The laptop I'm looking at right now is the Samsung QX410. Its sold in just one configuration with a Nvidia GeForce 310M graphics card with 512MB memory and an Intel Core i5 460 dual-core processor at 2.53 GHz with TurboBoost. I know that the GeForce 310M is entry level however will it be able to run FSX well?

I think not really. In generally FSX on a laptop won´t work well in any ways. 512 MB are not much, if you do not have more than 4GB, you can forget about it. And also the CPU is a little bit slow. I have 3Ghz and it doesn´t run compeletly smooth so under 3Ghz no way to get is somehow smooth.Okay, it might run, but on this laptop you won´t get good framerates. so if you do have more money, look for an better one, cause this one you´ve found is a little bit too slow for fsx.Hope that helps.

Right now all I have on my Dell Inspiron e1505 is an Intel Core Duo @ 1.73 GHz with ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 graphics with 128MB RAM. If I end up getting the laptop with the specs in my previous post, do you think I'll at least have some improvement in performance? In detailed areas right now I'm lucky if I get above 20 fps.

What´s your performance right now?You might get some better performance, but running addons would be very difficult. Why do you want to buy an laptop instead an PC?

Right now I'm lucky if I get above 20 fps with addons. I want to get a laptop mainly because I'm in high school and going into college soon and portability is an issue. The price of $800 for the laptop is pretty much all I can afford right now.

I can undetstand this. The spec´s you´ve listned are ok, but do not expect too much. It might be a leap forward, but I´m not sure wheather there might be a better one out there.

I have a feeling I'll be getting this one. I'm not looking for screaming performance, just enough to get the job done with at least medium visual settings. CNET currently has it ranked in their top five and aesthetically the laptop looks nearly identical to a MacBook Pro.

I´ve also searched for some "high end laptops" but for your money I didn´t find anythig, so your choice might be good.Could you tell me the performance when you get FSX runnig there, I would be interested in that.How many Gb RAM does this laptop have?

4GB RAM. Here's all the specs: http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/laptops/NP-QX410-J01US-features

Looks quite nice, but I´ve found annother point: Is the OS 32 or 64 bit? ´Cause if it is 32 bit, you won´t be able to use the whole 4 GB due to the limitations in 32 bit, so you could only use 3,25 GB, although 4 GB are installed. Therefore I think you should check wheather you can get an 64 bit OS. Also the whole OS could be better. Try to get Windows 7 professional instead of the home premium, cause only the professional version and upwards have the XP-compatability mode, which allows you to use the "old" XP written executables as they were written. Windows7 home premium could cause installation problems when trying to install programms without the XP mode.I personally have heared from some computer specialists, where I´ve bougth my PC, that you need to have the XP mode when you want to install anything which was written for XP. Otherwise it wont work correctly.

The laptop comes with 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium. As I said it only comes in one configuration and is sold exclusively at Best Buy stores. I would definatley consider upgrading to Windows 7 Professional in the future though but I think buying a car for myself comes first

Looks quite nice, but I´ve found annother point: Is the OS 32 or 64 bit? ´Cause if it is 32 bit, you won´t be able to use the whole 4 GB due to the limitations in 32 bit, so you could only use 3,25 GB, although 4 GB are installed. Therefore I think you should check wheather you can get an 64 bit OS. Also the whole OS could be better. Try to get Windows 7 professional instead of the home premium, cause only the professional version and upwards have the XP-compatability mode, which allows you to use the "old" XP written executables as they were written. Windows7 home premium could cause installation problems when trying to install programms without the XP mode.I personally have heared from some computer specialists, where I´ve bougth my PC, that you need to have the XP mode when you want to install anything which was written for XP. Otherwise it wont work correctly.

HelloYour "Computer Specialists" are talking rubbishThe XP mode in Windows 7 professional is for running legacy business applications in a "Virtual PC"It is basically a copy of XP running inside a VM and does not support Direct3d or any form of hardware acceleration..so useless for FS9 and FSX.Some further reading http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/reviews/2010/01/windows-xp-mode.arsAll versions of Windows 7 allow you to run applications with compatibility options, just right click on the executable and choose options you want from the compatability tab.Home premium is all you need for FS9 and FSX.Unless of course you want to run some old database in a VM

HelloYour "Computer Specialists" are talking rubbishThe XP mode in Windows 7 professional is for running legacy business applications in a "Virtual PC"It is basically a copy of XP running inside a VM and does not support Direct3d or any form of hardware acceleration..so useless for FS9 and FSX.Some further reading http://arstechnica.c...ows-xp-mode.arsAll versions of Windows 7 allow you to run applications with compatibility options, just right click on the executable and choose options you want from the compatability tab.Home premium is all you need for FS9 and FSX.Unless of course you want to run some old database in a VM

Oh Sorry, I think I understood something wrong, it has to be my fault.

Actually WIndows does SxS , the Virtual PC update runs a full virtual machine with ONLY XP resources. Big difference and hence why its a 700mb download.