$500 for a new laptop! Is it a good deal?

[Lancer]

Can it play Civ4? What would you add to it for gaming?

What's your opinion of this machine...?

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/odg_msn?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs#offer

[reds4ever]

Good for the money but no good for gaming.

[Dinner]

It only has 256 memory so it isn't enough to do much more then run Win XP. Never buy anything without at least 512 but strtch to a gig if you can. It doesn't have wireless connections either so no wi fi hotspots for you.

I'd avoid this computer since it is obsolet before you even buy it.

[Lancer]

Thanks

[Provost Harrison]

You need to splash the cash you wealthy old bugger

[Lancer]

Actually I'm thinking about a GP32 anyway. The size of a gameboy advance, around $250 and someone said it can run Civ2.

It would make work alot more bearable if I can figure out how to load Civ into the thing.

[Solver]

What's worse, I assume the thing has an on-board video card that steals memory from RAM, so that the actual amount of RAM available to Windows would be around 190.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Solver
What's worse, I assume the thing has an on-board video card that steals memory from RAM, so that the actual amount of RAM available to Windows would be around 190.

Correct.

[Lancer]

This is the GP 32. Is it better than a palm pilot or one of the tiny hand held comps? Are there any of the tiny ones that can run Civ 4?

http://consoles4u.8m.com/gp32.html

[Atahualpa]

I doubt this will give you a good experience. Because if you look at the minimum system requirements of Sid Meier's Pirates! (which uses the same 3D engine) you'll notice they ask for a 64MB Video card and 256MB Ram.
Now, this notebook has 256MB Ram, BUT AFAIK the intel extreme graphics video chip doesn't not have dedicated memory so you'll need to deduct 64MB from your main ram to the graphics chip and that will leave you with 192MB of main memory which is really very very little.
Either you get 512MB RAM with integrated graphics or you'll get a graphics chip which uses at least 64MB of its own dedicated memory (the ideal ofc would be to have both).
Also I doubt the Celeron M at 1.3Ghz is a strong CPU to handle Civ4's AI.

Btw funny when I click on details it says $559 instead of $499 from the page before and I haven't seen any option to degrade the price.


Why don't you look for a Desktop instead? With that budget I doubt you'll find a suitable notebook.

[reds4ever]

what are the specs for Civ4?

[Nostromo]

Not to mention a crappy battery. Believe it or not, they include a NiMH Battery in that piece of crap...

[Solver]

Originally posted by reds4ever
what are the specs for Civ4?

We don't know, but it uses the same engine as Pirates. However, due to the AI, it will probably be a tad more demanding. Anyhow, it definitely needs 256 MB of RAM and a real video card, at least GeForce 4 Ti. I wouldn't expect a machine with integrated video to run Civ4 well...

[Dinner]

I can't believe any company is still shipping products with NiMH batteries since they have memory. If you ever plugged that laptop in without totally discharging it first then you'd damage the battery. In a month or two you'd have just a few minutes of life on the battery before needing another recharge. That's a serious flaw.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I can't believe any company is still shipping products with NiMH batteries since they have memory. If you ever plugged that laptop in without totally discharging it first then you'd damage the battery. In a month or two you'd have just a few minutes of life on the battery before needing another recharge. That's a serious flaw.

Well, its clearly a piece of crap. Sorry Lancer! It has only a 90 days warranty and it doesn't have enough ram. I'm not sure you can upgrade the ram on that thing (its not even an option).