If you want good graphics performance, your best performance for the buck is probably a used gaming or professional class laptop with a discrete graphics. I sold a 4 year old professional one for $300 (msi 1651) a couple years back. If you care about battery life, plan on getting a new battery. All things equal, you'll get a lot better screen for the same price, although you won't have the choice of a higher end processor or crazy amounts of ram. Ram is dirt cheap right now though, and you can usually upgrade that easy. <div class="gmail_quote">On Nov 15, 2011 10:24 PM, "Taylor Burke" <<a href="mailto:tburke1192@gmail.com">tburke1192@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> Alright guys, I'd like some advice regarding laptops. I know this sounds odd coming from someone into technology, but it's because I'm approaching mostly unexplored territory. I need a laptop that will run games like TF2 or Half-Life 2 well, but is somewhere in the $400-$500 range. It doesn't need to be a GAMING laptop per se, just one that runs them. Any ideas or recommendations? More than likely the highest I would be willing to go is $600. Regards, Taylor Burke _______________________________________________ linux-user mailing list <a href="mailto:linux-user@egr.msu.edu">linux-user@egr.msu.edu</a> <a href="http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user" target="_blank">http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user</a> </blockquote></div>