Laptops are scary.
 

When I first decided to buy a laptop, it all seemed pretty straight forward I thought, even an backward computer illiterate like me could figure it out.

No dice...

I've been drowning in a sea of specs and contradictory info for days now...

So, a few quick queries:

1. I've read that performance doesn't vary significantly past the 1GHz mark. Does this hold true for all things? Or is it that it's only true if you're not using your machine for gaming etc?

2. Specs regarding video cards are exceedingly esoteric (to me) I want dedicated video RAM, but I'm never sure if they're stating dedicated RAM levels or shared capacity. I keep reading things like this:

Does DDR SDRAM stand for shared RAM?

And also:

UMA apparently stands for Unified Memory Architecture, which sounds awfully like shared RAM!


3. Are there any models I should avoid like the plague totally?

4. With screen resolution, I've heard some screens make text really hard to read? Is this true, and if so, does anyone know which ones are good/terrible in this regard?

5. In terms of gaming, will I suffer gigantically for getting a 4200rpm hard drive? and will 5400rpm be good/sufficient/crap?

6. Apple seems to be awfully expensive, are they just awesome!?

To keep things simple, in terms of budget I'm not quite sure yet, but I'd like a machine that will be capable of a quality gaming experience, though I know it will be a heavy, battery eating monster.

Well, a 2Ghz processor is going to be faster than a 1Ghz for sure. A lot of mobile processors are coming with speedstepping technology (Intel calls it SpeedStep, how original). That is, they slow down when they are running off of battery so as to increase your productivity time. They can also do this when they run too hot.

If your laptop has a video card that uses shared memory, it should say so. The ATI card you stated above is most likely a dedicated memory chip.
DDR SDRAM stands for Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory. People just call it DDR ram. Its faster than standard SDRAM and is the standard today. It comes in multiple speeds.

Models to avoid? I don't like compaq, hp, etc. I would suggest a Dell or IBM.

Screen resolution I don't think really matters anymore as far as being able to read stuff clearly. If you do however have issues, and would be running Windows XP, Microsoft has software (free as in beer) called ClearType that you can use to tweak your font displays.

Gaming? The faster the harddrive, the faster the load time. Plain and simple. They do make 7200rpm laptop drives. They are a little bit more $$, but they're worth it. I have a 7200rpm Hitatchi in my Dell Latitude D800 that I'm using to type on right now.

Apple is expensive. But when you're the only one that makes the hardware, then you kinda have the market. If you're going to be doing a lot of gaming, I would suggest steering clear of the Apple. There are certainly ports of a lot of games to the Apple platform, but there just seems to be so many more for the x86 platform. Apple has a good OS I think, though I still use PC. I've been thinking about buying a PowerBook for some time now, just to play with.

If you're also thinking about doing a good bit of gaming on a laptop, you might also look at VooDoo PC and Alienware. Though, with those two brands, you will be paying a good bit for the name.

Yes Alienware wanted my firstborn son for their badass gaming laptop system.

Faster load times are great, but does the rpm only effect the accessing of files, and not actual gameplay?

Another question:
Are there any PC Cards which can provide dedicated video RAM?

Thanks by the way!

the faster the rpm, keep in mind, the faster it will drain your battery. gaming and portability are two words that don't go together very well. a gaming laptop will be expensive and heavy, not to mention have short battery life.

i've never herad of a pc card that provides dedicated video ram.

All video cards of recent memory provide dedicated video RAM. Integrated video, on a motherboard or embedded system may or may not provide dedicated video RAM. It's a design choice.

There have been stand-alone video cards and boards with integrated video that allowed adding video RAM via some kind of daughterboard. (custom, DIMM, whatever). It either allowed getting away from shared system memory or augmented a smaller amount of dedicated video RAM. You won't find many surviving examples, and I wouldn't go shopping for one. You could consider SLI to be an exception. A pair of SLI video cards could use each others memory, though sharing between for other than inter process communication would not be as efficient as each using their on-board memory.

That's all academic. Where laptops are concerned the option doesn't exist. Even those brute Clevo laptops (aka Alien/Falcon/voodoo) use a single PCIe video card, so no chance of adding to their existing measley 256MB.

