What laptop would you purchase in my situation?

L

Liekomg

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 26, 2006
Messages
316
I'm trying to pick up a used, cheap laptop to play the occasional game. I'm not going to be playing anything high end like HL2, Prey, etc, as I already have a powerful desktop machine. This is more so I can play coop games like diablo2 and possibly some WoW.

I've rounded down between two laptops:

Toshiba A105 - $350
Celeron M 1.5ghz
512mb DDR2
60gb 5200rpm
Radeon Xpress 200m 128mb shared
Combo drive
15" Widescreen

Gateway 7405GX - $500
Athlon 64 3200+
768mb DDR
80gb 4200rpm
Radeon 9600 64mb dedicated
DVD-RW drive
15" Widescreen

Now, in the end i'd like to end up spending as little as possible, so only $350 seems attractive. The Toshiba looks nice because its a very new model, is cheap, and has newer features such as DDR2 and SATA. But do they really matter? Does the 200m such too much? How would WoW performance be?

Keep in mind that the first thing i'd have to do is upgrade the 512mb ram anyway, which is like $70 or $80 for a 1gb chip. That brings the prices a lot closer together. The Gateway would be a lot faster overall too, I believe, and last longer in the long run. Which would you rather get?
 
The gateway - I'm not a big fan of Toshibas since all the ones I've dealt with have been shoddy and like to break.

Plus - the 200 Radeon is not dedicated, it sucks up your system memory. Also, is that Athlon 64 in the Gateway a mobile chip? Or a desktop processor? If it's desktop, goodbye battery life. :p

I'd also try to get that 4200 RPM drive out of that Gateway though, I need my drives blazing. :D
 
I'm typing on a Toshiba atm, and it's decent (specs are in sig, got for 500 dollars BF '04).

My only gripe is the fact that the fan turns on after ~20 min, then every 2 to 3 minutes after that.
 
BillLeeLee said:
The gateway - I'm not a big fan of Toshibas since all the ones I've dealt with have been shoddy and like to break.

Plus - the 200 Radeon is not dedicated, it sucks up your system memory. Also, is that Athlon 64 in the Gateway a mobile chip? Or a desktop processor? If it's desktop, goodbye battery life. :p

I'd also try to get that 4200 RPM drive out of that Gateway though, I need my drives blazing. :D
Click to expand...

Its an A64 mobile, so it has the capability to clock down. Still, its a used system so the battery life won't be perfect, but I won't be running it off of battery often anyway.
 
Hmm, got the guy to lower the price of the Toshiba to $300. I think thats just too good of a price to pass up on, especially since i'd like to spend as little as possible. There is a lot I can do with that extra $200. I'll mostly just be playing Diablo2 anyway... probably :)

Is the build quality on the Toshiba's really that poor? Does their "Trubrite" screens means they are the glossy kind?
 
I'd say get the Toshiba. It will play HL2 (at a low resolution)... my friend does on a laptop that is much worse. I'm not experienced with WoW so i don't know about that.
 
A Celery 1.5 and a ATI mobile 200 handling halflife 2? I find that somehwat doubtful, my P4 2.4 and dedicated Radeon 9500pro won't do halflife 2, and both the CPU and graphics card are faster.

I'd go with the Gateway. Toshiba used to build a very high quality laptop, but I have been hearing a ton of complaints from people with them lately. Plus, WoW would likely choke the Toshiba pretty quick. I would recommend getting a faster HD when you can however.

Also, I am assuming the Toshiba has a 5400rpm hard drive? I have never heard of a 5200.
 
HL2 with low resolution and pretty much low everything. Not the prettiest but it will play.

From what I've heard about WoW, I agree with you.
 
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