I am also busy doing the research on getting a new laptop and the options is a bit overwhelming.
One thing I can suggest is to try and get one that is based on the new Santa Rosa Centrino platform. Its not always easy to spot these laptops though, you might have to do some online research to confirm if the one you are looking at is.
Centrino is just a platform that defines certain standards, such as power consumption, processor types, chipsets, wireless, etc. Unfortunately they kept the name pretty much the same between the old and new Centrino standards. The new one is of course a much better spec, includes the new Core 2 Duo processors instead of just Dual core, goes up to Wireless N draft standard and better battery life.
Some other considerations:
- Where are the heat hotspots? It is very uncomfortable to work on a laptop if the place you rest your hands on is scalding hot from the HDD below it. Unfortunately you might not find this out until you've already purchased the laptop and playing EQ2 for an hour or so.
- Location of USB ports. Some of them only has USB ports on the right, and if you're right handed thats where you'll put the mouse and then the cable is always in the way unless you use a wireless one. Some laptops also have USB ports so close to each other there is no way to plug in more than one device at the same time unless you use USB cable extenders.
- BlueTooth, some laptops include it, if you want this check, otherwise you need to use a USB dongle.
- DVI connector for video output. Important if you want to connect your laptop to an LCD screen. You can use converters if it only has VGA, but you lose video quality converting between analog/digital.
- As mentioned before, you want a video card with its own memory, not shared. Unfortunately there are so many mobile video chips that you can't simply say that a higher model number is better. If DirectX10 is important to you, you need at least an 8000 series Nvidia card though.
- Operating system.. not going to make a recommendation here ;-). Just keep in mind that sometimes you can ask to change the O/S if you don't like what it ships with.
- Keyboard.. if you go for a 17" laptop, try and get one with a keypad on the keyboard. There should be enough space to fit one in and many of these laptops do include one. A keypad makes playing EQ2 and other games a bit easier. Without a keypad they double-up on the keys on the keyboard, so with numlock turned on, the normal letter keys turn into numbers.
- Video Resolution. This is an important factor for me. Since the laptop has an LCD screen, the resolution is fixed. Well.. you can go lower, but then it looks horrible, but you can't go higher! I'd suggest for EQ2 try to go for a 1680x1050 resolution at least if you get a widescreen laptop, or 1600x1200 for normal aspect ratio.
Hmm.. I'm sure I'm leaving something out.. can't think of what now though
Good luck in your purchase.
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01. November 2024, 14:32:21 (02:32 PM)
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