Need laptop help from the gurus

[Nebu]

Hey gang.  I've been pricing laptops that I could use primarily for travelling and giving talks, writing papers with figures, etc.  I'd also like it to be at least able to play online games on the lower settings.  I came across this at Newegg and thought I'd get your opinions.

ThinkPad T Series T60(87414GU) NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo T7200(2.00GHz) 15.4" Wide SXGA+ 1GB 80GB 5400rpm DVD/CD-RW Combo ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 - Retail
Core 2 Duo with XP Pro

Any suggestions welcome. 

[Engels]

Its a little low on video memory (128) but I'm not familiar enough with radeon mobility to say much about the rest of the video card's features. And you have to define 'online games'; WoW, no problem. Vanguard, fuggedaboutit

[fuser]

Hey,

 My work laptop has the same video card and pretty close in specs (a little slower cpu). Just as an FYI, plugged in I had to turn the WoW details down to run it in the LCD's native resolution of 1280x800. This was pre TBC and with hacked latest Catalyst drivers (not the old mobility one's created by the laptop vendor). It runs most games ok, but if you want some real world benches let me know and i'll do some for you. Looking back, I'd rather have a GeForce based card or at least an x1600 or better the bandwidth sucks and really hampers the cards performance.

Take a look at the comparison of a x1400 vs a 8600M GT

TrackMania United
1280x800
Normal settings (Out of Faster/Normal/Nicer)
34.1 FPS

Portal
1280x800
Defaults
17-27fps
Screenshot with net_graph 1 running at the start

[Trippy]

http://www.nvidia.com/object/wtb_notebooks.html

[Nebu]

Thanks for the info and for the helpful link!

I'm going to look at a few of the laptops on Trippy's list and go from there.  I feel like such a noob when it comes to laptops.  I can only imagine what it will be like when I break down and actually get a cell phone.

Does this look more capable of being a secondary gaming machine for on the road?
ASUS F3 Series F3SV-A1 NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo T7300(2.00GHz) 15.4" Wide XGA+ 1GB DDR2 667 160GB 5400rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS

[raydeen]

The x1400 isn't bad as long as you're not a graphics whore. So far I've run CoX, Prey, UT3, Oblivion, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Phantasy Star Universe etc. on it at very acceptable framerates, albeit at lower resolutions. Which is fine by me as cranking up the res usually lowers the size of the text which hurts my eyes. You should be able to get decent performance in the 1280x1024 range. Don't know about anything higher. I would try to get one with 256 megs though. I think the only difference between the x1300 and the x1400 is the additional 128 megs on the x1400. The only other suggestion I would have is try to find a comparible nVidia chipset. I've had some headaches with ATI and considering the drivers you'll probably get are 2 years old, you'll no doubt have to use some hacked drivers. I had to install the current Omega drivers to get UT3 to look proper.

[fuser]

TDoes this look more capable of being a secondary gaming machine for on the road?
ASUS F3 Series F3SV-A1 NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo T7300(2.00GHz) 15.4" Wide XGA+ 1GB DDR2 667 160GB 5400rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS

On raw GPU figures. It has:
4x speed on memory bandwidth
2x speed on pixel/texture fill rate
10x speed on shader operations

A much better card plus DX10 support 
Looks like a nice laptop but Vista(as it seems the manufacturer's states) will be a dog with 1GB of RAM

[Nebu]

Looks like a nice laptop but Vista(as it seems the manufacturer's states) will be a dog with 1GB of RAM

I'll see if I can do one of two things here:

a) Get a similar config with XP home or b) get a 2GB memory upgrade.

I've always had good luck with ASUS when I built all of my desktop boxes.  I'm hoping that the same reliability is found in their laptops. 

Thanks for the help!