Laptop all rounder advice?

[Badger_grr]

Hey guys,

Looking for some advice as I don't really know much about laptops particularly with all these low voltage processors and mobility graphics cards. I'm assuming their performance is no where near close to their desktop counterparts? In fact there seems to be so many types of processors, celeron, core solo, duo etc etc. I have no idea what any of that means regarding performance.

I really liked the look of the MSi X600 advertised in the OCUK promo thread but after some reading of reviews it seems the cpu may not be up to the job and lack of optical drive was a bit off putting.

I am looking for a laptop with the following specifications really;

Fairly lightweight (2.5 kg or less)
14/15.6 ' screen
Optical drive.
Graphics capable of viewing 720p and playing games such as CSS, BF2 and Eve.

And all that for as cheap as possible but I suppose my budget is £500.

Can it be done? Any advice?

Cheers

 

[olivier renault]

Hey guys,

Looking for some advice as I don't really know much about laptops particularly with all these low voltage processors and mobility graphics cards. I'm assuming their performance is no where near close to their desktop counterparts? In fact there seems to be so many types of processors, celeron, core solo, duo etc etc. I have no idea what any of that means regarding performance.

I really liked the look of the MSi X600 advertised in the OCUK promo thread but after some reading of reviews it seems the cpu may not be up to the job and lack of optical drive was a bit off putting.

I am looking for a laptop with the following specifications really;

Fairly lightweight (2.5 kg or less)
14/15.6 ' screen
Optical drive.
Graphics capable of viewing 720p and playing games such as CSS, BF2 and Eve.

And all that for as cheap as possible but I suppose my budget is £500.

Can it be done? Any advice?

Cheers

Not really. At this price point, you won't find any switchable graphics laptops (read, all rounder, proper laptops that you can carry around).

However, you may find a home laptop (read, no battery life and big), with a decent graphics card and processor. Acer does quite a few of those, as well as Samsung.

The best in the category would have been the UL80VT, but it's nigh on impossible to find these days. Still, the processor was a CULV, but with turbo boost, and the GPU was only a GT210M.

You wont find a laptop that does it all for £500. Ideally, you'd want a i3, and a GT330M / HD5650 class GPU with optimus, all in a 13-14'' package.

You can downgrade to a GT210M / GT310M / HD5470, and a CULV / dual core processor, and still be able to play those games, but it will struggle.

In that category, there is the 3820TZG available in Europe, around £600.

For gaming, there is no alternative, you NEED a dedicated graphics card. The integrated graphics are just not up for it. So the MSI is out of the question.