How risky is buying a non-premium brand laptop? i.e Acer, etc...?

Question

I know that most PCs come with Vista now, and that 2gb of RAM are recommended to run that. I also want to be able to play World of Warcraft wirelessly, without computer slowdowns. I'm not a huge gamer otherwise. I don't do much else on my PC other than manage media and e-mail/surf. Is it possible to find a reliable laptop for $600 or less???

Answer 1

Wow a lot of hard core people here. Acer has a reputation for breaking down because they use cheaper components-the computer doesn't last as long. With respect to your game, here are the specifications and they are not so demanding. http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/faq/technology.html

However, if you look closely, I don't see Vista compatibility. You should be able to get more than what you need to play the game and do the things you want with that price, but appear to need the operating system that works with the game. I would suggest going on the game forums and asking either support or the members is Vista is a compatible OS

Answer 2

Playing world of warcraft on a $600 is machine is not a very good idea. For $600 your getting a solo-core processor, 512Mb of ram, integrated graphics card and other crappy stuff. The problem with buying non-brand name stuff is that the reliability and customer support is sketchy, you probably won't receive the same technical support as Dell would offer.
Dell Inspiron 1501
-AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 1.8GHz
-1Gb ram
-ATI RADEON® Xpress1150 with 256MB
-80GB Hard Drive
Thats the configuration your getting for $600 from Dell. If you goto a retail store like best buy or future shop the specs you'll see are:
-1.73GHz Intel® Pentium® Dual Core processor T2080
-1Gb ram
-120Gb Hard Drive
-Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950

So as you can see you can get a decent laptop for $600 but it won't do any gaming for you.

Answer 3

Yes, you can find a decent laptop for that price. As a matter of fact, I saw in the best buy paper today an HP laptop with 2 GB of ram for $600 after the rebate. But I hear acers are good, and wal mart sells them pretty cheap. You can play small games like the Sims on it but As far as being able to play WOW on it, I am not totally sure. I hear that game requires some of the BEST specs that usually come in those high end machines costing $1200 or more (such as alienware). But check on that and the back of the WOW box and compare it to the laptop you plan to buy. Good luck.

Answer 4

Very.
Why would you when you can get the best for close to the same money.
http://www.dell.com