Small laptop or netbook needed

[tylertoo]

Looking for recommendations on a small (12-13" screen) laptop or netbook that would match or somewhat exceed the minimal gaming capabilities of my current, five year old Dell m1210.

This will be primarily for work (and paid for by work), but I'm sneaking in a modicum of graphics capability for off hours gaming. Don't tell. The M1210 is dual core T7200@2GHz, 2 GB Ram and has a Geforce 7400 in it. It meets my gaming needs fine. I don't need much more.

[zabuni]

What's the price point? If it's anywhere near $1k, I'd get a M11x and call it a day.

[mystery]

If it's about half that, look at the top of the line Acer 11.6" netbook.

[LMN8R]

I was actually about to make a thread about this laptop:

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-TimelineX...1964643&sr=8-1

It looks to be a straight-up m11x competitor:

-Slightly bigger screen
-Same weight
-Excellent battery life
-Same GPU as the latest m11x revision
-4GB ram
-Huge 500GB HDD (though it's 5200rpm, ugh)
-Cheaper at $750 total, free shipping with Prime

Reviews seem decent too.

[tylertoo]

What's the price point? If it's anywhere near $1k, I'd get a M11x and call it a day.

I wish. Price point is unfortunately only around $500, so I'm unlikely to sneak into anything with even a low-end graphics processor.

But thanks for the suggestions. My wife has an Acer netbook and loves it.

[LMN8R]

Note that the laptop I posted is not just $250 above your budget, but after asking around some more, it appears to have throttling issues that significantly affect performance too:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer...ml#post7757990

Though granted, that throttling would only affect gaming which seems to be the least of your concerns.


Alternatively, there's the 3830T (no G in the model), which has only integrated graphics, and is about $130 less:

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-TimelineX...1972683&sr=8-2

[stusser]

If you want a cheap gaming laptop, you want an AMD "llano" series laptop. Its integrated graphics are literally twice as fast as intel's sandy bridge (and sandy bridge actually ain't bad), but AMD CPU speed doesn't compare to intel. It's not like anything you're likely to do is CPU-limited anyway. They just and I mean just came out-- no reviews of production hardware yet, but the pre-prod previews were very promising. I suggest you google it and make a decision for yourself.

Here's one for $530.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+...&skuId=2845099

[tylertoo]

Thank you gentlemen, I will take a look at those, particularly that Toshiba.

[LMN8R]

You might also want to take a look at the Microsoft Store:

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/...oryID.50787200

They have prices that usually match other retailers, but they have a good interface to narrow down by price, size, and battery life. But the most important part is Microsoft Signature which all the machines include, which means they don't come with any bloatware. They do come with Security Essentials and Live Essentials, and some other stuff you'd want installed anyway, but no limited trials, no crapware at all.

[pg]

I agree with stusser, Llano laptops seem far and away the best value for the moment. I was quite impressed with AMD's Nile platform for a budget laptop and Llano just does everything even better now. Curious to see how cheap Llano laptops get.

[KanadianKrusty]

I'll second all recommendations for the Acer TimelineX series. They're great little machines for what they cost and battery life is way better than it has any right to be (still over 6 hours for my 1830-TZ after a year)

[Relayer71]

If you want a cheap gaming laptop, you want an AMD "llano" series laptop. Its integrated graphics are literally twice as fast as intel's sandy bridge (and sandy bridge actually ain't bad), but AMD CPU speed doesn't compare to intel. It's not like anything you're likely to do is CPU-limited anyway. They just and I mean just came out-- no reviews of production hardware yet, but the pre-prod previews were very promising. I suggest you google it and make a decision for yourself.

Here's one for $530.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+...&skuId=2845099

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4444/a...n-apu-a8-3500m