Laptops

[Guest wildpegasus]

So I've been thinking of buying a laptop computer. What would be the benifits and detractions of buying one when compared to your normal computer?

 

 

Is the screen size a problem for anyone?

 

 

How are they for video game emulation? Can you use joysticks with them?

 

 

Does anyone have any problems with them?

 

 

What about internet connectivity?

[Prophet of Mike Zagurski 0]

I own a 5 year old laptop (2000 to present)

 

Is the screen size a problem for anyone?

 

Well, I guess it depends on the size that you're looking at. Mine has a 15 inch screen with max resolution of 1024 x 768. My desktop computer is a 17 inch with higher resolution. If you're look at 15 inches, you should be alright. It's hard for me to look at the smaller resolution but it was fine when I got it.

 

 

How are they for video game emulation? Can you use joysticks with them?

 

It depends on the specs. I had a horrible laptop (4MB video RAM) but it could ePSXe and some MAME games. Most laptops don't have gameports. As long as you have USB ports and USB joysticks, you'll be fine.

 

 

Does anyone have any problems with them?

 

Yea. After I got the new computer, which was year ago, I realized the screen's brightness faded. Later towards the end of it's active use, it would shut off by itself. Consider buying an extra battery. Mine lost it's charge in 3 years.

 

Laptops are good for actually doing work. If you want to buy a laptop and run the latest games 4 years from now, you're going to have a problem. Laptops are nearly impossible to upgrade.

 

My five year laptop had:

500 Mhz Processor

4 MB ATI RAGE video card

CD Drive

1 USB 1.1 Port

64 MB of RAM upgradeable to 384 or something

and

6 GB HD (or what I like to call, one Windows XP installation.)

 

It was good back then but it can't do much now a days. Laptops are better now because they have more features are bigger storages but battery life is still a problem and you will not be able to upgrade those suckers.

 

 

What about internet connectivity?

 

Mine came with a 56K modem and then when I got high speed I added on a network card. Laptops have those wireless cards in them.

 

 

Could you be more specific in what you're looking for? If you're looking for something that you can take to meeting/lectures and then run Far Cry @60 fps with high detailed graphics, you maybe looking in the wrong direction.

[Guest wildpegasus]

Thanks for the reply.

[Guest BobBacklundRules]

The screen size is not a problem for me, My laptop has a 14" screen but I don't care because the specs are awesome. It might matter depending on the purpose you have in mind for your laptop.

 

The touch pad strains my hand after awhile, I would recommend a wireless mouse to go with it

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Laptops can run emulators such as NES, SNES, GBA and other similar systems quite well. PlayStation and N64, no not really. And they're also not so hot for high-end PC gaming unless you're willing to blow so much money that you'd rather spend it on some better cause.

 

I hate to dabble in computer fanboyism, but if you ever thought about trying a Macintosh, the 12" iBook is the lowest-cost Mac laptop and made really sturdy. Macs have caught up to PCs in just about everything but games, and if you're a Unix lovin' type underneath the skin of the OS is a Unix system complete with terminal prompt. They also have support for the same kinds of emulation listed above, as I play GBA games on my Mac when I'm away from my PC.

 

Only reason I bring that up, is because even if you're not interested in a Mac at first I think it's a pain in the ass to have to keep two PCs free of viruses, spyware, etc and keep them running well. One PC is so much work for me that I wouldn't want to double the job of keeping it working it's best. Macs really don't have any of those problems other than the occasional system update. Networking to a PC is a snap and so they make great secondary computers.