Time For a New Notebook

Alright folks, I'm looking into getting a new notebook here soon, and am trying to figure out if the VoodooPC Featherweight a:228 laptop would work for what I'm going to use it for. I'm going to be using it for schoolwork basically and the occasional game. The games that I would be playing are Civ IV, AoE III, and NFL Head Coach. This computer comes with a UMA ATI RS485M, VRAM 128 video card, which I'm assuming is an integrated card. Would this be able to be used for the games I want to play, or should I look elsewhere? The other computer I was looking at was possibly a MacBook, and than run boot camp for the games, or a refurb MacBook Pro 1.83ghz edition. Would either of the Apple computers work for me? Thanks in advance.

 

I'd look at the Dell XPS M1210 for a 12" gaming machine.
The X200M is not a strong card, and if any of those games are graphically demanding, you'll be forced to run them on low settings, if at all. The Voodoo a:228 is very expensive, you can get the same notebook without the paint job, etc for much cheaper elsewhere.

The Dell's Go7400 is great for a 12" notebook, see the Mobile Graphics Card Chart at the top of the forum for info on it.

 

The x1600 in the MacBook Pros are clocked lower than normal. Also there is no use to buy an Apple if you don't plan on using OS X some. You can find a cheaper computer elsewhere. But If you need OS X, then thats a good choice. But keep in mind that the x1600's are clocked lower, and do not perform as well as other x1600's.

 

My Dell E1505 has an X1400 (256 dedicated). I WILL run AOE3 on med-high settings. I have to play Counter Strike Source on low-med settings. Fear on low settings. I paid $1.15 for my laptop. It was the very minimum that had a decent card for the games I play. My friend runs AOE3 on his X200, and no offence, it sucks. It will play it.. but it is jumpy, laggy and to me a bad experiance. Luckily for him, his laptop was free, and he has a desktop that has a plenty powerful GPU.

Bottom line - don't get any laptop that has anything worse than an X1400. If I had anything worse, than it would be a bad, bad, bad experiance.

The computer you are looking at is way to expensive for the actual parts you get. I would think a dell would be a couple hundred less, with much more powerful parts.