Im looking to buy an affordable laptop mostly for gaming, also for school?
October 1st, 2009 | 
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Hi and welcome to my blog,
I opened this blog to help anyone who is preparing for his SAT.
I remember myself when I started - I was so lost and in such a panic.
Luckily I got this great SAT guide that helped me a lot . So study hard and good luck!
I am looking to buy a new laptop after my old one fried and i need to know what the best ones are for gaming first and foremost. My old one used to lag alot on opening games and i need a fast one that can open without any lag. And that can also hold school work and others things. I am hoping to pay around 1000$.
It is also for WOW not the sims
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$1000 in CAD or USD? You need to specify.
You will also be hard-pressed to find a good gaming laptop at that price, regardless. Any proper gaming laptop is $2000+.
Seeing as you are probably a girl, I am just going to assume that the most intense game you play is The Sims, in which case any modern integrated graphics solution will do.
Factoring in that the resource hog Vista comes with virtually all notebooks these days (especially ones you would consider purchasing since you are an average technology consumer), I would recommend you get as much RAM as possible.
Based on the above, you should aim for the following:
- Intel Core based CPU (1.6GHz or more will suffice).
- 2GB RAM (do not go lower; in fact, if you can afford it, go for 4GB).
- As big a hard drive as you can afford (ignore speed of the drive, since it makes no difference for you) – DO NOT sacrifice RAM for a bigger hard drive – get 2GB RAM no matter what.
Do not worry about a graphics card (again, based on my assumption above). All Core based notebooks these days come with Intel GMA X3100 or better, which handles The Sims just fine.
And please try not to make the mistake so many people do and get a 17" monster. Not only are they big and heavy, but they also eat up your battery a whole lot faster than do smaller, more proper laptops.
EDIT:
Ok, you said you play WoW. Integrated solutions should still be able to handle it, though noticeably less ably than would dedicated graphics solutions. Still, integrated solutions would be more than playable (my friend has a GMA 950, which is a much older integrated solution, and she runs WoW at acceptable frames per second, except for in very large battles).
In this case though, I would still recommend the 2GB RAM, and if possible, the best dedicated graphics card you can afford on the platform (as a rule of thumb, any dedicated card is better than even the best integrated). WoW is heavily CPU bound though, so I would still recommend the minimum 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo.
You would probably invest around $100 more to get a midrange dedicated card over an integrated solution. Even if this pushes you to say $1100, I think it is well worth it if you plan on playing WoW a lot.
Most computers nowadays should work. I have a Toshiba Satellite A215 ($800). My sister has an HP Pavilion and my other sister has a Gateway and we all regularly play games (the Sims 2) on it. You should be able to play games on most computers costing around $1000. If you want better performance, install more RAM or change your Graphics/Video Card.
go to ibuypower.com
you can customize and design it how u need it.
for gaming id suggest atleast 256 video.
and xp is still better and cheaper than vista.
you can also apply for payments if u have good credit.
I have read the other responses. You need a 2 Ghz processor at minimum. The RAM or random access memory needs to be as high as the chip will support. Pay attention to the graphics card as it must handle the pixilation of the animation of the games. When you shop, look at the processor speed, the amount of RAM and what the video card can handle so you dont have to upgrade.