tune and offer a no bundled software option at ordering though how long that becomes defacto this side of the pond remains to be seen.

Also during the ordering process under "Operating System Backup & Recovery" pay the €6 for a copy of the OS on CD as by default Dell only ship a recovery image this will be useful if you want to do a clean install of the operating system.

Liam Nolan

laptopsdirect.ie only €1229 or call them 01 7750150

Intel Pentium-M 740 Processor 1.73GHz
512MB DDRII SDRAM -
80GB Hard Drive
DVD Dual Layer Drive 17" WXGA+ TFT Screen with CrystalBrite
Hybrid TV Tuner + Remote Control
ATI Radeon X700 128MB dedicated graphics
Integrated gigabit LAN and 56k v.90 data fax modem
Integrated wireless 802.11b/g -
Integrated Bluetooth
Integrated 5-in-1 card reader – reads SD Memory Card, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, MultiMediaCard and xD-Picture Card
5 USB 2.0 Sockets
4-pin Firewire (IEEE 1394) Port
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Pre Loaded
Microsoft Works them do athlon 64 laptops with x700 video for 1250 euros I bought one last week and its great for games im running battlefield 2 on it

Bettyboop

thank you all for your help
think i will go with the inspirion 9400;)