Laptop

Im looking at getting a laptop but not wanting too spend an arm and leg on it...

Im wanting it too pratice my graphics and surf the web, and play games

any ideas of what type I should look at at getting...

Acer Aspire series are great, and more importantly, cheap-priced. Check those series out. Just avoid the 3000 series sempron-based, they suck thru batteries faster than you can reach for the power-chord. The 5000 Turion-based ones are sweet. I have the 5002 model, and got it for under $800 canadian.

Sony and Toshiba are overpriced. Other good priced ones are from LG and Gateway.

Basically, just get cheapest you find, but avoid the Pentium4-based, Celeron based, and Sempron based models. Try to get Turion, Centrino, Pentium-M, or the new Intel Core.

I'm going to add this one piece of advice.

Don't buy Dell.

Seriously.

If you can afford a Core Duo or Core2Duo model then get it. They're seriously the best thing out there at the moment. Other than that, depending on what kind of games are important to you, you might well want to make sure you've got a decent graphics card rather than on-board chip and to stretch to 1GB RAM (definitely 512MB though)

as far as gaming goes I really dont know, my experience with PC games goes as far as Civ 3 but Ive been seeing some kick ass games as of late for the PC

if you're thinking high-end gaming, forget about any laptop route. graphics won't handle it, they'll overheat, and the sound on laptops is pathetic.you'd have to carry around with your laptop a gaming mouse, speakers, maybe even keyboard since i dont think you'd want to be pounding away at a laptop's keyboard the same way you pound on a regular keyboard in some games. ;)

even things such as RAM, you'd only find the cheapest RAM chips in a laptop, high lantency low bandwith modules, whereas on a desktop, it's recommend to get low latency high bandwith gaming-grade RAM for the best performance.

problen with a desktop is I dont have alot of room for one thats why I was thinking laptop doesnt take up alot of space... Do they make a compact desktop? lol

they do, actually. ;0

Cases such as 'slimline' mini-desktop cases like this,
www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=15102
or a 'media centre' case like this,
www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=15730
can be loaded up with a micro-ATX motherboard, and couple that setup with say a 15" or 17" LCD mounted to a wall, and add to that a wireless keyboard/mouse, and you have a tiny desktop PC that is still very powerful.

these days, you dont really need dedicated computer desk to enjoy a desktop computer. with that slimline box taking up no more room than a game console, keep the wireless keyboard/mouse under your coffee table, and hook up the PC to your LCD TV and sound to your stereo system, and you have a computer you can use from the living room couch.