New Laptop

[DocHibb]

Hi everyone,
Let me start off by saying that I am by no means a "computer guy", so anything too technical and it will seem foreign to me!

Last night, my computer fell about 2 feet off of a table onto my carpeted floor, and it is no longer booting up. The error code 0XC000021a came up, and it proceeded to "attempt to fix disks" or something like that, with no results and the process keeps repeating itself. From what I gathered from a quick Google search, the hard drive could be damaged. I took the laptop to my university's IT department and they are currently looking at it, but I'm assuming they will tell me that the hard drive is damaged. It is a very basic laptop, mostly for school purposes, but I recently started playing WoW on it. I can't think of the model, but I know it was a Dell with Windows 8 and I think it had a pentium processor. On "Low" graphical settings, I was getting at most ~25-30fps (I know, not very good, but good enough!).

If the hard drive is damaged and needs to be replaced, I think I am just going to buy a new and slightly better laptop. I know people don't like gaming on laptops but it's what I have to do. Which brings me to my question, can someone suggest a laptop for me? Here's a couple things to keep in mind:

• I'd like to spend no more than around $500 if possible.
• Mostly for school (Powerpoint, Word, basic web searching, etc.)
• Be able to run WoW decently well (at least the performance of my current one, better if it isn't too expensive).
• I don't want to build my own, so maybe refer to ones on like Bestbuy's website, or something similar.

If this is too much work, maybe suggest words for me to look for when searching. Like what type of processor (intel core i7? something else?), optimal memory size, etc.

Thanks a lot in advance everyone!

[Stormspark]

In that price range, the only thing you can get that will play games at all is an AMD Kaveri APU setup. The A10-7300 is quite good in this regard and you can get those laptops for around $500. I have this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 and it can run WOW on mostly good settings with a couple things on high, with reasonable performance.

In the $500 price range Intel is out of the question, because with Intel, you have to have a dedicated GPU or you can't run games at all - you'd be looking at everything on low and still only getting 15-20FPS. If your budget was in the $800-$900 range I'd definitely recommend Intel. Intel CPU's are better. But their integrated graphics is awful beyond belief. AMD is better when you consider CPU + integrated graphics as a package.

So in a nutshell...integrated graphics = AMD. Dedicated GPU = then go Intel.

[Vash The Stampede]

No Intel is not out of the question at $500. Laptops are funny cause Intel is dual core for i3's and i5's and even some i7's, all with hyperthreading. So an i3 will be just fine in laptops. Take a look at this one I found. It's $500 with an i3 and Nvidia 820m. WoW will run fine.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834314562

For $50 more you could get an i5 with a better GPU.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834314535

[DocHibb]

Thanks for your responses! Still waiting to see exactly what is wrong with the computer. Hopefully I can find out soon, I need my WoW fix! *scratches neck*

[Vash The Stampede]

Replacing a laptop hard drive is relatively easy. You just won't get your data back. It's just a matter of reinstalling Windows and all your software, which you probably have to do anyway.

[Vermicious]

If you just need a new hard drive, you might go with an SSD, and get a bit of a perk with loading speeds.

A 256GB SSD costs about $100. Crucial MX100 is a good model line to look at.