Gaming What is a good, yet cheap laptop with at least a DDR2 Ram?

[jrk190]

I'm going to college in a few years, so me and my mom are going to try and find some good laptops and supplies. The current laptop I own is a Compaq Presario v5000 (Which is DDR1 Ram, Horrible graphics, etc) and I want something that will at least run Minecraft without lagging. I'm trying to keep it cheap though, without going overboard (I'm trying to stay in the lower hundreds). What are some recomendations?

 

[DinohScene]

Any cheap 15.4 inch on today's market will suffice.

 

[Rydian]

The type of RAM isn't really an indicator, I can show you DDR2-using machines that suck, and ones that are almost comparable to new machines.

Price limit?

 

[DinohScene]

Depends on the CPU indeed.

Mine still can match alot of new machines ;o

 

[marcus134]

Ram type is hardly a performance comparison for computers as most task aren't bottlenecked by ram bandwidth. On the other side you'll be pleased to hear that it is quite hard to find a laptop on the market today that ship with something else than ddr3.
If you're looking into a laptop that can do basic gaming (really basic) I could recommend going with an amd A8 processor as the integrated gpu is more powerful than the one that comes with the i5.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5177/holiday-2011-laptop-buyers-guide/3

 

[Originality]

If you're on a budget, do as marcus said and get an A8 processor. If you can afford something half decent from today's market, look for a "second gen Core i3/i5" with Optimus graphics (GT530/540/550).
Either way, you can get half decent laptops from £350 and up in retail stores (cheaper online - and note that this is not in dollars).

But don't expect Minecraft not to lag. I've heard it will lag with just about any computer/laptop - the only difference is how noticeable it lags.

 

[I am r4ymond]

I agree with Originality and Marcus134 on purchasing the A8 laptop. Although I do not know everything about laptops and computers, I do know that the A8 has considerable performance that will meet your expectations. I myself own a laptop with an AMD A6 APU that performs almost the same as the AMD A8...just a difference in power for the CPU and GPU works. I got the laptop for about $500, and it plays most of the recently released games on mediocre to medium performance. I don't remember playing Minecraft on this laptop, but I think it'll play it decently. Or if you want something cheaper, you can get an AMD A4 laptop for about $400. I don't know any other cheap laptops with a decent graphics card :/

I'll be honest that I've only owned AMD products, so I don't really know anything about Intel products. The only thing I hate about laptops with Intel core processors is that they tend to most often come with Intel Graphics, but if the laptop has a combination of Intel Processor and NVIDIA or AMD Radeon graphics, then I'd go with that.

And no....I am not a fanboy for either product. I go with whatever I have on hand.

 

[overslept]

>Good
>Cheap
>Laptop

Pick two.

 

[jarejare3]

If you got the skills, You can make your own Laptop rig, though it's harder than making a Desktop Rig.

If you want a cheap,Good, Laptop i can't really recommend you anything but this http://www.geek.com/...p-buyers-guide/
get a guide, buy your own laptop with the specs that you want.

EDIT: I'm Not asking you to buy exactly like what it says, but here is a few tips,

More Processing power more better, QUAD>DUO>ATOM>PEN4, more Ghz is better.
More ram better, DUH
More Graphics more better, games usualy runs good with Nvidia, but it's up to you which brand to pick.
More hard disk space more better.
Get a good Battery, lithium and more cells is better,

but more specs affects life span and price
Compare prices of the Modules one by one and see if the price fits.

NObody said buying a GOOD,CHEAP, LAPTOp is easy.