Laptop for gaming / WOW

[Furiously]

Any suggestions on a laptop to use for playing wow? Smaller would be better as I likely will have another laptop with me that I cannot install wow onto.

[Engels]

What's your budget? And is it more about weight than size?

[Furiously]

Really it's more about being cheap. I'm thinking about a used ibook G4 atm.

[Engels]

This Sony would probably do great for Wow, and its small and relatively light.

[sigil]

that definintely doesn't qualify as  Cheap.

WoW runs much more smoothly on Windows that OSx, bear that in mind.

[stray]

Used iBooks can be had in the $600 range. Relatively cheap, I guess.

I'd suggest getting a new iBook though, if you're going that route. Upgrading an old one will be a neccessity before you know it, and since it's a laptop, you want have many options. Besides that, the new iBooks have finally been equipped with Intel chips, so there's added benefit in that respect too. They range from $1100 to $1300. For a laptop, that's cheap.

[Oban]

I use a MacBook, an Ibook or a self-built PC to play WoW.  It really depends on where I am.

The MacBook plays WoW well enough in OSX, but WoW is much better when I switch to WindowsXP.  Well enough meaning I can hop in to a fast AV or raid MC/BWL. 

I only use the Ibook if I am healing, playing as a backstabbing rogue on an Ibook is a one way ticket to insanity. 

Of course, the desktop blows both of these laptops away... but how much detail and gee-whiz do you need for your eighty-fifth Vael kill?

Whatever you decide to get, do not skimp on RAM.

[Engels]

I don't know the first thing about apples, so I can only talk about PC Notebooks. Problem is, if you want any sort of dedicated video card, as in, not some cheap onboard integrated chip that is all but guaranteed not to play any video game in any liveable fashion and you want light/small at the same time, you're gonna pay through the nose.

[Furiously]

Used iBooks can be had in the $600 range. Relatively cheap, I guess.

I'd suggest getting a new iBook though, if you're going that route. Upgrading an old one will be a neccessity before you know it, and since it's a laptop, you want have many options. Besides that, the new iBooks have finally been equipped with Intel chips, so there's added benefit in that respect too. They range from $1100 to $1300. For a laptop, that's cheap.

yea - and the new ones use an integrated intel video solution, not sure I am keen on that.

[stray]

Yeah, it'd suck in the longrun. But if all you plan to do is play WoW (or the like) on a small laptop screen, then it'd be more than suitable.

[Sky]

I wouldn't bother with a G4. The mactels are nice machines, and an equivalent macbook isn't unreasonable. And then you can run WoW in XP if that's actually faster ;)

The integrated intel gpu sucks ass, though. Ass. I tried to get the HoMaMV demo going (on my core duo mini with the intel gpu), no dice. And anomalies in the 3d menu screen. When WoW first came out, I would do my AH stuff on my work eMac (had to delete WoW because it got too tempting to try and play)...but the game ran like ass on that machine, too. That was a G4 700 with 512RAM.

but how much detail and gee-whiz do you need for your eighty-fifth Vael kill?

Way to sell the excitement of that endgame!

[naum]

Just purchased a new Mac Book Pro and WoW runs very well - even with all the video settings torqued up, I'm getting 60FPS even in crowded town settings.

But it ran just fine on my 4 year old PB too, albeit with graphic settings set low.

[MisterNoisy]

Check out the Dell Inspiron 6400 and Inspiron 1501 if your primary concern is price.  Both will run WoW pretty well, I'm sure.

For under $1K, you can get the 1501 with a dual-core Turion 64, 2 GB RAM, 80GB HDD and Radeon X1150 gfx
For about $200 more, the 6400 gets you a Core 2 Duo proc, 2 GB RAM, 120 GB HDD and Radeon X1400 gfx

They're not 'sexy' like Macs or some of the slicker Sonys, and you'll have to uninstall a shitton of worthless crap when you get them initially, but for the money they're hard to beat.

[WayAbvPar]

The correct answer of course, is to quit playing WoW...

[Furiously]

Well - I can't really surf for porn on my work computer either.

[Evil Elvis]

I'd try to find one with a nVidia graphics chip.  A lot of notebooks out there have an ATI Radeon Express, and they're absolute shit for gaming.

[Furiously]

I use a MacBook, an Ibook or a self-built PC to play WoW.  It really depends on where I am.

The MacBook plays WoW well enough in OSX, but WoW is much better when I switch to WindowsXP.  Well enough meaning I can hop in to a fast AV or raid MC/BWL. 

I only use the Ibook if I am healing, playing as a backstabbing rogue on an Ibook is a one way ticket to insanity. 

Of course, the desktop blows both of these laptops away... but how much detail and gee-whiz do you need for your eighty-fifth Vael kill?

Whatever you decide to get, do not skimp on RAM.

So - I see they have some refurbs for $899 for the Macbook, but that Intel GMA with no memory scares me.

[Sky]

As it should. Trust me, it suuuucks. Can't even run Google Earth without crashing all the time. It's not a gaming machine, if it's the same chip as my core duo mini. Great work machine, 3d aside. I really should give the x1600 in the imac and mbp a spin with gaming one of these days...

