Moving from a Desktop to a Laptop. Advice?

Mr Unoriginal

Mr Unoriginal

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I'm thinking of taking the plunge and getting rid of a big desktop in favor of a laptop. I do a little bit of gaming, but don't need the latest and greatest. Best Buy has an Acer AMD Turion with 64X2 Dual Core Processor, 2 GB of ram and 160GB HD for $500. First off, is this laptop any good? Will I be able to play things like Warcraft 3, Company of Heroes, Titan Quest, etc?

Also, I have a bunch of files on an internal HD on my PC. Is there an easy way to transfer this to a laptop?
 
That laptop seems alright, as long as it has a separate video card...if it is some sort of super low-end graphics card you may have trouble....

As far as transferring the data, I would grab a USB 2.0 enclosure off of newegg or something (should cost around $20), then you can use your computers HDD as an external hard drive, you just first need to re-jumper it to be a slave drive.

Good luck on the switch.
 
If its just a few gigs of data you could also just simply burn a few CD/DVD's. Not only would you be able to transfer them but now they would be backed up as well.
 
[quote name='cdrober']That laptop seems alright, as long as it has a separate video card...if it is some sort of super low-end graphics card you may have trouble....

As far as transferring the data, I would grab a USB 2.0 enclosure off of newegg or something (should cost around $20), then you can use your computers HDD as an external hard drive, you just first need to re-jumper it to be a slave drive.

Good luck on the switch.[/QUOTE]

For the enclosure, does it plug into my desktop or directly into the HD? One of my HDs is SATA the other is the old style, will this make a difference?
 
If you plan to do any gaming on it, you will probably need to spend a bit more. Warcraft 3 shouldn't be a problem no matter what you get anymore, but to run newer games decently you will want to make sure it has a mobile graphics card, rather than integrated graphics which are more common on lower priced laptops. Also, a 7200 RPM harddrive (vs. the common 5400 RPM) wouldn't hurt either performance-wise. And an Intel Core 2 Duo's are supposed to be better peformance than the AMD Turion's at least from what I have read.As far as copying the files, I would 2nd either burning a CD/DVD or using a Flash Drive or two to swap the files over.
 
[quote name='Mr Unoriginal']For the enclosure, does it plug into my desktop or directly into the HD? One of my HDs is SATA the other is the old style, will this make a difference?[/quote]
You would take your old hard drive out of the desktop and put into the enclosure which is USB based. You can then use your old harddrive as a portable external drive. and transfer the files to the laptop that way And yes, it would make a difference if it is SATA vs IDE (old style), you would want to get the right enclosure depending on which one you were going to use.
 
The best advice I can give is get the best graphics card you can afford within your budget. I decked out my laptop with all the best stuff except a graphics card, thinking I wouldn't use it, and I regret it a lot.

Also, if you can wait a little while, slickdeals usually has great deals for laptops on their front page. You could do much better than that for around $600 if you hunt for it.
 
I do the opposite. I buy a used laptop every year from my wifes firm, it's usually under $250 for the PC the case and all the manuals. I keep my desktop and upgrade it (or replace it) with the money I save. It gives me a casual surf station, and a portable PC for photos and video for peanuts and if It gets smashed at the airport or in the car- no worries.

It works out well, they buy the common Lenovo/IBM thinkpad models and eBay is just dripping with replacement parts and accessories for cheap. It's a good budget move if you want to keep a game-worthy desktop and still have a laptop for portability.

At the end of the year I scrub the HD + reformat and sell the old one on Ebay for about $100-150. Net cost of laptop that's just behind the curve @ $100.
 
Laptops are anywhere from tedious to miserable to have to work on. Consider what kind of upgrades you may need to do in the future and how accessible parts are on the models you consider.
 
Laptops allow you to be free from your desk and do your computing wherever you want. I like my laptop much better because I can surf the net and be near my family at the same time.

I forgot to mention in my previous post that it is very difficult or impossible to upgrade the graphics in most laptops. So take that into consideration.
 
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