Laptop

Now that XP is about to die, I need to update my computer, and have decided to go for a Win 7 laptop. I'd be grateful for any advice as to the build standard of such a laptop to play adventure games.

I have done some looking around and have found several items which seem to be OK, but would welcome some advice.

All the ones that I have found come with Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit and all have 15.6" screens.

I have tended to ignore items with on-board video, as I believe that I have read that that is not as good as the alternative.
Ones that I have been looking at are:-

1. Dell Inspiron, Intel core i3 M350 2.27Ghz.
4 Gb RAM
320Gb HDD
512 Mb ATI Radeon HD 4330
SRS Premium Sound

2. Dell Inspiron, Intel Core i5 460M 2.53 Ghz
3Gb RAM
320Gb HDD
1Gb ATI Radeon HD4650
SRS Premium Sound

3. Dell Inspiron, much the same as 2. above, but with 6GB RAM and 512Mb
video.

4. Dell Studio, 1558 Chainlink
Intel Core i7 Q720 1.6 Ghz (quad core)
4Gb RAM
250 Gb HDD
1Gb ATI Radeon HD 5470


As I said, I'd be grateful for any advice.

petert

Of those 3, I'd choose #2.

The video card is the most important thing to look at with modern games.
Memory can usually be added, but not graphics.
The ATI HD 4650 is midrange, the 5470 is low end and the 4330 is even slower.
Slower = longer battery life, but poorer gaming ability.

Unless you get some huge, thick 17" or 18" laptop that's upward of 7 lbs, you're going to get onboard graphics. The only difference is the chipset. Some motherboards have Intel graphics built in, some have Nvidia built in, some have Radeon built in, some have a combination of Intel and one of the others and switch between them.

I assume you're looking at used laptops at Dell to keep the price down.
Most current laptops have more than 3 or 4 GB of system memory.
Don't get a laptop with 512 MB or less of video memory.
There are some current adventure games that won't play well with less than 1 GB of video memory.

For a new PC, I'd choose at least 8 GB of RAM for a 64-bit operating system.
If you're getting 32-bit Windows 7, 3 GB or 4 GB is fine. Or plan to add memory -- check the user manual for the laptop and see how easy it is to add memory. Some of them make both memory slots accessible by unscrewing a panel from the bottom of the laptop, while other models put one of the slots under the keyboard, which requires more disassembly.

Thank you, Jenny100. The suggestions you made were just what I wanted.
I found another machine - slightly more expensive - with 6Gb of RAM, and a 1Gb ATI Radeon HD 6470 video, so I have gone for that.
I hope that I shall find that I can use Windows 7 all right, having come to appreciate dear old XP.

petert

I hope you will find Windows 7 to be XP only made much, much better like I did!

Thanks for the kind thought! Draclvr.

petert