(Quick!) Need help deciding a Laptop

[Antibiotics]

• Need a laptop for university

• Graphic design major so my priority is to run the Adobe suite (Photoshop CS6, etc) smoothly

• I bought a Wii when it launched, but stopped playing when I bought a LCD and found out that it looked
completely horrible on it (and also got pissed off when the Dolphin HD emulation started)

• Missed many Wii titles (haven't played anything since 2009/2010) + want to play latest PC games (Crysis 2,
GTA V, Battlefield 3, Skyrim, etc)

• Have no more than a few days to decide + small budget (729,99 is stretching it a lot)

After days of looking through offers I found these two:

http://tinyurl.com/cesgyxk

http://tinyurl.com/ct7dhhs

The first one is cheaper, but powerless. I think it will do okay for the Adobe suite, but there is no way I'm playing
current gen games on that. So, what about Dolphin? Can I run anything on that at 30 FPS?

The second one costs more and is ugly and clunky, but It's very powerfull for the price. Can it manage to run Dolphin on HD at 30 FPS?

I doubt I'm gonna play much during classes, but still, I have no clue on what to choose.

[Zee530]

No, the first wont get you fullspeed in anything, the 2nd should play a number of games at fullspeed but not the heavy ones, provided you can keep turbo boost above 3Ghz. Also let us know exactly which games you intend to play for a more accurate deduction.

[LordVador]

Yeah forget the first one.
The second one is interesting only: if you don't plan to play games very very demanding, if you want games playable but not necessarily full-speed, if you can live without perfect sound since you won't be able to use LLE in most cases

[Antibiotics]

Well, no more time to decide since the offer is gone. This is the second time this happens to me and I have to order a laptop soon or I'll start classes without one. I'm just gonna keep looking for deals.

By the way, I'm not really interested in playing on any particular title but the whole catalogue of good games from 2009 to now. Although there are two that are gonna be a must: Mario Galaxy 2 and Muramasa.

[LordVador]

(02-18-2013, 05:13 AM)Antibiotics Wrote: Although there are two that are gonna be a must: Mario Galaxy 2 and Muramasa.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is very demanding. You need a heavy CPU. No laptop will run this game at full-speed (or even close to).
Muramasa is pretty light: no problem for this game

[NaturalViolence]

If you really want to run dolphin well on a laptop I would strongly advise bumping your budget up to $900.

[Xalphenos]

You mention playing pc games like crysis 2 in addition to wii games like SMG 2. You need to ask yourself if portability is really that important for you. The only way to play those games you mentioned is to buy a high end gaming laptop which will be way over your budget and have poor battery life. Even then SMG 2 wouldn't run full speed all the time. Your money would be better spent on a desktop. Portability is nice but you will sacrifice performance to get it.

[AnyOldName3]

If you want to be able to play SMG 1 or 2 on a laptop, you'll end up going for a $3000+ desktop replacement, which will basically be about the size of a small desktop PC, the same weight, and won't last 3 hours on battery.

[Antibiotics]

Ooooooooooh. I didn't know the requirements were that high. Then I'll buy the weaker laptop (it can run Photoshop CS6 smoothly,
right?) and buy a desktop computer the next year.
Thanks.

[AnyOldName3]

That's the exact right idea, and usually what I recommend.