[CRockGuitarist]

Certainly. Most of the recent integrated (Intel) and dedicated (ATI or Nvidia) cards will support at least 1920x1200 resolution (and 2560x1600 dual display resolution).

Just do a quick search on the graphics card included in any laptop you look at to make sure the maximum resolution is good enough for your needs.

It should be noted that a dedicated card will provide better performance for gaming. It probably won't make much of a difference for videos unless you want to use it on an HDTV. But, the integrated card will be better for battery life. The dedicated graphics cards will draw more power (and cost more).

[Cam42]

NVidia and ATI doesn't mean it's dedicated. Both produce integrated graphics.

[Ax]

Originally Posted by Cam42

NVidia and ATI doesn't mean it's dedicated. Both produce integrated graphics.

Indeed and their chipsets and GPUs are usually much better. Nvidia has always had more stable drivers in my experience as well.

On the subject of ram, achitecture and video cards....


First ram:

I have tried Windows 7 both 32 and 64 bit editions on my computer running 2 gigs of ram. It ran much faster and smoother on the 32 bit edition. 2 Gigs is the MINIMUM requirement for the 64 bit edition as prescribed by M$.

Architecture:
64 bit is a newer technology, as such there's not a lot that supports it so far. However, an this ties into why I recommend 4 gigs of ram as well and that is future computing. The computing industry is one of the fastest evolving and thus when purchasing, it's not acceptable to think "will this cover my needs now?" but rather we should be asking "does this cover my needs in the future?" Otherwise you'll end up with the old Weird Al addage:

My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box
You say you've had your desktop for over a week?
Throw that junk away, man, it's an antique
Your laptop is a month old? Well that's great
If you could use a nice, heavy paperweight

Video cards:
This is one of the biggest tips I give people and they never even think about it, but one of the most effective ways to speed up any computer, even for general computing, is to upgrade their video card. Why? Well it's a concept similar to ram, it takes a lot of the workload off the CPU and allows it to delegate video tasks to the vid card. The faster the GPU the more work it does to help out your CPU. This is not as relevant as it was about 2 years ago, however, I didn't recommend he go all out on the Vid card, just a decent one, if he's not gaming, he only needs a mid tier card to make sure his computer is snappy.

A few other thoughts:

When somebody tells me they want something snappy, I settle for no less than perfection. If snappy is what is ordered, I don't adjust my menu to make fairly quick look more like snappy. Snappy is when things load fast, you're not sitting around waiting on your computer to catch up to you. If I want to launch Open Office, while watching Hulu, reading a pdf, and sending an email. So help me god I want it to not just work, I want it to work fast. That is the definition of snappy to me. Everything should work so quick I should be able to snap my fingers and it launches.

[Cam42]

Yes, I like NVidia more than ATI for several reasons.
Looking over the thread again, I definitely recommend you go with an SSD.

[Ax]

Originally Posted by Cam42

Yes, I like NVidia more than ATI for several reasons.
Looking over the thread again, I definitely recommend you go with an SSD.

The only thing is this:

SSD's are hellaspensive for a drive of any substantial size.

[CRockGuitarist]

Originally Posted by Ax

The only thing is this:

SSD's are hellaspensive for a drive of any substantial size.

Though, if he stayed with Linux, he could easily get away with just a 32GB, or even 16GB, SSD for the OS (which would make for a fast bootup), using a larger, cheaper HDD for storage. This kind of setup is easier to pull off in a desktop than a laptop (where the storage drive would likely need to be an external drive), so consider this advise theoretical

Originally Posted by bobthecockroach

like up-to-dateness. Linux drives me mad by using "packages" which tend to hold back your versions of programs to the version that was out when the last distro came out. Ubuntu is especially bad for this

This was one of my dislikes about Ubuntu/Fedora. I kept switching back and forth between the two because Fedora would have something I wanted that Ubuntu didn't and then a new release would come out and I'd switch again....

Then I found Arch Linux. It's a rolling release distro which means there aren't new versions every 6 months, year, etc. And it can be as bleeding edge as you'd like it to be, as you choose when, how often, and which packages to update. Most new releases (Firefox 3.6 for example) are available a few days after their release. I, and others if you search through their forums--which are quite good for getting help, find Arch to be so much more stable than Ubuntu/Fedora as well.

I'd highly recommend trying out Arch. Note, I have no affiliation with Arch or any Linux distro, I just really like Arch and would hate to see someone relapse--er, I mean--switch back to Microsoft.

[bobthecockroach]

Ax, that's my idea of snappy too. Thanks for the tip on video cards. I always seem to forget that when looking at computers.

I think the key to making the SSD work for me will be to get something like a Drobo set up. If I can offload everything I'm not actively working on to safe, external storage, then I only need a few gigs for active projects. Also, code takes up a lot less space than pictures or videos, which will all be on the external backup.

I've actually been meaning to try Arch for a while, just haven't gotten around to it. I still don't think that would completely remove my need for Windows though. At least not until there's a Sublime Text port and Mono catches up to the latest version of C#.

[Ax]

Originally Posted by CRockGuitarist

Though, if he stayed with Linux, he could easily get away with just a 32GB, or even 16GB, SSD for the OS (which would make for a fast bootup), using a larger, cheaper HDD for storage. This kind of setup is easier to pull off in a desktop than a laptop (where the storage drive would likely need to be an external drive), so consider this advise theoretical

The infeasibility of it's configuration in a laptop was the reason I didn't mention that.

[bobthecockroach]

I really don't think I'll need the HDD if I have some of networked storage at home.

Could I just get a laptop that comes with a recovery disk and replace the hard drive myself with an SSD? There don't seem to be that many SSD options out there.

[Cam42]

You could.

There are some (quite large) laptops from HP that have 2 hard drive bays.

[bobthecockroach]

But HP is dead last in reliability:

Laptop-Reliability Study Highlights the Most Sturdy Laptop Makers - Laptops - Lifehacker

[Cam42]

This is also true.

[Ax]

You know, personally, I'd probably kill somebody if I were forced to code from a laptop. Unless you really really need the portability then why are laptops even in this discussion? Imagine writing entire programs on a laptop keyboard. UGH! I hate typing c++ and java on a corded keyboard.

I'm not sure where we got off on the laptop tangent, but I'm not a fan of them.

Honestly, have you considered dual booting? Best of both worlds, put linux on one partition and windows on another.

[bobthecockroach]

C++ and Java are now forbidden by the Geneva Convention, so no wonder you hate it.

I want the portability. I don't really mind so much, because I'd probably be working on smaller stuff like websites or Python or Ruby code.

Dual-booting seems pointless for the laptop, as I would never want to NOT be running Sublime Text.