256MB sounds nice when I keep running into the dreaded '64MB shared memory' demon...

Why do Dell talk about it like it's a good thing? Madmen!

Apple is awesome.

next time you play a game, watch the hard drive light. You'll see it blinking, which means the HD is accessing, which means rpm effects gameplay as well ;)

whatever you do DO NOT GET A DELL

because dell markets twards the computer illiterate. they brag about giving you a 2.8 processor but that is a p4 celeron which runs slowr than a p4 2.8. they also like to bait and switch you call them up with a model from one of their adds, and then you end up with a different laptop than what you wanted in the begining

How much does a decent gaming laptop run these days? My biggest beef with my old laptop is that it runs hot, and it doesn't handle video very well. I figured I wouldn't be able to play games on it when I bought it, but I didn't realize there would also be problems veiwing mpg's and such.

Can you get a good multi-media laptop for 2grand or less including warranty? When I bought my last one, that wasn't the case.

A decent laptop? Or a kickass laptop? You can probably get a decent one for around 2000. But if you want something that'll make your friends cry with rage, that'll cost probably double.
Linky [PDF File]

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this is one sweet laptop......I just got mine a couple of weeks ago. The battery life is not too great, but i love it. Its a beast of a laptop, and can play most games if you want to.

this is a link to a refurbished one but they are still hella nice:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...325&CatId=1345

Or a Gateway, for that matter.
Both Dell and Gateway have consistent problems, poor manufacturing and unhelpful techsupport/customer service. Do searches online and see how many problems you read about with these 2 companies and make the decision for yourself. Dell and Gateway computers are cheap and cheaply made.

I am partial to HP/Compaq. They've not let us (my family) down. However, the choice is yours.

whatever you decide to get, i would suggest you opt for a waranty plan. I know its extra money to spend but you never know when things are gonna mess up.

I recommended Dell and IBM earlier in this thread because of the support and whatnot, among the fact that I have not had issues with either company either.

I would like to let you all know that don't, Gateway, Dell, IBM, Compaq, HP, and a couple of others all get their laptops OEMed from a place in Taiwan called Quanta.

Most definately, laptops are more prone to have problems than a normal PC. Over the last 3 years i've used my service plan at least 7 times, it seemed like alot at the time I was buying it, but it was worth every cent.

Averatec and Toshiba are the same. Toshiba, in fact, owns Averatec -- its all garbage. I wouldn't touch another Toshiba laptop if they gave it to me... yes, they are that bad. Mine died in exactly 366 days. Never again...

Reference: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=84323

Dell, IBM or Apple for me.

The laptop that my school has assigned us has run the games that I like so far, although I think it's a far stretch from playing Doom 3 or Half-Life 2. But it runs my Call of Duty just fine, along with Age II, Quake III, and Unreal Tournament '03 and '04.

http://www.buympc.com/home/store/not...ort_t3000.html

It seems to me to be a matter of opinion which is a better buy. Some people say HP sucks, others swear by them. I've got an HP desktop, 4 years old, and a 1 year old Toshiba laptop,and I've never had any problem with either of them. Buying a computer seems to be more of a crapshoot then it needs to be. Bulk up on a good warranty. It's like insurance for your car or house, it's a pain in the ass to pay the cost, until you get hit by the truck!

I love my Averatec...

I would like to know where you got your information. I have never heard or seen anything to make me think Toshiba is going to have anything to do with a small company based out of Santa Ana, CA.

I will say that Dell actually does make nice laptops. Buy one of their Pentium M laptops and it will be faster than most Pentium 4's (since more GHZ != more speed) at most things, run for rediculous amounts of time (9 hour battery) and not cost as much. I've got a inspiron 600m with 1.6Ghz Pentium M, 512 and a radeon 9200 with 64M ram. It runs UT2004 pretty well, and anything newer just fine. It works great for what I really need which is battery life and connectivity and now costs less than $1500 with even better specs.

If you just want a desktop replacement, go with one of those Toshiba behemoths that have 17 inch screens and radeon 9700 or better video cards. But if you actually want a laptop to carry around, go for a a pentium M by Dell or IBM.