Looking for a half decent laptop for my brother. Haven't looked into laptop specs for quite a while and I know the game has moved on a fair bit. It's annoying me that all these laptop I see in Tesco/Comet/PC World all say they have Intel HD Graphics. This tells me nothing. Is it on board or a dedicated card? How many Mb is it?

I'd like it to have 4GB of ram. Seen loads with only 3GB which I don't get. Wouldn't this limit upgrading in the future?

A decent amount of hard drive space but not essential since everything will be on external drives.

HDMI port

A dedicated graphics card

An Intel processor. I do like Intels and mates laptops running with AMD chips run noticeably hotter than the Dual Core Intel in my Inspiron.

Is all that too much to ask for around £500?

He can get discount off Amazon as he works there.

Edited 1 February, 201115 yr by MartynVRS

Right: for any PC to use more than 3gb of ram, it needs a 64bit OS.

Anything that says Intel Graphics has an integrated chip, so look for one that says ATI or nVidia.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-EE3Z0E-notebook-Blu-ray-Premium/dp/B0044EDM08/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UTF8&qid=1296595278&sr=8-22

This Vaio has 6GB of Ram, and an ATI graphics card. Not sure on the specs for it, but my Vaio is of a lesser spec and can run games on high settings so I've no doubt that this can do it, although it has an AMD processor. I'd go for one with an i-series intel processor.

I'm actually shocked at how many have an integrated graphics chip.. Appalled.

David

I'm actually shocked at how many have an integrated graphics chip.. Appalled.

David

I am. When I bought my Dell Inspiron 2 years ago I specced it with a nVidia graphics card and I assumed that laptops would have moved on by now.

I use a Macbook Pro for my work, (sound engineer/music genius), I have a Vaio for gaming, and I also have a HP desktop (top spec one, 8gb ram, 4gb graphics card, i-7 processor, 23" screen) for most of my gaming, homework stuff, and listening to music on. I have a decent 2.1 setup on the HP.

I much prefer the Mac to the others.

I also work weekends at The Range which is like a posh-wilkos haha.

If you are interested, you could twitter me? @davidjgurney , it's always updating with random stuff/music related stuff, links directly to my blogs/soundcloud.

David

If you are interested, you could twitter me? @davidjgurney , it's always updating with random stuff/music related stuff, links directly to my blogs/soundcloud.

David

Done

Thanks Martyn, I'll be putting the demo of my band up within the next few days. It's being given to Tom Delonge on Friday, delivered in person. Hope I've helped you with your laptop issue anyway.

Yeah thanks. Most of my tweets are motoring or tech/gaming related with the odd rant thrown in.

Outlaws got a HP machine in the sales and usual price is £469 IIRC. 4GB mem, 500GB HD Intel i3 dual processor running Win 7 Home Premium.

Quite a nice and quick machine.

EDIT - this is the AMD version http://www.staples.co.uk/technology/pcs-and-laptops/laptops/g62-b20sa-laptop-15-6-hd-led-hp-brightview-display-amd-phenom-triple-core-n830-4gb-ddr3-500gb-sata-7200rpm-ati-mobility-radeon-5470-sata-optical-drive-windows-7-home-premium----includes-free-mcafee-internet-security-soft?r=bf

It's amazing how much it's moved on, I paid £500 for my laptop a couple of years ago and it's dual core, 3Gb ram, 240Gb hard drive (just guessing, it's tiny tho), internal graphics...

It's amazing just how good the integrated graphics on laptops are these days.

Unless you're gaming, all they do is cost you more, and drain more of the battery.

That's a good point. He won't be gaming on it. That's what the PS3 is for