Best sub $500 notebook?

[m0pelley99]

Hi everyone it's almost school time for me and I'd like my last year in high school be the best. I'm looking to buy a notebook by the end of the summer. If I'm on the right track I should have almost $700. I only want to spend $500 on a notebook though.

I'm looking for something with a respectable battery life. Nothing under 3 hours. I have my main PC to play games and watch movies so this will be for playing very light games, watching videos, and do my homework. So it does not have to be the most powerful thing out there.

If it can play World of Warcraft that would be a plus. I'm sure any laptop can play it. I'm not a fps whore so any fps over 20 is fine. Under 20 I find it hard to put up with for any game.

I'm not really going to be bringing it around a whole lot. Mostly through the house, maybe over to a friends house, on a trip, sitting outside, stuff like that. I won't be moving around with it every day. Anything between 13-15 inches is plenty. Anything over that might be a problem.

It should have a DVD player, and maybe a SD card slot. I won't be plugging too many USB peripherals in so 4 USB ports is good. VGA is a plus. Most notebooks include it though. What I'm really interested in is a laptop with play/pause buttons on it, either exclusive or integrated with a 'FN' key. It's not an essential but would be a bonus. Oh and a volume control too.


Hopefully someone can recommend a good notebook for me. I will be buying it sometime near the middle to the end of August.

TIA

[JD]

$500 notebook with 3h+ battery life, I don't think so... Unless you'd be fine with a netbook, but then you get a 10" screen and no DVD drive.

This: Future Shop: Computers: Laptops: Compaq 15.6" AMD Athlon X2 QL-64 2.1GHz Laptop (CQ60-404CA) meets everything you want I think other than battery life which I'm too to sure of. You might be able to squeeze 3h out of it with the lowest backlight setting along with setting Vista to Power Saver mode. And only surf the web or something, no gaming.

[m0pelley99]

Originally Posted by jdrom17

$500 notebook with 3h+ battery life, I don't think so... Unless you'd be fine with a netbook, but then you get a 10" screen and no DVD drive.

This: Future Shop: Computers: Laptops: Compaq 15.6" AMD Athlon X2 QL-64 2.1GHz Laptop (CQ60-404CA) meets everything you want I think other than battery life which I'm too to sure of. You might be able to squeeze 3h out of it with the lowest backlight setting along with setting Vista to Power Saver mode. And only surf the web or something, no gaming.

What does that laptop come with? 3GB memory, 250GB HDD, and an 8200GS? That's all good if it can play games.

[JD]

Originally Posted by m0pelley99

What does that laptop come with? 3GB memory, 250GB HDD, and an 8200GS? That's all good if it can play games.

Definitely not the most powerful laptop GPU, but with only $500 I don't think you'll find much better.

I'd take a guess and say WoW would run fine on the lowest settings.

[jcmaz]

I say the OCZ DIY laptop and use get a broken laptop as parts :) or the OCZ DIY Netbook.

[m0pelley99]

Originally Posted by jdrom17

Definitely not the most powerful laptop GPU, but with only $500 I don't think you'll find much better.

I'd take a guess and say WoW would run fine on the lowest settings.

Sweet! I guess that's the one I'm going for. Good thing, cause we have a Future Shop in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Originally Posted by jcmaz

I say the OCZ DIY laptop and use get a broken laptop as parts :) or the OCZ DIY Netbook.

The DIY laptop is over $700. Plus I doubt I can find a decent broken laptop around.

[geokilla]

Wait a few more weeks or something. $500 isn't a lot, but laptops are getting cheaper. I'll keep and eye out for you if I see anything in the flyers.

St00ples seems to has the ASUS N10J for $400. It says out of stock for me so good luck to you.

Oh, and if you're going to USA soon, check out Best Buy USA.

[m0pelley99]

Thanks geokilla.

I'm in Canada, might be going to Halifax but nowhere near the USA. I was hoping to get one before my trip to Halifax.

Does the N10J use the Nvidia 9300M GS? I was told that Nvidia ION graphic processors were soon going to be integrated into Lenovo Netbooks.

Right now I am debating between three laptops. The Lenovo G530 (T3400, 2GB, 160GB, X4500HD, $519.99), HP Pavilion G60-414CA (T4200, 3GB, 320GB, X4500M, $549.99), and the Compaq CQ60-404CA (QL-64, 3GB, 250GB, 8200M G, $479.99).

Which one do you people think? I know the 4500M series can play WoW and Counter-Strike Source.

[MacJunky]

Last time I checked the G530 base model was $499 in the Canadian lenovo online store. I am not sure if that was a sale/whatever though.

[m0pelley99]

Originally Posted by MacJunky

Last time I checked the G530 base model was $499 in the Canadian lenovo online store. I am not sure if that was a sale/whatever though.

Well whatever price it is, it's definitely a possible choice. That HP Pavilion G60-414CA is $150 off.