what laptop , dad req,s help

J

jake

Geek Trainee
Hi , my 15 year old lad wants a Laptop for Xmas ,
He will be using it for school course work - general surfing - and online gaming . like Runescape & X-Box live, and he spends a lot of time chatting to friends on M.S.N.
The guy in P.C. world told me their laptop would be perfect £399, as did the guy in Tesco £299,
What I,m after if you guys can help is some independant objective advice on a decent over the counter laptop that will do all what I,ve described.
What sort of price ?, memory ?, Ram ?, processor ? etc.

He,ll be connecting via his netgear router & the broadband main family P.C. virgin.

any advice on what to buy would be very welcome .

Also X.P. or VISTA ?? A guy at work recons X.P. is quicker than vista , and like all teenagers , my lad likes a quick connection - and he,s familiar with X.P. but what should I get ????.
cheers in advance chris ,
 
Welcome to HWF :)
First of all, I'd recommend XP. It doesn't require a fast computer, thus giving you the option to get a cheaper computer. For XP, i'd recommend 512 MB - 1 GB of RAM. Processor could be an anything above 2 Ghz.
If you plan to use Vista, then it's best to have 2 GB of more RAM because the performance would be really bad if you have less.
 
If he wants to be able to play games you might want to invest in a good video card, it is beyond incredible how much it influences the games. You can have a blazing fast processor and lots of RAM but games just worn't run smooth without a decent graphics card.
Laptop GPUs:
nVidia
GeForce Go 7300 series
GeForce Go 7600 series
GeForce 8400M series
GeForce 8600M series
GeForce Go 7800 or 8700M/8800M if you want something speedy
(8K series are newer and better, not necessarily more expensive)
ATi
Radeon X1300 series
Radeon X1600 series
Radeon X1350
Radeon X2300
Any of the HD series

I agree with the other guy on getting XP instead of Vista. If your son will be doing schoolwork Vista might give his a few headaches in terms of compatibility with software. Just make sure you get XP Service Pack 2. Wait a few more months for the world to accept Service Pack 3 before downloading it from microsoft.
 
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