Laptop Under $400

[RikiRude]

Hey, I'm looking to get a laptop for under $400, I'm not necessarily looking for a gaming computer, but if I could play some decent games on it that would be amazing! I'm going to be using the computer mainly for DJing, but I'll be using a portable HD for all my music so having a lot of disk space isn't a huge deal, also I won't be doing an kind of music mixing or anything, I will just be making play lists and such because DJing on this laptop will only be until I get enough vinyl to start DJing that way. I'll also be using it for graphic work, so it'll need to run the latest photoshop (though I'll be doing a majority of photoshop stuff on my main computer) and maybe illustrator. Ideally I'd like to be able to run Company of Heroes, BF2, L4D, or TF2. If not I would be happy if I could run games like DoD:S.

If you are an incredible gentlemen (or lady) and you suggest some laptops, let me know 2 or 3 games that could run on the laptop to give me an idea because I'll probably end up buying some games on steam for it as well. Thanks in advance!

[Pedz]

Unfortunately for around that price I doubt you will find anything with a discrete graphics card, which in turn means game playing will not be very efficient if possible at all.. The only possibility being that you have a good integrated GPU on the laptop (i.e look out for the i3/i5 -2xxx processors)

[RikiRude]

These three laptops are on sale at newegg for what looks like a great deal. How do these stack up?

Newegg.com - Recertified: HP G72-259WM NoteBook Intel Pentium dual-core T4500(2.30GHz) 17.3" 4GB Memory 320GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi Intel GMA 4500M

Newegg.com - lenovo G560 (0679-ALU) NoteBook Intel Pentium P6200(2.13GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 320GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW Intel HD Graphics

Newegg.com - HP 625 (XT960UT#ABA) Notebook AMD Athlon II Dual-Core P340(2.20GHz) 15.6" 3GB Memory DDR3 1066 320GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Radeon HD 4200

All three within $20 of my $400 range.

[Pedz]

well if its graphics your looking for:

HP:

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD (GMA X4500MHD) - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Lenovo:

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD - Notebookcheck.net Tech

HP 625:

ATI Radeon HD 4200 - Notebookcheck.net Tech

So on a GPU scale, the Lenovo wins(if I am correct on the GPU, as it does not actually say the chip number, so it could be a lot worse...) However on a CPU scale, the HP at the top has top dog. However again, these chips are OLD. Pentium processors are a few generations behind at the very least, and AMD are still not at chipzilla's standard.

Try checking Ebay for re-distributors, not sure how successful that will be, as I only have experience here in the UK, and well ecomputers has been great for me buying PCS and laptops for all the family(Dell reseller, and seller or re-furb laptops). But remember when buying off ebay to generally stick to the top rated sellers, a bit of common sense is needed here.

[kerpus909090]

Hey riki i happen to have a very similiar setup compared to the three laptops. I paid 530$ for my laptop about last summer.

My specs are a dell 2.1 dual core amd processor and ati radeon hd4250 graphics card
and 4gbs of memory windows 7 x64 and i can say you can run bf2 and pr on my computer i play it all the time but, you will have to be in in low setting to get it to work on a 720p monitor. currrently my setting are every thing low and off except geomentry and texture in the setting on pr wich those two are on medium.

I somtimes run 1280x768 to make it work better on maps with lots grass. i also found that the compatability modes in windows 7 make a big diff as well and starting task manager and setting priority for bf2 to high makes it run faster aswell.

and of course update .net and drivers of graphics card i just did to ati 11.5 and it was not an improvement i will roll it back to 11.2

I basically bought my computer aswell for music creation and some games..
I have abelton and enjoy making some stuff as well. Btw the laptop works great with abelton...

oh yeah i also tried bf: bad company 2 from amazon and i can't get it to run fast enough for online play so i have abandoned it for awhile till i get a desktop. gonna work on a severe budget build here soon.