Looking for a good laptop

[Del Murder]

I'm interested in purchasing a new laptop. My main concern is that it will be able to play Final Fantasy XIV. I don't really need much else. However, I'm not looking to spend more than $500. PC only, no Mac.

Any recommendations? I have no idea how much this stuff costs so let me know if my budget projections are unreasonable.

[Rostum]

You will generally be hard pressed to find a laptop that can play Final Fantasy XIV for $500. You probably could if you built a desktop yourself, while bargain hunting for parts.

In saying that, I'd check out Dell. They generally do very well with their laptops, and often have great deals for them.

[Peegee]

If you can play FF14 with a 500 dollar desktop I'd like to know how. Probably running it on low resolution (windowed mode) with only one active monitor (if del has 2)

PC Minimum Requirepments: Windows XP/Vista/7, Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz or AMD Athlon X2 2GHz, 2GB of RAM, 15GB HDD space, NVIDIA GeForce 9600 512MB or ATI Radeon HD 2900 512MB and DirectX 9.

^ lol no way. I guess that will RUN but not WELL

@ Del - since you won't need to get everything new, you can probably build a decent PC with a 1 gig video card from a year or year half ago. That should run FF14

[Iceglow]

Del, if you're after a good laptop then I will say Toshiba make some nice low price ones but to be fair with them their sound chipsets are better than their video ones. I loved the sound I got out of my old Toshiba which is why I was pretty pissed when the technicians at PC world managed to kill my machine further during a repair job.

However really you wanna be looking at a Vaio imho. I've used Dell laptops in the past and they're great little all-rounders and yet don't excel at anything. Ironically Sony Vaio laptops like the one I have don't do sound too great which is quite shocking considering the fact that Sony make awesome music centers/headphones as well as TV's and the PS3. However my model which at the time I brought it now a couple of years ago cost me £750 or thereabouts. What convinced me of the Vaio was the video chipset, the video chipset is a 1.4GB chip. Coupled with a small amount of memory from my HDD dedicated as Virtual Video Memory it's pretty powerful, I once tried putting Starcraft 2 in Ultra mode and it supported it and ran it (ok so there was like 30 second+ lag between video and sound and the FPS was like 1 per 15 seconds) however anything in the medium - high range runs pretty smoothly though for extra speed I tend to cut down the specs (it's a laptop, putting that much strain on it's graphics chipset and then stressing the processor and ram as you're fending off a huge Zerg wave is like not a good idea, it will lag and it will become annoying)

I know it (my laptop) actually won't support FFXIV (I tried with the demo version at least and got nothing) because of a video chipset recognition problem (though the machine is plenty powerful enough to run the game otherwise) so you'll have to be careful with that when buying the laptop. I think your budget is a little on the low side I'm not sure of the exact costs of computers in the US and how they compare to here but I would say the minimum you wanna spend is around $700 - $800 for something which stands a chance of being a games platform.

[Jiro]

I don't know if you can even see the Australian site or really what specs you need to run the game, but this laptop appears pretty good.

Inspiron 15R

[Big D]

If you can play FF14 with a 500 dollar desktop I'd like to know how. Probably running it on low resolution (windowed mode) with only one active monitor (if del has 2)

PC Minimum Requirepments: Windows XP/Vista/7, Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz or AMD Athlon X2 2GHz, 2GB of RAM, 15GB HDD space, NVIDIA GeForce 9600 512MB or ATI Radeon HD 2900 512MB and DirectX 9.

My laptop (Acer Aspire 5741) meets those stats, and it cost the equivalent of around US$500 late last year. It's been a good wee gadget so far, with a decent-sized HD screen and a range of other details that make it endearing as both a compact, portable unit, a practical work computer and an adequate gaming setup.

[Loony BoB]

Murd, how often do you expect to move around with the laptop? Is it worth considering a desktop given the costs for a laptop capable of running that spec, or are you willing to go above budget? Basically what is the most important thing - mobility or low cost?

[Citizen Bleys]

However, I'm not looking to spend more than $500. PC only, no Mac.

It really wasn't necessary to repeat yourself.

(For a third time, actually; FFXIV doesn't have a Mac client)