Laptop buying advice forum: Do I need a Dedicated Graphics Card?

The two key issues are:

1.) Quality of the output. Check reviews of the make/model with the integrated chip and consider the desired TV's size/resolution as performance varies widely.

2.) Shared RAM. Remember that the RAM used for your graphics system is not available for general use by Windows and installed applications, so shop accordingly.

John


P.S. Windows 7 Starter and Windows 7 Home Basic are limited, but such are rarely found outside of netbooks and 'developing' countries. Thus, such should not be a problem.

In this case, the performance directly correlates with the price. All three would be sufficient, but the Asus laptop clearly has the advantage, especially in terms of longevity. (The 5730, in particular, is a year newer than the other chips.)

-> For reference, HP primarily uses Asus motherboards and similar third-party hardware throughout, so quality is approximately the same.

John

Thanks for your help John and Kees. I think I'm going to go with the ASUS N61JQ-X1. I like to buy a computer that's expensive at the time and hang on to it forever. It worked well with my current laptop - a dell inspiron 5150 that has been solid for 6 and a half years and only started to really slow down over the last 6 months! Thanks again