Payments, worth it?

[ATilaptops]

Well first off, I think I'm convinced that Dell is better than voodoo. You cna get the same thing (not as pretty and with the Dell logo:() for $1000 less! I could probably pay like $100 a month, so you guys think payments on an 8600 would be worth it or not? Maybe Dell could paint it Brush metal all over to make it look cool?

[ATilaptops]

Just wondering, how are those wide screen LCDs for gaming? I mean they run on different resolutions. Also is a WUXGA better than a WSXGA+ screen?

[coolqf]

Originally posted by ATilaptops
Well first off, I think I'm convinced that Dell is better than voodoo. You cna get the same thing (not as pretty and with the Dell logo:() for $1000 less! I could probably pay like $100 a month, so you guys think payments on an 8600 would be worth it or not? Maybe Dell could paint it Brush metal all over to make it look cool?

It's your call man... You want a laptop? don't have the cash? Cool with paying the monthly payments? Is that your laptop of choice?
If yes to all, then that's the laptop for you.

[ATilaptops]

That's what I was thinking, and I'm cool with the payments, but if it means paying like double the price in interest then maybe it isn't worth it. On the other hand if I'll only pay an extra $500 or so in interest than that'd be fine. Of course the best option if my Grandma fronting the cash and me paying it off with 0% interest or very low;)

[coolqf]

Originally posted by ATilaptops
That's what I was thinking, and I'm cool with the payments, but if it means paying like double the price in interest then maybe it isn't worth it. On the other hand if I'll only pay an extra $500 or so in interest than that'd be fine. Of course the best option if my Grandma fronting the cash and me paying it off with 0% interest or very low;)
If you'd like, just provide teh link of how many installments you have to pay and how much interest it will really cost

[ATilaptops]

What? That makes no sense. What link from where?

[KegCanMan]

Screw making payments. Save up and then buy.
You will save $$$..plus something better will
be out when you want to buy. Then buy that.

[ATilaptops]

Makes, some sense but I want a lappy now;) Plus I am willing to pay a premium to get it now and pay later/gradually. Maybe most aren't as long as the laptop can play games like HL2 then it will probably last me a very long time and I won't need much more.

[melee]

Ok, dont do it.

You'll be still making payments when the laptops obsolete, save up and then buy man.

I mean, payments are not the way to go.

[ATilaptops]

Well given the fact that if I make payments on a really nice laptop that can last me a long time then it won't really matter that's it becomes obsolete, it'll be obsolete in like what? 6 months tops even after I save up. So far this is the list I have a pros and cons:

Pros:

Get dream laptop now.

Cons:

Pay a premium for the privilege of getting it now.
Still paying while obsolete.

It may look like cons are winning here, to the normal person;), but it seems like pro's are winning to me;)

Edit:There is one way to settle this, you guys think it's possible to get a laptop which can play CS for $500 maybe $600? Just to hold me over until I can save enough for a super nice one:)

[barton boi]

I'm sure you can, CS can practically run on anything. How will you get the $600, sell your consoles?

[ATilaptops]

I do own all 3 consoles;) But let's see $300 for Christmas. Plus $100 or from so side jobs I'm doing and $90 from a P4 I have and $80 that I ahve now is $580, and I can always make an exta $20, so i'm good:) Where to find such a laptop though? I have no idea:(

[barton boi]

Ebay? If you saved an extra $100 you could get an inspiron 1100.

[ATilaptops]

What's an inspiron 1100 have in it?

[barton boi]

@ $700 it's got a shitty celeron 2.4GHZ, 256MB RAM, Integrated graphix, 20GB, CDRW/DVD, 14.1" XGA, and maybe a little over an hour of battery. You'd might wanna sell your Xbox or PS2 and pay an extra $150 and get a 40GB and a 15" and a better battery. It's not as nice as that Voodoo, but it'll play CS.

[ATilaptops]

Aren't Pentium II's better than celerons? lol. Maybe I should try that.

