I looked at a CULV version of the Acer Timeline 3810T for Technophile, and was impressed by its quality. It ought to be good enough for mid-range games, the drawback being the processor speed: it's only 1.4GHz. It is thin and light (1.4kg) and Acer claims a 9-hour battery life, so it is certainly suitable for a business traveller. This has an Intel Core 2 Duo (SU9400) processor and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics card with 512MB of dedicated memory. There can't be many lightweight laptops that fill the bill, and the one that springs to mind is the Acer Timeline 3810TG running Microsoft Windows 7. I'd look for something with at least a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo chip and a separate graphics card. Usually they have 13.3in or smaller screens, Intel integrated graphics chips, and nowadays may well use slow but power-efficient Intel CULV (Consumer Ultra Low Voltage) processors.Ĭivilization IV is a relatively old game and certainly ought to run on a modern thin-and-light CULV portable, but I suspect it would not be comfortable.
Portable business laptops are at the other end of the scale. Usually they will have a 17in or similar large screen, a separate graphics card, and perhaps even a quad-core processor. Gaming laptops need lots of power so they tend not to be very portable. My wife travels a lot for work, and would like as small a laptop as possible that is capable of running Civilization IV comfortably – and hopefully Civ V when it comes out.