[NiX]

I'm starting school again in January. At some point I actually HAVE to buy a laptop for my 2nd and 3rd year classes, so I figure I'll get it when I start so I can take notes easily. Being left handed and writing notes is a pain in the ass. Anyway, I have a desktop for gaming, so I really only need my laptop to run word and maybe photoshop at the same time. Suggestions? I've been looking at Dell, but their range is confusing me to no end. Sometimes I don't see the difference between models. Let's all remember I'm from Canadia so quoting prices from Dell.com doesn't mean much to me.

I really have no budget, but since it's only for word and what not, I suspect it shouldn't cost more than $900. I'd be willing to look at other companies too. Just don't know what's out there.

[Oban]

As it should. Trust me, it suuuucks. Can't even run Google Earth without crashing all the time. It's not a gaming machine, if it's the same chip as my core duo mini. Great work machine, 3d aside. I really should give the x1600 in the imac and mbp a spin with gaming one of these days...

Err, I use Google Earth Pro on my MacBook on a daily basis.  I have never had an unexpected application close event.  Perhaps you need more memory.

As for WoW, last night I did have some stuttering in BWL on Nef so I had to turn my video settings down for spell effects.   Nerf Mages.

[eldaec]

I enjoyed how "gaming" and "WoW" are considered separate things in this thread.






Since you ask, no, I don't have anything useful to add.

[Furiously]

I enjoyed how "gaming" and "WoW" are considered separate things in this thread.

One's a game - one's a hobby. The hobby might have games in it though.

[MrHat]

http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/12/asus-officialy-unveils-its-g1-and-g2-gaming-notebooks/

Asus has a new 15" coming out with a 7700 GeForceGo.  I'll probably save for something like that, as thats got the highest end video card on a 15" I've seen so far.

Probably will break the bank though (2k+)

[eldaec]

If this is a laptop carry around alongside a work laptop, have you considered just buying an alternate hard drive and facia plate for the PC you are already lugging about the place?

Most laptop hard drives are easy enough to unscrew and slot in and out, when you want "your" PC you just swap hard drives.

[Furiously]

I'm not sure my work would appreciate my doing that. That being said, It might be worth looking at an external bootable USB drive, then again the graphics in my work laptop are probably totally lacking as well.

[Jayce]

My wife drives a Dell Inspiron with GeForce go (I forget the model, it's about a year old).  It plays better than my desktop. 

Which probably says more about my desktop machine than the laptop.

[raydeen]

If you can find an recent G4 iBook (14" 1.4 Ghz+ CPU) it makes a really good WoWtop. We used them last year for the laptop program here at the school and WoW ran very well and looked great due to the Radeon 9550 (I think) GPU. The series before it used a 9200. When we switched up to the newer MacBooks for the staff and engineering program, WoW took a very noticable hit due to the integrated Intel GPU (GMA 950). It looked crappier and played crappier, not much better then my 3 year old HP with an IGP 340m Radeon.

I play WoW on my MacBook from time to time, but it's a come down. Even WC3 runs fairly sluggishly. Could be that it doesn't have a universal binary though.

Now WoW on a MBP would look amazning. I have a Dell with an ATI x1400 and it looks great so I would imagine that running WoW (or anything) on an x1600 would look stellar.

All systems I've played on had a gig of ram as well. Any less hurts play greatly from what I've read.

[Righ]

A lot of Mac replies in here. There's really only one option for playing games (even WoW) on a Mac laptop, and that's one of the ATI X1600 equipped MacBook Pros. However, nobody could really accuse them of being cheap, blessed as they are with rather more power than you need for running a game like WoW. I have one, it plays WoW very nicely. Traditionally the Windows version of WoW is faster (and thus better able to be run on lesser systems), but I can't be bothered to find out. I can raid BWL and Naxx just fine on this machine while running OS X.

If you have to lug another laptop around, you probably should be looking to see if there are any <3lb ultraportables that have something better that Intel graphics.

[Oban]

I am far too lazy to look through all of these, but of the three I did check specs on, integrated Intel graphics chips seem standard:

http://www.dynamism.com/Notebooks/category.shtml

[Furiously]

If you can find an recent G4 iBook (14" 1.4 Ghz+ CPU) it makes a really good WoWtop. We used them last year for the laptop program here at the school and WoW ran very well and looked great due to the Radeon 9550 (I think) GPU. The series before it used a 9200. When we switched up to the newer MacBooks for the staff and engineering program, WoW took a very noticable hit due to the integrated Intel GPU (GMA 950). It looked crappier and played crappier, not much better then my 3 year old HP with an IGP 340m Radeon.

I play WoW on my MacBook from time to time, but it's a come down. Even WC3 runs fairly sluggishly. Could be that it doesn't have a universal binary though.

Now WoW on a MBP would look amazning. I have a Dell with an ATI x1400 and it looks great so I would imagine that running WoW (or anything) on an x1600 would look stellar.

All systems I've played on had a gig of ram as well. Any less hurts play greatly from what I've read.

That was my thought. Then again, I am having a hard time pulling the trigger knowing a new Macbook costs the same.

[Righ]

I play WoW on my MacBook from time to time, but it's a come down. Even WC3 runs fairly sluggishly. Could be that it doesn't have a universal binary though.

Oh, didn't notice that. WoW was one of the first shipping Universal Binaries (command-i). Most of the crap performance on your MacBook comes from the Intel onboard chip.

[Surlyboi]

Grr...

[Righ]

...

[Signe]

WoW is easy to run on anything.  It would probably run on your decoder ring.

[Surlyboi]

Decoder ring perhaps. It'll still run better on a Macbook Pro than it will on a Macbook.