[barton boi]

A Pentium 3 would be better than a similarly clocked celeron. I'm not sure about a 1GHZ P III being better than a 2.4GHZ celeron. :confused:

[ATilaptops]

Yeah, figures, P3's were pretty good chips. I have no idea, but if a P3-M 1.13GHz is close to a 2.4GHz celeron it'd probably serve my purposes. I wonder if I could find a laptop with like a P3-M in the MHz? Like 800MHz P3-M laptop with built-in gfx or a low end GF4 Go?

[barton boi]

I'm thinking a graphics card like that would be highly bottlenecked by an 800MHZ PIII :(

Edit: I didn't notice you said integrated also, that obviously wouldn't be

[ATilaptops]

It could bottleneck a GF4 Go? Are there any lower cards?

[barton boi]

Are GF4 Gos Ti 4200s or MX 440s? If MX 440 then it probably wouldn't bottleneck.

[ATilaptops]

Yeah, I meant an MX 440. But hey I think I might be able to get a laptop with these specs off eBay:

14" or 15" screen XGA
800Mhz, possibly 1GHz P3
8MB Radeon or Xi gfx
128MB/256MB or possibly 192MB or 512MB of SDRAM
DVD-ROM
6-12GB HDD
possible zip or floppy drive
XP Home/2000/98se

for $500 or so. Maybe $600-$700. How does that look? I mean could it play CS? And are those 8MB gfx cards better than integrated?

[barton boi]

I'm not sure about the video cards, I'd think they'd be better than integrated. That should be able to handle CS for sure.

[ATilaptops]

Yeah, I think I am gona try for one. the ideal system would be:

P3 1GHz(1.13GHz is my fav. though;))
15" XGA screen(probably 14 sinc emost are)
8MB(or higher) 2x AGP Radeon card
256MB(512MB would be nice) of SDRAM
DVD-ROM(I wonder if I could add a CD burner/DVD combo drive? myself?)
XP Home

for $400-$500. And it couldn't hurt to be relatively thin;) I'll trick it out with some cool stickers and stuff to spice it up too;) It'll be pretty cool to find and get one:) Something about these older laptops intrigues me. I get a whopping 8MB of VC RAM:eek: lol. Well if it can play CS and get a wireless card, some are built in:) Then I'm good. Wouldn't it be awesome if it could play CS:CZ? Even if I had to turn down the settings a lot. Maybe if I cna find a 16MB or 32MB gfx card;)

[barton boi]

That's like something I'd buy if I had a main rig.

[ATilaptops]

You don't have a main rig? What are you using to post then? Anyway, it should serve my purposes until the next gen of laptops comes around and Ihave enough to get one:)

[barton boi]

Well, my computer is pathetic.

700MHZ celeron
64MB SDRAM
30GB HD
Just about everything else integrated.

I used to be able to run CS on that but not anymore, I guess it's the updated graphics or my PC's declined. But I fudged up while installing slackware and forgot to delete the previous bootloader so I can't boot to my Windows partition. :o Now I'm posting from my mom's PIII 1.1GHZ, 512MBRAM, everything integrated :(, overheating laptop.

[ATilaptops]

I hate to be the one who points this out, but if you don't have a sweet rig you cna fall back on, why a laptop? I can understand in my case where I have a rig which can play games, but man! You know what kind of rig you cna get for $2000? Heck for $1000? If you got a 1.1GHz P3-M and a M9 card laptop then you could build a nice rig for $1000! Somehow that seem the better idea in your case.

[ATilaptops]

I found out the requirments for CS:CZ and even with a low end lappy like this I can probably play it:)

[barton boi]

Well I'm moving in a couple months, and I may be living in an RV for a couple of months so I need the portability. I was thinking of getting a SFF PC like the Shuttles. I figured I'd only save around $500 by building a SFF PC, and I'd have to run it from power and there's no 4 hour battery life. I'd do exactly what you're doing if I was sure I'd be in a house :(

[barton boi]

Originally posted by ATilaptops
I found out the requirments for CS:CZ and even with a low end lappy like this I can probably play it:)

I hope your right, but was that the minimum requirements? Remember you have to double those, or something crazy like that.

[ATilaptops]

Oh, ok. Makes sense now. Good luck with all that:)