Laptop Shopping ~ First Laptop :P

[azianai]

i'd stay away from ibuypower, they have a rep of not having the highest quality stuff.

[garetjax]

Originally Posted by diabloplayer75

...and as i understand it, it's not practical to try and build your own.

This used to be the case, but more and more companies are releasing whitebooks (such as Compal and even Asus now) that offer this level of customization at a decent price point.

Originally Posted by diabloplayer75

Basic things i'm hoping for are C2D, a -decent- graphics card (Nothing crazy as it gets way to expensive in laptops)

Well, that is going to depend on what kind of gaming you are planning to do. Having a good graphics card is going to eat up major battery life... it is also going to make your laptop very hot. If you are going to do mild gaming, I would look for a laptop with a 8400M GS-esque videocard. It's a good card that plays WoW, Warhammer Online, Half-Life 2, and CounterStrike extremely well and barely sips power, thus giving your laptop extended battery life.

Originally Posted by diabloplayer75

And i'm really hoping to get it with windows XP which complicates things unless i buy used or find an online shop that will build it for me, but i was thinking maybe i could reformat it with a copy of xp.. not sure if it's worth all that effort just yet.

Installing XP over a Vista installation with a laptop can be a risky proposition. Most companies consider this act as voiding your warranty as well as negating any service agreements you may have made with them. Nevertheless, there are ways to implement a Vista-for-XP installation.

For example, my HP dv6500t was a Vista based machine, but I was able to find all the drivers and software needed in order for it to work with XP. Not all laptops are created equal though, and your mileage may vary when it comes to hunting down compatible drivers for your notebook to work with XP.

Simply put, you are not going to find a name brand company (think Gateway, HP, Sony, Toshiba, Dell, et al) that will sell you a laptop that has XP natively installed on it. The best you can do is contact Dell and order a laptop that, while being Vista based, it is also pre-installed with Windows XP in the event you want to switch your OS.

Please note that this does NOT mean that this is a dual-boot laptop. It just means that Dell has recognized that consumers prefer XP over Vista and have accomodated them accordingly. However, be warned that your configuration options are going to be extremely limited by going this route. Check out Dell's XP link HERE.

Originally Posted by diabloplayer75

...and the only reason i didn't want it on a laptop is because i figured a reasonable priced laptop would not be able to run vista too fast or at a speed i'd be happy with.

Vista will run excellent on a laptop configured with 2GB of RAM. My HP dv6500t came packaged with Vista Home Edition and ran very well with 2GB of RAM. However, with the price of DDR2 notebook memory the way it is, you can easily find quality 4GB (2 x 2GB) SO-DIMM modules for less than $60.00 online, often with a fat mail-in-rebate.

Please note that most notebooks run at DDR2-667 speeds, but it doesn't hurt to purchase DDR2-800 as the notebook will auto-downclock the memory anyway. Plus it's a nice auto-upgrade path if you decide to buy a notebook in the future that utilizes DDR2-800 notebook memory.