2010-11-04, 04:47 PM
1. At $500, a video card is not a must have. You probably can't afford a video card in a laptop. If you're lucky you might get some low-end graphics chip, but that's about all you can hope for. The great majority at that price will just have integrated graphics. When you see integrated graphics, though, the size of the shared RAM is unimportant. You'll know if a model has a graphics chip because it will be listed explicitly as ATi or nVidia. If it says "up to XXXX GB!", that means shared RAM. No make or model always means shared RAM.
2. Numbers on what? Hundreds of games, hundreds of graphics chips.
3. It's highly unlikely you'd feel a difference in speed for either. Go with the higher GB model.
4. With budget laptops, there are two factors more important than performance - battery life and portability. With a lower clocked CPU, that also decreases the voltage required for the CPU and thereby increases battery life. The 2.2 GHz models (at least the top 5 I saw) would perform better, no doubt, but they'd also suck batteries dry. Also, CPUs that suck more power are less portable because they need bigger heatsinks and bigger power supplies to support the power draw.
5. For what a person will be doing on a laptop on this budget, a faster dual core would be better than a slower quad core. You won't be doing high number crunching in parallel threads, will you?
6. SATA is fine. See if you can get eSATA for the laptop, because eSATA is far faster than USB/Firewire.
2. Numbers on what? Hundreds of games, hundreds of graphics chips.
3. It's highly unlikely you'd feel a difference in speed for either. Go with the higher GB model.
4. With budget laptops, there are two factors more important than performance - battery life and portability. With a lower clocked CPU, that also decreases the voltage required for the CPU and thereby increases battery life. The 2.2 GHz models (at least the top 5 I saw) would perform better, no doubt, but they'd also suck batteries dry. Also, CPUs that suck more power are less portable because they need bigger heatsinks and bigger power supplies to support the power draw.
5. For what a person will be doing on a laptop on this budget, a faster dual core would be better than a slower quad core. You won't be doing high number crunching in parallel threads, will you?
6. SATA is fine. See if you can get eSATA for the laptop, because eSATA is far faster than USB/Firewire.