Need Laptop Capable of Playing WOW On A Budget

S

SlapShot

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 31, 2004
Messages
167
As the title says, I need a reasonably priced, solid, and reliable laptop that is capable of doing a decent job of playing World of Warcraft. Changes to my job will cause me to be on the road for a number of days at least once a month. While away, I will want to be able to use hotel provided broadband for surfing the net, and also playing World of Warcraft.
I wont be away enough to justify the expense of a REALLY powerful laptop (especially as I have two near cutting edge desktops at home), but what will I need for the WOW playability? I'm strictly from the desktop side of things, so moble processors and video are a mystery to me. I know I would like a widescreen unit, with a good display. What is this going to cost me? Whats the biggest bang for the buck? How cheaply can this be done?
Thanks, very much, for any help with this.
 
You need to be more specific..

Budget?
Screen size?
Usage?
Portability?

Since you say you'll be on the road with this laptop, you prob don't want anything larger than 15.4". I've heard of people playing WoW on some of the newer Integrated Intel vidcards, so u could save quite a bit by using one of those if your budget was really tight.
 
powernotebooks.com. look at recomended specs for WoW, they have tons around 1100 that are REALLY nice. also you can call them. aks for Donald. he'll walk you through each decision with expertise. great company. low low low prices
 
Thanks for the suggestions. A few friends have integrated graphics and find the game virtually unplayable. I'll find some way to stretch the budget to make playing the game enjoyable, within limits. Will that put me over the edge into really expensive laptops? If so, I may have to drop the idea entirely, which I would greatly regret :(
 
Dell 6000D with X300. Should be fine for WoW. Anything with an 9600/X300 should be fine. Hell my old CL50 with a Pentium M 1.3GHZ, 512 ram, and 9000 Moblie played it fine.
 
I've got to throw out a recommendation for the venerable thinkpads. Grab an R or T series with the optional x300 (one will run you ~1400 bucks, if that's within your limit) and you've got the most awesomely constructed laptop ever with decent gaming speed to boot. A friend of mine has a T43 with P-M 750/ 768 ram / 64mb x300 and it plays WoW wonderfully at native res. And considering you'll be carrying it around a lot the uber-durable construction would be nice.
 
The X300 (128MB, not the 32MB Hypermemory one.) plays WoW nicely at 1440 widescreen (don't remember the second number, not at home ATM) with all the pretties turned up just fine on my 9300.
 
I bought a Gateway M460 configured with a 128mb X600. It plays WoW, really well. Its very durable for traveling. I bought it to take with me to Hong Kong for 4 months and I barely turned it off. I bought the bigger battery and I get 4 hours of usage time for playing mp3s or even some completely wireless CS:S. It handles well with a gig of ram. I paid $1800 total with a 3 year "smash it, we replace it" full warrenty. Its a 15.4 widscreen with a nonglossy surface. So thats my suggestion.
 
If you don't run hysterically from the word 'refurbished', you may want to look at the eMachines m6811 or Gateway 7405(?) machines at TigerDirect.

These are not top of the line anymore, but they are extremely decent and will play your games great.

They are around $750 to $800 with AMD Athlon 64 in the 3200+ to 3400+, 512MB ram, and ATI 9600 with 64MB.

These machines have their quirks and issues like any laptop, but you are asking about cheap, good gaming.

Maybe not for everyone, but definitely high on the value and bang for the buck list.
 
What kind of budget are you going for? I specced out an Alienware Area 51 15.4 inch with a 6600 18 mb video card that runs WoW for me without a problem. whole system cost me 1600. One thing I would recommend is go for at least a gig of system ram, as WoW is a major memory hog. It runs at widescreen 1680x1050 decently. roughly 35-50 fps with most settings set to medium or high quality.
 
My laptop (see sig) plays WoW perfectly. One issue, like others have mentioned, get 1GB of ram. I started off with 512 and the game was unplayable. Amazing what an extra stick of ram can do.
 
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