Dont waste your time with newegg unless you specifically love what they have currently. newegg, zipzoomfly, etc all have '.....ok....' deals on laptops.
Honestly. If you watch best buy, circuit city and the 'others'...you might find some deals when they go onsale.
Another place to look is to type in 'deals' in google and follow those links. Usually some good ones. one in particuliar listed a dell with an independent video card. THATS what you want for gaming. Aces High runs on my laptop, it will run on any new laptop honestly. If you get something that doesn't share the system memory for video ram, then you are much better off.
This laptop:
http://www.techdeals.net/2007/02/14/dell-inspiron-6400-154-intel-dual-core-laptop-719/honestly isn't too shaby.
Also, something to keep in mind when you are buying a laptop is that Dual core and Core 2 Duo are TWO DIFFERENT animals all together.
Dual core is 32 bit, while Core 2 Duo is 64 bit. Honestly, the differences are nothing at this stage in the game. And, when 32 bit processors came out, that was supposed to eliminate 16 bit processors immediately and that didn't happen as the software built was still in dummy mode.
If I were you and you were looking to spend that type of money, I would look for the BEST deal for awhile. Check what you can get from the 'name brands' for that type of money, then watch for specials and see what the differences are and how much money they attribute to those differences.
You ARE going to pay more for core 2 , keep that in mind.
DO NOT GET ANYTHING LESS THAN 1 GIG of memory. 2 gigs would be nice but, apps like Aces High do not use it.
Also, you may want to opt to keep windows xp pro instead of vista. There is a perf hit on vista for games tested, but Aces High was not one of them. I believe it will also suffer but with a decent system...and I don't mean great or high end, a DECENT system will run Aces High very nicely.
The system that deal has already speced out is nice, if you take their recommendation and take the 4 mb level 2 cache CORE 2 chip, then you are still under 1k and should be flying the not so friendly skies for years to come without issues, and anything else you launch from your computer.
Don't fall for the price trap. Laptops are great but the hardest thing to do is to STOP buying up. For another $100 I could get, and then another $50 I would get SO much more.
You can keep going for days on end looking at this stuff, which you should...but as long as your 'line in the sand' on how much you want to spend stays steady, then you are doing the right thing. Unless it is definetely something you want, don't upgrade to it.
Always buy about 15-25% more than what you need in computers. nothing more, nothing less.
The only thing I might add to this is, that you MAY want to checkout a dell store and try out some of these laptops. Some of these newer HP and Dell laptops have a mouse pad on them that feel like they are actually just part of the plastic from the computer case. Very sticky or washy feel. If you travel and use a laptop extensively like I do for business, it would be rather annoying.
HP business laptops are the best for me. I love the touchpads, and the double it with an eraser tip center mouse also usually. They look and feel like thinkpads with more reliability than junkpads and at a cheaper price.
DO NOT buy a used thinkpad either. I can't tell you how many I have scraped for companies that have issues with their power ports being worn, or their large screens causing shorts because they were poorly designed and over the years have worn from opening and closing, and are now basically worthless. Don't get me wrong, they are nice laptops...but I see too many issues with them.
Also, Circuit City had a nice laptop. It was a gateway for $599 but had shared video mem. It will still run AH, and came stock with 1 gig of ram..a large hd and vista prem. Unfortunately they are out of stock, although you might get best buy to match if you can actually find someone to wait on your or answer the phone.
Best buy also has an Acer for $599 that is almost a duplicate to teh gateway with just a smaller HD.
The gateway had aircraft grade aluminum for the interior portion of the case. Pretty nice and it felt like a durable laptop.
HP recently had a nice deal with rebates, but rebates are annoying. I checked it out recently and found that the case and touchpad were for home users only. You would never want to travel with this thing as it would look horrible and it was hard to use otherwise.
Well I hope I helped you out. I would suggest definetely being able to touch what you buy and WAITING for the deal. You will SAVE HUNDREDS if you do.
My biggest piece of advice for you however, in short: Is to make sure the video card says XXX megs of ram (and is NOT shared from the system mem). They will try to trick you by saying UP TO XXX ram, that is a sure sign it is share ram from the system. Oh and don't rely on store employees to tell you the right thing. One minute they are unpacking RCA cables, another they are selling laptops. I listened to this one guy tell these people a laptop had the fastest cpu possible and it was a dual core, not core 2.....1.6ghz system with only 256 megs of ram.
Anyway, GL! Tell us what you get when you get it
EDIT: FYI Centrino is not a name for a processor. Centrino is the name given to a group of items (wireless adapter, A pentium M processor, and a Motherboard Chipset). People are up in the air as to what is better. If you get a Core 2 Duo system with an independent good video card and 1 or 2 gigs of ram....YOU ARE SET for awhile.
There is no need to spend $1700 when you can get EVERYTHING you need for $1k. Save that $700 for when you want to upgrade sooner. Buying something for $1700 means you will just have a $1000 laptop in 4 months....with SLIGHTLY better equipment in it.
The average price point for a GOOD laptop on sale is $1k tops.
Advice, buy a good bag and make sure it is padded well for say, sudden stops in your truck when the jerk in front of you decides he SUDDENLY wants to goto Taco Bell!
