Now I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to computers, but I'm looking to get a new laptop to replace my four year old desktop PC and I could really use some input when it comes to deciding which one I should get, or what specifications I should be looking for.

The computer that I'm on now (the one that I want to replace) is pretty basic - 2.8ghz Pentium 4, 512mb ram, 160gb hard drive, so naturally I'd want the laptop to have better specs. I'd be using the laptop mainly for college, which would involve using programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, Painter, Opencanvas etc. an awful lot, so an adequate amount of RAM would be nice. Since this would be a replacement for the computer that I have now, and therefore the only computer that I have, I'd also like to be able to play games on it, nothing overly ambitious (like Crysis with everything on max) but I'd like to be able to play most games with average settings.

My budget is around £600 (which I guess translates to about $1200), though if that's totally naive then I'd be willing to spend more. So what i'm basically asking is, do you know of any specific laptops that I should look at, what specs should I be looking for to meet my needs, and is it even viable to replace a desktop with a laptop and not feel like you've made some huge sacrifice?      

http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668123.php

I stumbled across this laptop and it seems to be appropriate for my needs, but I haven't been able to find anywhere that sells them in the UK. I'd appreciate any thoughts on whether this is a good laptop or not, and whether there are any other laptops with similar/better specs.

Yeah that's pretty much the value gaming laptop that most people would recommend. For UK, you may find the same specs (and possibly the same casing) under a different brand name. When I was in Mexico, that same laptop was under a PC brand called "Amazon PC". In Taiwan, I remember seeing the same laptop as well, but I forgot the brand name they had over there.

Ebay seems to be the only place that sells the P-7811 FX, and naturally, it's a couple hundred out of my price range. Apparently tracking down shops that sell any Gateway laptops in the UK is pretty impossible, and I don't think it's because they're being sold under a different brand, Gateway just prefer to only sell in the US.

So I need to know what specs I should look for and what I should expect to get for the cash I'm willing to spend. I've also been wondering if a 2ghz intel core 2 duo would be good enough to do all the things that I need my laptop to do, so any thoughts on that would be appreciated.

What's the highest specced game that you want to play?

What's the highest specced game that you want to play?

I'd like to be able to play Spore, C&C 3, WoW, stuff like that. I'd like to say Red Alert 3, but apparently the requirements for that are going to be pretty steep. But honestly, I'm more concerned about the laptop being able to run Photoshop and Illustrator at the same time without too much lag.

I can play WoW with 384 RAM and i'm on a cheap Laptop, also Spore. Get 2GBS of RAM, get NOD32 antivirus and it'll be running like a charm.

I know that playing WoW won't be a problem, since it's a 4 year old game, and I could probably play Spore on the lowest settings on the computer I'm on right now, but I want the laptop to comfortably cope with most things, and not have to set everything to it's lowest setting.

Basically I need to know what processor/bus speed/RAM/hard drive/etc. I should expect to get within my price range.

Red Alert 3 doesn't have steep requirements at all. I'm playing it on a 128 mb graphics card (computer is almost five years old).

I've stumbled across a few laptops that look alright:

Dell studio 15 - £589.00
-Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T8100 (2.1 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 3 MB L2 Cache,)
-15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display with TrueLife™
-3072MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [1x2048+1x1024]
-250GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
-256MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3450

or

http://www.saveonsamsung.com/Samsung_R700_417593.html

or

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...rmationSection

or

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/asp/v...=version&page=

or

http://www.ndc.co.uk/Dell_XPS_M1530_...ptop-3173.html


Any input on whether these are good laptops, which one you think is the best, and whether there are any other laptops that would be more suitable would be greatly appreciated.

"Red Alert 3 doesn't have steep requirements at all. I'm playing it on a 128 mb graphics card (computer is almost five years old)."