Laptop Recommendation?

[Kiltie Lad]

I'm heading to Europe for the summer and would like to bring along CM (especially if CMBB comes out this summer). Any suggestions for a laptop? So far, a friend has suggested a Dell with 15" monitor, UXGA 32 meg video card (is that good enough?), Pentium 4 chip, 30-40 meg HD, built in modem and network card. To check email while abroad, would you suggest a wireless system (so the B&B owner doesn't flip when I ask if I can plug my modem into her phone jack)? While I don't expect to get a computer capable of playing CM for cheap, I'm not made of money either for what I would consider a secondary system.

Thanks in advance!

[WWB]

I would go for the GeForce4 Go! if you can swing it financially. Note that you might do better going with a manufacurer other than Dell. They have a tendency to hold out the quality parts on all but the top end models.

Regarding the wireless card, while it might come in handy, you need to have a wireless access point to connect to or it is an expensive piece of complex alloys. I doubt that many B&Bs feature WAPs.

WWB

[Bill Mitchell]

I have an HP Pavilion with a Trident video chipset. It's an Athlon 4 950 mhz with 20 gig HD, 256 RAM and DVD-rom. Less than $1000, and it runs CM with many mods installed without a hiccup. Smoke, fog, all look as they should. It will also play CC 2&5, SP:WAW, Airborne Assault with no problems.

You don't have to drop $2000 to get a laptop that will play CM.

Bill

[Sarge Saunders]

Hey Kiltie Lad,

I run CM on my Dell Inspiron 7500 500mhz pentium 256 MB ram (only 128 is needed really). It does have an ATI mobility rage pro. This is the main problem for you. ATI video cards don't do fog and This low memory card can only do 1024x768 resolution at medium color depth for CM.

It makes up for it with a whopping 15.4" screen.

At any rate, whatever brand you get see if they will give any options for the video card and video memory (you need at least 32 for high-res). Get the fastest CPU you can and a good cooling fan for it. CM will overheat a laptop CPU without good heat sinks and a good fan.

-Sarge

[Sarge Saunders]

Also: My experience with laptops / modem connections to the internet / PBEM while in Europe were very successful 5 summers ago. Phone lines are a huge hassle. What country are you going to? When in Italy, there are many places to send a Fax. Anywhere that is wired to send a fax is good enough to conect you via modem to the internet. Just ask them nicely and offer a moderate compensation. I used the IBM global ISP account. Since then IBM forces you to pay an access fee when roaming in Europe but that have many local numbers around Europe and I had no problem connecting.

hmmm.. that's all I can think of for now. Enjoy your trip!

-Sarge

[Dirtweasle]

My experience is that the HP laptops run hot. They overheat and do an auto-shutdown at the worst possible time. My work laptop does it quite a bit. It's 2 years old so maybe they are better now, but test drive one before you buy.

[Sarge Saunders]

Originally posted by Dirtweasle:

My experience is that the HP laptops run hot. They overheat and do an auto-shutdown at the worst possible time. My work laptop does it quite a bit. It's 2 years old so maybe they are better now, but test drive one before you buy.

Yeah Schullenraft also mentioned this problem in the tech support thread. The higher-end laptops don't have this problem. Mainly about design of heat sinks and fan, etc....

My Dell works 24/7 and some of that being heavy CM use!

-Sarge

[Andreas]

Get an Apple.

[SpazManOught]

I second the vote for the apple. Apples laptops are of a much higher quality than most PC laptops, the only problem are

1) power books are expensive

2) It's a real pain in the arse switching from OS X to OS 9, just to play CMBO.

3) You'll have to buy a whole new set of MS apps to run on it (Thats if you use MS Office)

Other than that they are great and my iBook really does last 5hours( well maybe 4 ) on its battery whilst playing CM off a CD disk image, no 90% cpu usage for me.

OS X networks really well with MS PC's, its just a shame that the documentation you get with the Mac gives no indication of how to do this.

[Kiltie Lad]

Thanks for the tips, guys. Don't think I'll do the Apple thang tho. I'm a PC boy through and through eventhough I know losts of people very happy with Apples. Do you guys recommend getting an extra battery or do you think I'll be able to charge up? Also, will I need an adapetor for the recharger?

Thanks!

[Sarge Saunders]

Originally posted by Kiltie Lad:

Thanks for the tips, guys. Don't think I'll do the Apple thang tho. I'm a PC boy through and through eventhough I know losts of people very happy with Apples. Do you guys recommend getting an extra battery or do you think I'll be able to charge up? Also, will I need an adapetor for the recharger?

Thanks!

Kiltie Lad, extra batteries are nice. I have one extra. For recharging, you want to get a full travel adapter kit. Outlets vary from country to country. Most kits give you all the adapters you need for Europe. I bought mine actually at a department store in the luggage section. Probably pretty easy to find online too.

A saavy computer traveler also carries a surge suppressor. They make them in small sizes for laptops. I have even heard of a phone line tester to protect your modem from bad phone connections that surge.

Hope this helps.

-Sarge

[karch]

Gotta plug for my Macs... but I completely understand about staying with what you are comfortable with... and it will be much cheaper not to have to buy all your apps again (except for CM) if you bought a Mac. I love all mine though.

As for the battery, I highly reccomend getting 1 or 2. I can see where an additional charger would come in handy, but I just pop mine out and charge them all up one at a time while I'm plugged in. Then I have 3 batteries ready for a full day's work if I'm away from power.

If you go with replacement batteries, make sure they are easy to switch, or pop out. If you get one of the bigger desktop replacements with multiple bays, you may be able to have 2 batteries in at the same time. Apple's olde G3s let you do that, and it's very nice.

If you will be traveling by car a lot, look into an AC inverter. Turns your lighter into a 110v outlet for your computer to plug in to. I love it for road trips. (my wife gets motion sickness if she't not driving... so I get to play CM on drives).

For internet access, probably look into an ISP that has access around Europe, or even sign up with AOL for the summer. I think they have access in most highly populated western countries.. I don't know much about the new G3 or whatever it is standard for mobile phones with internet access. The access sounds pretty fast, and you would use your cell phone as sort of a modem/bridge to the phone companie's internet access.

I think that is going to be the wave of mobile internet access in the future. The companies will probably sell PCMCIA cards that are really cell phones to be used only for computer internet access. We'll see.