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Some Dell laptops have no graphics cards?

By Sharon Jackson in Reader

Posted in computers on July 24, 2009 at 5:07 pm

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I have just been looking for a laptop for my son - he’s had an old desktop for ages and it won’t run half the stuff he wants so we thought we’d treat him. There was a budget but looking online I knew we could get something decent. Plus he wanted it urgently (don’t they always).

Because of this so-called urgency we stopped off at PC World first. I’d had a look on the internet so knew roughly what was available. We had a look around and decided on the Dell 1545 as it had the right specs to play Oblivion (a 2006 game) and looked nice and sleek like Dells generally do.

The salesman eventually came over and we started talking about it and how I didn’t want the add on Norton or TechGuy set up. We mentioned gaming and he immediately said it would not be good enough. No word of a lie - he actually said at one point that this Dell didn’t have a graphics card. Now, Oblivion runs perfectly fine on my daughter’s 4+ yr old laptop so I knew that a new, if not exactly high-spec, Dell should be OK. But no, he wouldn’t have it. I needed a dual-core processor and a better this that and the other. I ended up walking out.

I am now about to set up the Acer I bought from Comet, same price but slightly better spec with a similar glossy, dark blue lid.  The guys in Comet said that it would an older game no problem (thinking about it, daughter runs Sims 3 perfectly fine on her older laptop so I don’t foresee any problems).

Can someone out there vindicate what I think - that the guy in PC World was trying to pull a fast one; mother on her own with teenage son = easy target maybe? Or do Dell really sell laptops without graphics cards?

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Comments

Comment by ABP - July 25, 2009 on 10:15 am

He probably meant that it just had the standard dell onboard graphics card rather than an ATI or Nvidia.

Presumably your son won’t be playing the Sims (a game where speed isn’t that important) and will probably want to play online against others. Having a low spec computer can be a serious handicap in online gaming, especially when playing first person shooters. Whilst I can’t stand PC World I think the salesman was spot on.

Comment by Sharon Jackson - July 25, 2009 on 10:29 am

Hi ABP - thanks for your comment, you may be right in what he meant but that’s not what he said. It wasn’t just that though, it was the ‘need a dual core processor + other higher specs’ that really made me suspicious for his motives.
He didn’t ask at all about online gaming (we have an Xbox 360 for that) and I specifically said it was an old(ish) game. I also mentioned that it ran fine on a 4+yr old laptop.
Son is very happy with his Acer and was playing Oblivion last night.
:-)

Comment by ABP - July 25, 2009 on 4:21 pm

Glad to hear that Sharon! He probably wasn’t aware of the system requirements, heard the word “gaming” and assumed that higher specs would be required for modern games. The people in those kind of shops aren’t known for their expertise.

Comment by IB - July 28, 2009 on 12:06 pm

I was in PC World recently helping my father choose a PC. Apparently AVG is no longer free and Open Office wont read/write Word documents…. Needless to say my father’s money went to Comet.

Comment by Sharon Jackson - July 28, 2009 on 2:48 pm

To add to the tale…

When I told my dad he mentioned returning a faulty NAS drive and the guy on the counter had to ask him what it did - he thought it was just a regular external drive and tried to sell my dad one of them instead of another NAS. Dad got his money back instead.

I’d be ashamed to work somewhere and not know at least the basics.

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