Cheap gaming laptop?

[BrokenKingdom]

Hey everyone back again! A friend of mine INSISTS he wants to buy a laptop, I told him he doesn't need one (being that his money situation is tight at the moment) but trying to reason with him is like reasoning with a wild boar, essentially, pointless.

He can only afford about $600-$700 and wants a laptop that will play World of Warcraft (why, is beyond me) I keep telling him that $600-$700 probably won't buy him a laptop that will play WoW (as it's affectionately called) and that it would be a waste to buy one.

Again like I said, he insists, so I told him I'de ask you guys what you thought and what you might suggest. He's looking for a $600-$700 laptop (or cheaper @_@) that will play WoW. Any advice, suggestions ect. is more then appreciated.

[Alaron]

We usually recommend Dell E1505's for good bang for the buck laptops. Intel Graphics will play WoW, just not with too many bells and whistles turned on.

[newbuilder14]

He would be wasting your money, buying a laptop that won't do what he wants that is hard to upgrade. I suggest he saves up a few more bucks and buys something with integrated nVidia or ATI graphics.

[glc]

There are plenty of laptops in that price range - but gamers? Ain't gonna happen.

trying to reason with him is like reasoning with a wild boar, essentially, pointless

Then why are you wasting your time? Let him do what he wants and find out the hard way.

[BrokenKingdom]

Haha well if it was just one of my normal friends I would let him find out the hard way but he has 3 sons and a wife and they are in a tight situation as far as money goes. I'de really rather give it my all to persuade him not to get a laptop, one he doesn't need to begin with, then just say "I told you so" after. He's a good guy but doesn't like being told he shouldn't do something haha :/

So you guys would say it's an official "no-go" then? I pretty much figured that.

P.S. Thanks a while back about that advice on the tablet PC GLC I love it

[glc]

For $700 you can build a fair gaming desktop or buy a decent entry level laptop with not much gaming guts. That's about it in a nutshell.

Alaron has about the best recommendation here - a E1505 with Intel graphics. Make SURE he knows if he does that, he's STUCK with that graphics adapter - you can't upgrade most laptops with cards later like you can desktops. You can upgrade system ram and hard drives, that's about it. Laptops with discrete graphics adapters that are worth a crap start at over $1000 and those will still be ATI Hypermemory or Nvidia Turbocache. To get non-shared memory adapters, start thinking $1500.

[Staren]

I have to tell you here. I've played WoW on both the standardard ATI and nVidia laptop graphics chips. Just to jump on and do a few things on vacation, I'd never play any real amount of time on integrated graphics. WoW will play, but it will look like crud. To get it down to the point were it's not choppy and movement is smooth, it looks pretty primitive. And you can quote me on that. I'd ether go for a desktop that will play alright, or save a few more months.