Just warning you that if you really want to play WoW on your laptop then you will *need* a dedicated graphics card. I got an integrated Intel GMA4500MHD on this laptop I'm writing from and I can assure you will not be happy at all (~30 fps outdoors, ~20 in 5-mans and don't even attempt to raid, and that's on lowest settings). However you definitely don't need state-of-the-art hardware, any ATI Mobility Radeon will be fine for WoW, at least on medium settings. Interestingly, the only "modern" game I found ran well with a GMA4500MHD was Battlefield 2. Perhaps that shader optimization stuff was srs bsns after all.
Ok here is a suggestion for you (I suggested a customization but you can change it at the link) :
Link to the customization page (note you need to customize it!)
- 15.6" Full HD LED-Backlit Display with Super Glossy Surface (1920 x 1080)
(Pretty big screen, 1080p!, but for battery life purposes you can dumb it down to 1366x768 ~ 720p for $65 less)
- 1GB GDDR3 Nvidia GeForce GT 540M GPU with Optimus Technology / Embedded Intel HD Graphics
(Handles WoW just fine up to medium, high may be a bit too much though, and you may have to drop the resolution a bit if you're playing in 1080p. The Embedded part means you can choose to disable the gaming graphics card and use the integrated Intel one if you don't want to game, it will save some battery life).
- 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2720QM Processor ( 6MB L3 Cache, 2.20GHz)
(I upgraded because 2GHz is a bit low, and it's well within your budget anyway)
- Genuine MS Windows® 7 Home Premium 32/64-Bit Edition ( 64-Bit Preloaded )
(Home Premium should be OK right?)
- 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 2 X 2GB **
(4GB is enough for any practical purposes at the moment, but if you need more it's only a few more $$)
-
For the hard drive you have a choice to make, either you stick to standard mechanical HDD's (up to 750GB for not that much money) or you can go crazy and go full SSD, but remember that is very expensive : 160GB Intel SATA2 Solid State Disk Drive [+$375.00]. Note that you can get at most 160GB for an SSD with this model, your call).
- 6X Blu-ray Reader/8X DVD±R/2.4X
(Let's be future-proof and include a bluray reader just in case. If you really don't want Bluray, then 8X DVD±R/RW/4X I guess.)
Total : ~USD $1,219 with the mechanical HDD, or USD $1,514 with the SSD option and without Bluray, just a few bucks above your budget. If you drop the CPU upgrade and still choose SSD, then it drops to USD $1,354. And if you don't choose the SSD and drop the CPU upgrade, it's only USD $1,019 \o/
So that's a suggestion. Here are a few quick FYI's:
- SSD's are pretty expensive, although you get discounts if you buy bigger laptops sometimes, like if you take the bigger brother of the model I'm suggesting above, then you can get a 320GB SSD for cheaper. But it's still over your budget though.
- Battery life should not be an issue with the notebook I'm suggesting if you take care of it (like set up your power plans correctly, disable the graphics card when on battery and not needed, etc... standard maintenance)
- this model probably has backlit keys (didn't check) and it won't break apart, Sager is good quality.
- You can purchase an additional battery pack for this laptop for $95, you might want to consider this option. Your laptop will be heavier with two batteries though.
Btw
WindowsTeamKevin, you might want to add the graphics card to your specifications when you suggest laptops, just a thought.
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