if you slap 8gb ram on this cheap laptop

Could it play bluray movies despite its low end processor?

http://m.bestbuy.com/m/e/product/re...app31-105?skuId=6733472&pid=1218786214187#one

 

Could you try posting the model, the link doesn't seem to work. I would think most notebooks that had been out recently should be able to handle Blu-Ray without too much issues these days.

 

I'm guessing this is the one:

Lenovo IdeaPad 15.6" Laptop 2GB Memory 320GB Hard Drive N585 - 59343747 - Best Buy

It doesn't come with a Blu-Ray drive though.

 

Yes that is the one. Could it play bluray that has been downloaded from online?

 

You mean Hi def that's been downloaded. Blueray is just the disk.
Should play it, hardly any point with a low res screen though.

 

You wouldn't need to stick 8GB in it to be able to play hi-def videos. My mom has a last gen AMD powered laptop(E350), and it can handle 1080P video(though, it's pointless considering the 720P screen). Her laptop has 4GB of ram though. An upgrade from 2GB to 4GB is always a good idea, but not absolutely necessary.

 

I think you are a little confused as to how video is processed. Video decoding would actually be handled by the integrated graphics. I have an older HP netbook with Intel integrated graphics and a Broadcom HD graphics accelerator. It has a dinky single-core 1.6GHz Atom processor, 16GB SSD, and 1GB of RAM. It can handle 1080p videos just fine because everything is offloaded to the Broadcom chip. The same thing will happen with that Lenovo, the video decoding will be offloaded to the ATI integrated graphics.

 

As said above, RAM pretty much has nothing to do with video playback. You're mostly looking at the CPU and GPU for that, which can handle it just fine on their own.

However, BluRay on a 768p display is pointless, since you won't get any of the benefit of it being in BluRay. Would be a *lot* better if it was a 1080p display, or if you connect the laptop to a 1080p TV (or higher)

 

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to call it "pointless". It's just stifling when it comes to Blu-Ray's full potential. But yes: 1080p provides marginally better image quality even over 720p.

 

Yes it does, but what matters most is compression though, highly compressed video content will look like crap no matter what the resolution. 1080p on a 768p display is kinda pointless, I gotta agree with Kuroi-Tsubasa on this (dang it, I still call you Jarhead out of habit ).