Current netbook options?

Hey all,

For a while I have been idly musing about buying a new laptop so I can actually work on the go, but with the recent theft of my main rig (and right after I fixed the thing, too... ) I think I'm going to have to go from 'musing' to 'doing'. I'm not sure what my plans are going to be yet, but if it ends up being feasible, I'd prefer to get a netbook. The laptop I used to have was one of the heavy 2006 vintage macbook pros, and I found that it was clumsy and heavy enough that I never ended up taking it anywhere (even *before* the battery died) as it was just too inconvenient. I'd rather have something nice and portable this time, and I've always liked the netbook form factor.

Coming around to the reason for this post, while obviously netbooks are no powerhouses, I *would* like it to be capable of light duty gaming in addition to the 'real' work I'd ostensibly be buying it for - especially since it's likely to be months before I have the free time to put together a new desktop. For CoH, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to crank the graphics up or go on trials, but I'd really like to be able to play normal solo and team content with my friends at a reasonable framerate. However, I don't know much about the netbook market, and I was hoping to get some advice.

Obviously I'd want to look at the ones with at least 2 gigs of ram and actual discrete video instead of integrated, but beyond that I'm not sure what are the 'good' options when it comes to processors, etc. And, of course, I'd like to do that while getting the best deal I can. Is this possible while staying below 500$? If so, how much below?

So basically my question is, what netbooks out there will run CoH acceptably, allowing for reduced (although hopefully not completely minimized) graphics settings and not playing in trials, etc? What options are there, what tradeoffs need to be made, and what should I be looking for?

Well the problem with netbooks boils down to the atom processor which won't cut the mustard with old Intel IGP + slow processor.

Price/performancewise I would be looking at a low end laptop. With the development of tablets, netbooks are quickly going the way of the dodo.

Laptopwise, the value section all have the 15.6" LCD screens, smaller actually costs more. The AMD APU (Llano) based laptops might be a good value since they offer somewhat better graphics performance than their intel counterparts but due to high demand the AMD based laptops are going to cost slightly more.

No, by and large City is too graphically intense for any netbook. Especially if, as in your OP, you don't want to be on absolute minimum.

You'll have to wait a few years for netbooks to blossom.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Check out the Alienware M11x. 11" and I hear it's actually pretty capable at gaming.

Yeah well, the Alienware m11x starts at $900 and goes up from there which is a bit over the budget but it could play city of heroes at modest settings.

So, the trade off is, unless you want a 15.6" screen you won't find anything for under $500 that will play CoH acceptably. Even then at $500 short of a "doorbuster" sale its pretty slim pickings. Most likely you will be stuck with a 1366x768 screen and have to use either intel IGP or AMD APU.

Edit: Sorry it seems like I am repeating myself, but it sounds like you either have to modify your requirements or wait until someone makes what you need for the price you are looking for.

Oops, I missed him mentioning his budget. My fault.

Well there are always the AMD Fusion A series laptops. Ones built around the A6-3400M or A8-3500M CPU/GPU combo. Yes they tend to be larger than netbooks (15" screens) and you could look at the graphics as integrated but they are considerably more powerful than the integrated graphics found in previous generations.

You can find a few for just under $500 on NewEgg.

Firstly, this game Will melt a netbook...

Secondly, are you hard core on a 'new' rig? There are alot of people/places out there looking to rid themselves of older toys for cheap. I got my backup laptop for a nice fraction and it runs ultra with decent settings.

Its $429 with the E-450 Brazos APU on the HP website. Not bad, probably good enough to solo with low end graphics settings.

It won't do ultra mode its a bit on the heavy side for a netbook, but its the size you want.

AMD has several Fusion series, A series is their top end, E series is their low power model targeted at netbook class devices.

Well the A6 and A8 are full blown Athlon II X4 cores with turbo boost while the E-450 is a much simpler dual core design with less memory cache and only single channel memory.

Same goes with the GPU side of the chips. The A6 has 320 shaders, the A8 has 400, the E-450 has only 80.

Overall in gaming we are looking at around 3 times the gaming performance with an A8-3500m over an E-450.

So do you want a Netbook for it's small size and battery life or are you simply looking for an inexpensive laptop?

Comparison of the E-350 and the A8-3500m. The E-450 is a refresh of the E-350 allowing faster memory and runs at slightly higher clock speed.

Well it all comes down to what are you willing to comprose on.

No question the AMD A series is a decent "for a laptop" performance. You can get a A6 series laptop with 15.6" screen at a weekly sale at Office depot or Best Buy for the low $400 range.

*I* would not buy that HP dmz1 with any E processor since the price of the unit overlaps with laptops which really outperform it for the same cost.

The lowest netbooks are going to sell for is $200 and to me the magical price for them is $150 but no way will they sell them that cheap. At this point tablets are the "profit" market so netbooks are being pushed to the side.

The OP wants something netbook sized that could possibly "play" CoH. *I* don't see much in the way of good value for the money based on what the OP wants, but its not my money to spend and its up to the OP to decide what compromises need to be made.