Best Laptop??

mazerooni

Hay all! I had a hp laptop but this week it broke, basically was overheating and melted the video card. Warranty is up and I could get another laptop for same price as part!

Any suggestions as to which GOOD RELIABLE laptops I could get? Was warned away from acer and siemens and dell. Bit wary of geting another hp one.

majestic0110

I don't think its always a great idea to say "stay away from company x" etc etc but speaking from experience I have always thought Toshiba laptops are very good, and the technical support is a lot better than you might expect. I also am fond of Dell, and know several Dell laptop owners who have had their machine for years with no problems. It all depends on what you want from a laptop - I am guessing by the fact that your GPU (video card) overheated you are into gaming, if this assumption is correct I would reommend you search for one with a decent GPU clock and memory speed, RAM and CPU power. I would strongly advise anybody who games on a laptop to invest in a laptop cool pad (which just has fans blowing cool air into the bottom of the laptop) as laptop components do have a tendency to overheat, especially when pushed to their limits. Have a look around the web and if you have any questions on where to head, post here and I will try and help!

mazerooni

I'm not really into gaming, I just played the sims and stuff a few times. It was a fault with the laptop just generally overheating. Should have been recalled but sure that would cost hp too much money:mad: I've been looking at toshiba laptops alright, seem fairly reasonable for the prices I've looked at.

I'm sorry but I'm really not computer savvy, I looked at a toshiba that has 4gb RAM and 160gb hard drive and dual core processor 2.1gHz for 529....is this good price do you think? Should I still be able to play few games on those such as sims. I don't want to play those newer really advanced games that require really specialised graphics cards.

kenon

The Sims 3 would most likely going to need a graphics card.

big_show

mazerooni wrote: »

I'm not really into gaming, I just played the sims and stuff a few times. It was a fault with the laptop just generally overheating. Should have been recalled but sure that would cost hp too much money:mad: I've been looking at toshiba laptops alright, seem fairly reasonable for the prices I've looked at.

I'm sorry but I'm really not computer savvy, I looked at a toshiba that has 4gb RAM and 160gb hard drive and dual core processor 2.1gHz for 529....is this good price do you think? Should I still be able to play few games on those such as sims. I don't want to play those newer really advanced games that require really specialised graphics cards.

Linky! please...

majestic0110

mazerooni wrote: »

I'm not really into gaming, I just played the sims and stuff a few times. It was a fault with the laptop just generally overheating. Should have been recalled but sure that would cost hp too much money:mad: I've been looking at toshiba laptops alright, seem fairly reasonable for the prices I've looked at.

I'm sorry but I'm really not computer savvy, I looked at a toshiba that has 4gb RAM and 160gb hard drive and dual core processor 2.1gHz for 529....is this good price do you think? Should I still be able to play few games on those such as sims. I don't want to play those newer really advanced games that require really specialised graphics cards.

Hi there, send us a link to the lappy in question and I'll take a look - need to make sure that it has dedicated graphics memory, not shared - for Sims 3 you need at least 128MB graphics memory with support for Pixel Shader 2.0, I believe. LOL big_show you just beat me to it!

big_show

majestic0110 wrote: »

Hi there, send us a link to the lappy in question and I'll take a look - need to make sure that it has dedicated graphics memory, not shared - for Sims 3 you need at least 128MB graphics memory with support for Pixel Shader 2.0, I believe. LOL big_show you just beat me to it!

50 beans say's it's dedicated, even though for 529 its sound like a great laptop

majestic0110

big_show wrote: »

50 beans say's it's dedicated, even though for 529 its sound like a great laptop

Yeah, I am inclined to agree that it is dedicated, sounds like a good buy! Should see a link first though!

mazerooni

I was looking at it in soundstore but found it online aswell:

http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/product/Satellite-L300-1G8/1066120/toshibaShop/true/

Even for computer novice like me sounds good for that price! But says graphics is shared.....hmmmm, still good buy?

mazerooni

Alternatively I am looking at this laptop, it's 799 in soundstore:

http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/product/Satellite-L500-128/1070472/toshibaShop/false/

I want to be able to play the sims 3 since I bought it,

majiktripp

mazerooni wrote: »

Alternatively I am looking at this laptop, it's 799 in soundstore:

http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/product/Satellite-L500-128/1070472/toshibaShop/false/

I want to be able to play the sims 3 since I bought it, otherwise waste of mula!

That laptop should be capable of playing the Sims 3 game. Is it not more wasteful to spend more money on a higher spec laptop than you might not really need, rather than take the 50 euro hit for the sims 3 game?

mazerooni

Well I have a budget of 800/900 so not really.

kenon

mazerooni wrote: »

Well I have a budget of 800/900 so not really.

The Sims™ 3 Minimum Hardware Requirements

FOR WINDOWS XP
•2.0 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
•1 GB RAM
•128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
•The latest version of DirectX 9.0c
•Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2
•At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games

FOR WINDOWS VISTA
•2.4 GHz P4 processor or equivalent
•1.5 GB RAM
•128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0
•Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1
•At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games

For computers using built-in graphics chipsets under Windows, the game requires at least:
•Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA 3-Series or above
•2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
•0.5 GB additional RAM

Just hit those specs and you'll be grand.