How's this laptop?

[The Muffinmaster]

Before you mention it: I've looked at the sticky on this subject, and I'm completely lost there. Sorry.

I'm getting a laptop soon, and I've found one that's selling fast 'cause it's known as a good deal($500 at best buy), but I'm concerned about its video card. 128MB dedicated, but can I also share some of my system memory? Laptop shopping is a pain, and these specs are starting to get too complicated for me.

* Intel® Core™ i3-330M processor (this is supposedly actually an i5 processor)
* 4GB DDR3 memory
* Blu-ray Disc-enabled DVD±RW/CD-RW drive
* 15.6" LED-backlit high-definition widescreen display (1366x768)
* 320GB Serial ATA hard drive (5400 rpm)
* Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator HD (128MB of dedicated video memory)
* HDMI port for connection to an HDTV.
* Built-in webcam and microphone
* Multi-in-1 digital media reader (Supports SD, MMC, MS, MS PRO and xD-Picture Card formats)
* 4 high-speed USB 2.0 ports
* Built-in wireless LAN (802.11b/g/n)
* Built-in 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN
* Weighs 5.8 lbs. and measures just 1.5" thin
* Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit operating system preinstalled
* Provides a stable platform for word processing, Web navigation, gaming, media storage and more.


I want to be able to play games that came out around now on at least the low settings- that'll give me a lot of games to go through, as I haven't been able to yews the new ones since they dropped win2k support. I was hoping for 512MB dedicated memory, but the ones that are affordable and have that all seem to have one little bottleneck that ruins the whole deal. Is this the case here?

For those of you who tend to go the extra mile in helping people out, this is what I'm looking for:

$600 or less. I can maybe stretch to 700 if it's a great deal, but that'd come out of my own pocket.

512MB dedicated graphics card. I know little else about video cards, so you can adjust since you probably know better. 256 is acceptable.

4GB DDR3 memory. DDR2 is acceptable, but not ideal.

i3 or better processor. I don't quite understand this new naming system, but I understand i3 would have 2.2 or so ghz and 2 cores. Core 2 duo with 2.0ghz or higher is acceptable, but not ideal.

64-bit windows 7.

Here are things that are of little concern to me: Size(I'd prefer too big to too small, though), hard drive space(like I'm ever going to yews up even 150+GB), weight(this actually doesn't concern me at all, assuming it's not 50lbs), battery life(this is important to me, but it's more of a perk than a deciding factor), and drive(who cares about blue-ray? Not me.).

Now yall probably know a lot more about gaming requirements than me, so feel free to make proper adjustments to these things if I haven't made a lot of sense.

Thanks.

[GUARD!AN]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834115675

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834114719

[Turky]

It's a complete mixup between guard's links and the one muffin found. The ones from newegg have a better gpu, but no blu ray. And I'm surprised that blu-ray would even work with an intel GMA and i3 but whatever.

But, Intel GMA will barely suffice as far as gaming goes. GT 230M or better or don't waste your money.

ps: remember it's not just about video memory size. Yes it's bare minimum these days to have a 256 for a laptop, but a 512MB GT 230M will obviously outdo a 1GB GT 130M, for example. You have to pay close attention to the actual gpu model number; you can find a rather complete comparison of laptop vidcards here. Higher 3dmark06 score = better card pretty much.

[Maximus]

$600 with a decent GPU isn't going to happen, 700-800 you might get close to something decent. This could be a starting point:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... 23%3A18470