Laptop Recommendation...
 

Hey all!

I purchased an Acer Aspire 5920 earlier in the year. I was blinded by the many features it offered such as 3GB of RAM, 250GB HDD, built-in webcam etc. But it turned out not to be very good at all! Especially when it came to the game front...

Needless to say my car insurance quote came through and decided to sell the laptop as it wasnt doing me many favours just to help pay off some of it off.

I've now decided however that I really do miss having a laptop! I am thinking about buying another and would like some recommendations. I want a piece of kit that will last me a couple of years at least. I'm setting a budget of £500 or under.

Preferably at least 250GB HDD, Large amount of RAM as im quite application thirsty! And...The ability to play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 (or FSX etc) with a good frame rate and speed. (I'm a student pilot and am thinking of using flightsim for instrument training purposes). I also would like this lappy to have a built in webcam, wi-fi and if possible a bluetooth application built in. And finally, something thats small enough and lightweight to be carted around easily.

I've been searching around and cannot seem to find something that meets my needs. I don't think i'll touch anything with Acer on it anymore, and probably the same goes with HP. Usually there are sacrifices made on other components. I assume that in order to run flightsim you need a good graphics card, processor etc. Well i'm a bit of a novice with this sort of stuff so if anyone could point me in the right direction with a laptop thats got 'above average' processing power and a decent graphics card (Nvidia, AMD etc), that would be helpful! (Flightsim installed and loaded fine on my Acer but the frame rate was awful! About 3 FPS!).

Cheers :ok:

Lewis

Laptop + Under £500 + Flight Sim don't go together!

Laptops aren't designed for gaming, if you want to do flight sim then get yourself a desktop :ok: I have a quad core in the house that I paid less than £600 for and its got 8GB of RAM with 750GB of HDD.

I have the Dell M1710

4GB RAM
512MB graphics card

Runs FSX with no problems

At £1100 it is slightly above your budget :ugh:

HP Pavilion DV5 1009
4GB HDD
4GB Mem
512 MB nVidia graphics card
Bluray player
TV tuner
Free external HDD

Runs FSX extremely smooth on ultra high settings, very good work platform.

Was $1850AUD and worth every cent.


STAY AWAY FROM SONY LAPTOPS THOUGH!!!!

Thanks for your replies so far. Yeah the only problem is that laptops just wernt designed for gaming. I've always stayed clear of laptops because of their dire battery life and poor performance compared to a desktop. However just the fun of being able to carry around all my media, play DVD's, surf the web etc and use it for 'educational' purposes has grown on me.


Are there companies that will build a laptop for you? Bit like what Dell does, except you can choose the specific parts etc. I know its a lot harder to customise a laptop, probs impossible?:rolleyes:

Lewis

try : PCSPECIALIST.CO.UK - Custom PCs, Custom Computers, Custom PC, Custom Built Computers, Gaming PC

And google 'laptops for gaming'

As said above, laptops really aren't suitable for FS unless you buy an absurdly expensive one. Avoid Sony!

I have a desktop that cost under £500 and runs X-Plane (IFR practice) well.

Much of my work these days is done on an IBM ThinkPad T43. It is an excellent laptop - it does all I could ever ask of it - and it cost me £300. Reliability has been 100%. It has a 1.86GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 60GB hard drive I could have had 250GB HD for another £50 but since my previous (5 year old) ThiunkPad R31 was 30GB and not full, I decided I didn't need it.

A friend of mine lashed out serious money on an HP laptop, which started to go wrong after a few months. HP took it back (not without some argument) and fixed it - but the fault is well known and he's afraid it might recur.

MESH Computers - Award Winning Review PCs Since 1987 can change the laptops around for you.

Laptops are good if you use them a lot, but they suck for gaming and any graphical work.

One Lap top to consider
 

This is just based on my own experence but consider a Dell Vostro I'm using a 1310 with just standard graphics - i.e. no good too small - but the company offer bigger screens and dedicted nvidia graphics card options; with fast hard disk drives. I'm a new user but you have the option of XP Pro as an operating system, which might help performance wise. I have no connection with the company but their laptops seem OK for the relatively modest cost. - If you are using Vista get as much fast DD3 RAM as possible. Always beware of heat disapation probs with a laptop as well.

CAT III

I don't do gaming but I have bought from here before. Novatech. That's the gaming laptop page but there are other setups. You can get pretty much any spec, with any OS or no OS and use your own.

Thanks for your feedback! What do you guys think of Dell? Had a leaflet come through the door today with the Studio 15. Seems like a good all rounder? It states it's got '256mb ATI Mobility Radion HD 3450 gaming Graphics', Probs just bull! Let me hear a more expert opinion...

Dell Studio 15 1535 2GHz,250GB,256mb ATI,3GB Ram,Blue on eBay, also, Laptops, Computing (end time 28-Jan-09 11:21:37 GMT)

Processor is slow, 3GB of RAM isn't that good for a gaming PC and the graphics card is rubbish.

If you are dedicated to getting a Laptop I would advise you to check out www.ebuyer.co.uk or www.dabs.com they have some good deals.

I recommend that you first shop around here:

www.medion.co.uk

:)

One word: ASUS

I had exactly the same problem with my old laptop - no video card! So I just bought another one - Acer 6935G. It wasn't cheap, but it runs Microsoft Flight Sim X beautifully.

Some points from my personal research: you'd need a gaming laptop with a good video card (preferably 9600m and not below 512Mb). Try to get DDR3 (at least 2GB). Processor doesn't really matter that much as long as you stay at around 2.4GHz (try to get at least P8600, but no need for T9600 as you will hardly feel any difference). Lastly, remember that if the laptop has 32bit Vista, then max ram that will be useful to you is 3Gb (that is, if you have 4Gb ram on a 32bit Vista, Windows will only use 3Gb). It's a different story with the 64bit Vista, but I am not 100% sure Flight Sim will run on it as not many applications are yet compatible with a 64bit Vista. Nevertheless, be assured that Flight Sim runs nicely on 32bit. Hope this helps
:ok:

What is this bolleax about laptops being no good for FSX? I have a Toshiba Satellite Pro that runs it perfectly well. It may have a good graphics chip (for a lappy) but didn't break the bank, under £500 about 6 months ago. It runs Vista and all that I throw at it.
FSX isn't actually that demanding in graphics, memory is the main constraint.
These days you should be able to find something to fit the bill at about £350 or maybe under.

Good luck.

I use a Dell for work, and have no problems with that, however, for private use I have a Samsung X11, and its the biggest load of sh*t I have ever used. Can't wait till I can afford a new laptop, then I will do to this heap of gabage, what I have nearly done almost every day. :yuk: