Oh that's so frustrating! I want to hook my monitor to the laptop to play, so I want a small display *AND* a good graphics card.
Are laptop graphics cards easy to replace? I might just go and buy a 12-13" one and replace the GPU...
Notebook parts excluding RAM and hard drives are often soldered into place.
Even if they weren't, notebooks have a tendency to play fast and loose with their thermal budgets. Ever wondered why they're now called notebooks instead of laptops? Some of them would burn you if you tried to use them as laptops
. So, even if you could replace the GPU, it would probably overheat a chassis that wasn't designed to be used with that much heat.As much as I dislike them, you might actually want to look into a Mac. They tend to have that good battery life, non-Intel graphics (but in the 13" ones, still integrated), and can dual boot Windows. The downside is of course that they cost more than a comparable PC and you have to buy Windows separately, which comes to about a $300 Mac Tax. For that you could probably get a different laptop that'll run V2 even better with an upgraded battery. Anyone know how well HOI3 runs on a 2010 Mac Pro compared to say a midrange Windows laptop with discrete graphics?
EDIT: This post of Anand's should be useful to you: Laptop Buyer's Guide: 14-inch and smaller. Sadly, I think the Alienware M11x R2 is going to be alone in being a relatively cheap sub-14" laptop with strong battery life and a dedicated GPU that isn't absolutely bottom-tier. If an alien head on the case and a few more LEDs than necessary don't go with your sense of business decor though, it's not an option. I really wish they'd let you go with a more conventional chassis.
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