New laptop for my brother. Please help! :)

[Jiddo]

Hello!

So, my brother has finally decided that he is going to get himself a laptop. The budget is somewhere around 6000 SEK (670 EURO, 570 GBP, 880 USD).

In other words, he cannot afford a high end gaming laptop, but rather a mid-range one. He would like to be able to play some newer games on it. In particular Battlefield: Bad Company 2. He will also do some video editing and such on it.

The bigger the screen the better, but he can live with a regular 15.6" one, even tho a 17" one would be better ;)

To me it seems like the graphics cards that are available in that price range are:
310M, 5470, 420M, 330M, 5650
More or less in order of performance (I think) from low to high.

I have looked up some alternatives and I have found these:

Acer Aspire 5745G-5454G64Bn
5995 SEK
Core i5 450M / 4GB / 640GB / 15.6" LED / GF GT330M / Bluray / Win 7 HP

+ I5 CPU! :)
+ Well within budget.
- No huge screen.
- Not the best GFX card.

Acer Aspire 7741G-354G50Mn
6495 SEK
Core i3 350M / 4GB / 500GB / 17.3" LED / ATI 5650 / Win 7 HP

+ Decent CPU (altho not as good as an I5).
+ Good GFX.
+ Big screen.
- Slightly outside budget, but still doable I think.

PACKARD BELL IPOWER GXT800
4127 SEK
C2D T6400 / 4GB / 320GB / 17" VHP / 9800M GTS / Win Vista HP

+ Looks cool.
+ Cheap.
+ Big screen.
+ Good GFX (Please confirm/deny?)
- Old gen hardware.
- Windows Vista crap.


Comments:
So, which would be the best alternative? If you can suggest another laptop in that price range, please do so. :)

Also, about the IPOWER: How good/bad is that? I tried looking up that gfx card a bit and it seems to have been a very high end card, but several years ago. Still, I looked it up on notebookcheck.com and it seems to actually outperform every other GFX card I've looked at so far (even the 5650). But then again, according to that page it almost outperforms the GTX version of itself, which is kindof strange to me.

Also the CPU is kindof outdated, but I'm GUESSING that it at least performs on par with one of the i3 CPUs.

Thanks in advance!

[Hunt3rW0lf]

I'd go for the I5 Acer laptop personally... although Acer customer service is absolutely appalling, also remove any Acer software that comes with the laptop...

[Jiddo]

I have an acer laptop myself, so I don't mind them at all. But please clarify why you would go for the i5 one rather then the one with the 5650? How is the 330M vs 5650 in performance? The way I understand it the 5650 is noticeably faster. Anything else I should think about?

[Faceless]

no clue about notebooks here :)
i got an mac book pro

ya dont have any asus notebook in your mind?
i would perhaps prefer asus, because of the production of there own mainboards and design of there own nvidia gfx cards. maybe the components will match better togheter

[Speedstar1776]

My Brother got the Acer I5 15,6". He can Play nfs hp2 with Medium Details. And it Looks really good AT all :)

[Kharak]

This is a tough nut to crack :think:

But if he wants to play Bad Company 2 and do video editing, then he needs some power.

I atleast recommend as much Ram as possible for editing and it never hurts to have an i5 core ;)

64 Bit OS of course for maximum utilization of memory.

The Packard Bell one has Win Vista, that will cost you extra in memory. I would highly recommend Win 7, both because it requires less Ram and because its so awesome and cool and best OS ever! :)

I am not good with GFX for laptops, don´t know those names :/

[Jiddo]

My Brother got the Acer I5 15,6". He can Play nfs hp2 with Medium Details. And it Looks really good AT all :)

Oh, he has that exact same one? :)
Has he tried BC2 or any other games on it? I'd be very interested in hearing what that gfx card can manage.


This is a tough nut to crack :think:

But if he wants to play Bad Company 2 and do video editing, then he needs some power.

I atleast recommend as much Ram as possible for editing and it never hurts to have an i5 core ;)

64 Bit OS of course for maximum utilization of memory.

The Packard Bell one has Win Vista, that will cost you extra in memory. I would highly recommend Win 7, both because it requires less Ram and because its so awesome and cool and best OS ever! :)

I am not good with GFX for laptops, don´t know those names :/

Yes, the I5 would be really nice to have, but is it really so much better that it justifies getting the weaker GFX card? And basically all of the laptops has 4GB of memory, so that's basically not a choice.

I know that Windows vista is crappy beyond recognition, but we'd probably just "acquire" a Win7 installation on it somehow (if you know what I mean). Running vista just isn't an alternative. :)


I'm hoping that someone could shed some light on these three graphics cards, because I really cannot find any reliable indication on how they perform compared to each others.

[Dom101]

http://www.tech-forums.net/pc/f84/updated-laptop-graphics-cards-ranking-list-165525/

A list of all graphics cards currently in laptops. I used this when choosing my laptop (It's been updated since for 2010)

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic-Cards.130.0.html

This has the graphics cards' details if you want to look at each ones specifications and a quick summary of the card.

Hope it's of some use ;)

[Faceless]

I'm hoping that someone could shed some light on these

:think: sure matey, its a pleasure for me to help you, i will do it for ya :)

here we go:

[Speedstar1776]

I didnt try it, cause He is to young for it :rofl:

[Faceless]

maybe this helps too a bit, but sorry its in german
http://www.notebookcheck.com/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-330M.22436.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.com/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5650.23694.0.html

[Hunt3rW0lf]

I'd go for a more powerful processor over graphics card pretty much any day. Mainly because graphics cards are relatively easy to change, especially in comparison to processors in laptops...

It also has a bluray player which is pretty useful in these modern times, I'm certainly going to getting a bluray drive on my new desktop when/if I order one...