Q: Hey guys I've been in a great need of a laptop lately and I have around 500-900$ (Canadian) to spend on one. The problem is though, I'm a complete noob at laptops and if there's somebody that's not an idiot like myself I'd like to know a few things and maybe somebody could recommend me a laptop or two. I really don't care about the size or weight and I'd sacrifice that any day for an ability to play games better. Around 100GB of hard drive space is deffinatly enough for me. This will make me sound like a moron but could somebody explain what is GHz, RAM, shared memory and Duo Procesors and a few other pointers for me and what is good. On the laptop I was mainly looking for a lot of internet browsing (so that it's fast) and quite a bit of gaming. I'd like to play the following games (it doesn't matter if I play on the lowest quality as long as it works) * Runescape HD * World of Warcraft * Warcraft III * Guild wars * Civilization IV Those are the main games I was planning to play on, I'm not looking for anything high-resolution, just as long as those games run and maybe some other games like Empire Earth, Battle for middle earth, Diablo II and some of the older games. So please help me, please and thank you.
A: Well, as a proud and happy Mac user, my first instinct is to recommend a MacBook Pro. However, I understand the problems with compatibility with PC games, and your price range is quite low :( If you could bump up your range by about $250, you could look into the baseline MacBook, a fine laptop, if you know how to upgrade it to fit your needs. This particular notebook has 120GB Hard Drive, 1GB of RAM (something you'd need to consider upgrading) and a 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. In addition, to be able to play all of your games, you'll need a copy of Windows Vista (or XP if you can, I'd highly recommend it) to install via BootCamp, a program included with every Mac currently sold. It may seem a bit silly to pay so much for a laptop that doesn't match the specks of that of, say, an HP or a Dell; however Macs are famous for their longevity, lasting twice as long as their PC counterparts. Also, you'll have the advantage of the most user friendly and secure platform available: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) that you can use even if Vista fails on you. If you do decide to go for a Mac, I strongly recommend you wait as long as possible, as it is rumored that Apple will be updating and possibly completely redesigning all their notebooks in September. That said, you may also want to look at a refurbished MacBook or those on closeout once new models are introduced. That's my two cents on which notebook, now about your questions about GigaHertz (GHz), Random Access Memory(RAM), Memory shared with Graphics and Multi-Core Processors. Joek1989 did an okay job of explaining GHz, RAM and Hard Drive, but the sizes were incorrect. They are as follows: Bits, Bytes, Kilobytes, Megabytes, Gigabytes, and Terabytes. A Bit is either 1 or 0, on or off, and 8 Bits make up a Byte. 1024 Bytes make up a Kilobyte, 1024 KB makes up a Megabyte, 1024 MB makes up a Gigabyte, and 1024 GB makes up a Terabyte. A dual-core processor is definitely favorable because it virtually doubles your speed; but most applications made today aren't made to take advantage of multiple cores. Yes, one program can be on one core while another program can be on a different core, but most programs can't use both cores simultaneously. Finally, on memory shared with graphics, some laptops, MacBook included, has what's called "Integrated Graphics," meaning it uses the system's RAM to hold Graphics processing. This takes away from the RAM available to the rest of the system, making it harder for Graphic-Intensive applications (IE your games!) to run at optimal speed. So, in order to ensure your system performs at its best, a RAM upgrade is the way to go. It's the easiest to do, even for the noob, and is extremely effective. This is a lot of information to process, so take it easy after reading ;) I love passing on information to those who need it and computers are my specialty. While I may be Mac-biased, hopefully this information will help you in finding the perfect laptop for your needs, Apple branded or not. Good Luck, and I wish you a good life. ~Alex