Laptop Help

[shlin28]

I'm thinking of purchasing a laptop, nothing fancy, just a laptop for work and a bit of light gaming.

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...finement=11001

This laptop looks pretty good for the price... 4GB RAM, decent sized hard drive, and from what I can research (via google) the processor and graphics card looks decent for what I want to play. The only problem? It says its "refurbished", and being the paranoid person I am, I got absolutely paranoid about it

So my questions are:

1. What does "Refurbished" mean? From some googling I find that some refurbished pcs are literally broken, whilst others says they are perfectly fine...

2. The laptop can certainly play my current collection of games, but can it run Dawn of War: Soulstrom, E:TW, Neverwinter Nights 2, M2TW, and/or Company of Heroes at decent quaility (high or very high) ?

3. and lastly of course... if you can find me a better laptop (just the name will do) that would be very helpful

Thanks in advance.

[shlin28]

Hmmm... I found the same laptop at this website, but it has a different graphics card.

So which one is better for gaming? NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS or NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS?

[_Tristan_]

Mine has a 8600M GS and is largely capable of handling M2TW and is even able to play such recent games as Fallout 3 very decently (High Gfx settings).

So if you're looking to some light gaming the 8400M GS might be enough for you... but if they are the same price you could still go for the 9300...

[TevashSzat]

The 9300M GS is slightly better, but not much so its really up to you which computer you like best.

With it, all the games you have mentioned can be run at decent settings. Heck, I can play all of those games with my crappy X300

Refurbished usually means a computer that was maybe opened, but not used and then sent back to the company. Its usually means that the computer may be handled by a potential customer, but wasn't necessarily used or damaged. Usually, refurbished items are fine and have no difference from "new" ones unless you absolutely insist on having your new computer pristine

[shlin28]

Okay, after doing a bit more searching I found that I can get a better laptop for a mere extra 10 pound
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_...on.asp?PID=882

My graphics card knowledge is not that great, but my research shows that the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 is way better than NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS. So yay!