Good Truebox Laptop Option?

I'm looking to buy an inexpensive laptop solely for trueboxing. Here's what I've found as options but not sure if they will be able to perform well enough.

https://www.amazon.com/HP-14-inch-Celeron-Personal-14-cb184nr/dp/B084SL2J42

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Latitude-E6440-Professional-Refurbished/dp/B07FVK5QL9

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Dual-core-A6-9220e-Personal-Legendary/dp/B083Q4PWFF

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-130S-Bluetooth-Personal-Included/dp/B07S8CGX9X
Any opinions on one of those options?

You really do not want something with just a hard drive or eMMC storage both are just too slow. Also windows10 is getting bloated to the point that 64gb of storage is leaving very little for Everquest.

Try taking a look at ryzen 3 3200U laptops you can find *renewed* one for about the same price as the options you linked. The biggest hassle with AMD Ryzen based laptops is making sure you have updated chipset drivers installed. The drivers were absolute trash when they launched which caused many returns.

I'd go for the i5 then replace the hard drive with an ssd, I'm not sure about some of those other processors. The HP only has a 32gig hard drive, once you have windows on there everquest will feel pretty big

I would prob. look around little more?

I prob wouldn't rec. any of those for the prices.

Couple things to keep in mind.
Majority of laptops Share its RAM to the video card
Windows 7 uses about 1GB ram
Windows 10 uses about 2 to 2.5GBs ram

does the laptop offer 2GHZ wifi ONLY? or 5GHZ (( or does it have ethernet port))
SVGA or HDMI connectors

EQ uses 15-30% CPU usage on quadcore , so dual core i maybe wouldn't rec

SSD Drive is highly Rec. and cheap now days also, eMMC i would not rec.


just somethings i thought about when i got my EQ BOX lol

check places for refurbished

Buy refurbished. Or go to electronic stores, pawnshops etc and you should be able to find a old used one that'll do just fine.

Well Idk with the whole Covid thing, but that's how I got my 2 Laptops for my boxing needs

I bought 2 Ryzen 2500 with 4gigs ram 256gigs ssd (not emmc) 15.6" they boot in 16 seconds, zone as fast as my desktop (Ryzen 3600)

cost me like 200 bucks... Acer Aspire 3 (A315-41-R6VQ) runs brilliantly, nice enough keyboard and then I bought two wireless logitech mice that I use for them

I'm 90% certain the average doorbell could run EQ.

they can, but loadtime/zonetime is a comfort thing, noone wanna wait on a 2min load when you can get a 20sec one for little money

If you're not waiting for a sale, this is in your price range:

Maybe it changes down the road, but I raided Kunark/Velious running Windows 10 and EQ sideloaded on a usb 3 thumb drive. Game doesn’t require that much speed.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I ditched amazon and am checking out tiger direct. This search brings up a lot of good options:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/guidedSearch.asp?CatId=17&sel=Detail;175_1099_32575_32575,Price;Price5,Detail;112_479_53451_53451&Sort=4&pageSize=30&Page=1

These seem like pretty good contenders for their price range. Just need to figure out how important an i7 vs newer i5 vs older i5 is and whether 16GB matters all that much.

$500:
HP Zbook 15 Mobile Workstation - Intel Core i7-4800MQ Quad-Core 2.7GHz, 16GB DDR3, 256GB SSD
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6269326

$350:
DELL Latitude E7270 Notebook PC - Intel Core i5-6300U 2.4GHz, 8GB Memory, 256GB SSD
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=604487

$280:
Lenovo ThinkPad X240 Notebook PC - Intel Core i5-4300U 1.9GHz, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=604488

If you live near a university just call their surplus sales department for computers.

That Lenovo x240 with a SSD will run EQ just fine. I used to 6box on a basic Lenovo t540p with mechanical HDD and it's same gen. I would kick in the extra for the Dell though for the much better CPU

I use Intel NUC with 8 gb of ram, a 128 to 256 gb ssd and at least a core i3 processor.

Why do I use these over a laptop?

They are small, and use very little power. You can use a standalone monitor/keyboard/mouse and I personally like to use ethernet connection versus wifi but I custom wired my house for it so your mileage may vary.

I would start with this, add 8 gb of ram and at least 128 gb of hard drive space.

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-NUC-Ma...=intel nuc refurbished&qid=1588549339&sr=8-10

This was my first thought but I'm looking at the laptops for just a more condensed solution that also has a mouse/keyboard/display/speakers integrated into it. Laptops are just so cheap, I wouldn't save much (if anything) by going with the NUC.

Just ordered this option, thanks for the help!

I actually bought this today. Offered 175 and they accepted.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-E6520...5?pageci=8e4c081d-5b13-45e0-a8f0-8cee2c9b8ba8

Had everything I was looking for. i7, ssd, 8gb ram and a dedicated graphics card. Huge improvement over my old laptop!

I went to a local place in my area and they had refurb items for 75$ They had I5 and I7.
I am not sure if it has changed but back in the day EQ was CPU relent more than GPU.
It runs it fine. I bought a usb number pad to do spells easier.

Integrated Graphics work, but I'd recommend older gaming laptop with dedicated graphics instead.

This is a good list - https://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

And head down to the 'low-midrange graphics card' section and search eBay for laptops with graphic cards like the GT 750M, GT 640M, GT 720M or their AMD equivalent cards. Some can be had for around $150 bucks.