Ok, i want to get a laptop mostly for school work and was just planning on getting the cheapest notebook available. But then i found out that if i spend $1000 more on dell, i can get 20% off so....

Anyways here is the laptop im planning on getting

Inspiron 1501
PROCESSOR AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-56
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
LCD PANEL 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display
MEMORY 2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 2 DIMM
HARD DRIVE 60GB Hard Drive
VIDEO CARD ATI RADEON® Xpress1150 256MB HyperMemory™ (Integrated)


I barely know enough about desktop computers, but i know nothing about notebooks. So i was wondering if this could play movies and play some games. I dont mean high end games but i would like to be able to play some low end lan games like CS Source and maybe WoW (world of warcraft).

Anyways my main question would just be what is the hardest game this can play. And should i make any changes to make this play better games?
Like should i go with intel processors?
P.S. i dont mind playing games on very low settings.

Don't even try to play any game on integrated gfx.

A 7600 or X1600 is the lowest you wanna go for a low end gamer.

This of course will run $1500 or so.

if he/she is getting a laptop...isnt the only option to use an integrated video card? (unless of course you look at a very high end and expensive laptop such as alienware)


personally, my laptop has 1 gig of ram, 1.6 GHz intel centrino processor, and an ATI mobility radeon x300 gfx card. and it can run cs source just fine. oh, and it happens to be a dell inspiron 6000.

if you wish to play games at that calibre, you will be investing well over 1500+(with out taxes, USD), well you'll be lucky to find a good laptop that can play games at 1500.

you would be able to watch movies but not be able to play cs:s, even on low settings. you might be able to play cs 1.6 though ^^

Um, no. The X300 in your laptop is a dedicated video card with 256 mb of ram. 128 mb of that ram is shared from your systems memory. The only integrated graphics are Radeon Xpress chipsets and Intel GMA900 or 950. Anything else and is most likely to be a dedicated card. For lite gaming, why don't you go with the Intel version of that laptop (E1505). It comes with a dedicated X1400 card which can handle those games, just not at high resolutions.