Behold! Generic technology help thread!

[TimeLord]

Good morning fellow Escapists (morning in UK for all you other timezone peoples)

I have recently decided to get a new laptop (mainly as my current one has about 5 GB of HDD space left so I'm panicking.

I have found this laptop that I'm interested in:
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/packard-bell-easynote-lj71-rb-025-03692844-pdt.html

Spoiler: Laptop Details

Processor: AMD Turion? II X2 Dual-Core M500 Processor - 2.2 GHz - 3.6 GHz System Bus Speed - 1 MB L2 Cache
Operating System: Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium
RAM: 4096 MB
Graphics card : AMD ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 (integrated)
Screen type: Widescreen LCD
Screen resolution: 1600 x 900 pixels
Screen size: 17.3"
Screen features: LED backlighting, anti-glare surface
Hard drive: 2 x 500GB (1 TB)
Optical disk drive: SuperMulti DVD Rewriter
Memory card reader: 5-in-1 media card reader
USB: 4 x USB 2.0
FireWire: No
Modem/Ethernet: 1 x RJ-45 Ethernet port
Wi-Fi: WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth: No
Video interface: HDMI, VGA
TV output: HDMI, VGA
Extension card slot: No
Sound: Dolby Sound Room and Headphones technology
Webcam: Yes
Keyboard & Mouse: MultiGesture Touchpad
Batter: 6 Cells Li-Ion 4400mAh
Additional features: Backup button and Software
Accessories included: Power cord, AC adapter, battery, documentation
Software included : Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 Full Version Norton Internet Security 90 Days trial Works 9 SE and Office Home & Student Trial Adobe Premiere Elements Trial Version Adobe Reader and Flash

My main concerns are the graphics card. An AMD ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 (integrated). I've never had an AMD before and was wondering if it was actually any good for playing games like TF2, Fallout 3, MW2 etc. My current Graphics card can but it is a Nvidia GForce so I don't know how to compare them.

Any other issues with the laptop specs please let me know.

EDIT: Also: I am considering transplanting the Blu-ray player from my current laptop into this new one, is there any reason why this would not work?

 

[Tharwen]

That ATI Radeon 4200 is a DX10 card, whereas Windows 7 is DX11. I don't exactly know what effect that will realistically have, but I think the worst is that you won't be able to have super-shiny graphics and will have to settle with ordinary-shiny graphics. I also think that there could be a little bit of a bottleneck at that processor.

I'd expect that to easily run TF2, run Fallout 3 with med-high graphics, and MW2 on low-ish graphics if not lowest.

Don't take this as final, though. It's just an estimate as I don't know very much about AMD or ATI.