Out of Pod Experience

For below $200, something used. I'd recommend against buying direct from previous owner as you can't be sure what's been done to the thing or what kind of shape its in. You also don't benefit from any warranty that might still be on the machine.

I know most laptop manufacturers (Dell, HP, etc...) have pre-owned/refurbished laptops for sale. Might want to check those out.

As long as it meets the minimum specs, then you're fine to play EvE in the fashion you plan to - i.e. no pvp or performance-intensive gameplace.

Best buy is fine, as is any other big chain store. They tend to offer warranties, which I would definitely recommend you get. I like Dell, and have been a customer for over 10 years, but I also replace my machine every 2 years in order to keep it as close to state of the art as possible. Older/lower-spec Dells new are very expensive, but they have tons of refurbished ones directly through them or through retailers for pretty decent prices.

OK OK So after some research I've found a few options, but I still dont know about their graphics cards. Here they are, if you could help me figure out which one is best I'll marry you!

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-latitude-14-1-notebook-intel-dual-core-2-core-2-20-ghz-silver/1309059867.p?id=mp1309059867&skuId=1309059867

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-refurbished-14-1-latitude-notebook-2-gb-memory-80-gb-hard-drive-black/1311784351.p?id=mp1311784351&skuId=1311784351

I'm fairly certain the second one will run it. The 4500M HD internal graphics "should" be good enough to run it on lowest setting so long as you never leave the station :P

I'd send a message to tech support and ask.

They do not. I suggest a long skill queue then.

OK So in theory this:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-thinkpad-t61-15-5-notebook-intel-core-2-duo-dual-core-2-core-2-ghz-black/1305327274.p?id=mp1305327274&skuId=1305327274

and this:
http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=105&cp_id=10501&cs_id=1050109&p_id=8075&seq=1&format=2#specifications

will give me the ability to play EVE on any Wi-Fi networks/hotspots?

Edit: How do you know if it can run EVE or not? Is there a website or are you just a super-genious?

OP, any relatively modern i5 laptop or AMD-equivalent can run EVE just fine, even without enhanced graphics output, as long as you stick to more basic tasks. Station trading, solo stuff, exploration, wormhole stuff, PI, logistics would be be just fine. Don't expect it to be able to handle large battles. POS fields and dictor/hictor/anchored bubbles will also cause performance issues (unless they've been changed recently by the devs to be less taxing). Don't expect to be able to run Teamspeak that well (which eats as much CPU as EVE). Assign them to different cores in the taskman if you must use Teamspeak and EVE at the same time. Expect to keep graphics on relatively low settings.

Enhanced graphics output, something beyond the most basic NVIDIA or AMD/ATI laptop graphics controllers will help. Some brand-name graphics controllers are actually inferior to onboard Intel graphics controllers, so don't let that fool you. With regards to graphics cards, think of them as being a separate computer within a computer. The hardware is built exclusively to handle graphics processing, has its own GPU and RAM, taking the strain off the CPU and RAM on the motherboard.

But laptops are laptops, and you will never get the same unit of performance out of it for $ spent as you would in a desktop. A modestly upgraded socket 775 Core 2 Duo desktop PC with an NVIDIA 8600/8800/9800 GPU and DDR2 RAM will easily outperform a typical i5 laptop with DDR3, every time.

My background: I've been a system builder off and on since 1999. Without trying to sound immodest, I'd estimate if you picked 10,000 people at random, I'd be the most knowledgeable in the group regarding hardware. The release of DDR4 did escape my attention though, in one of my "off" phases.

Newegg all the way.

I have like 18 Tabs open with different websites that each give me one peace of info at a time. If I can put up with spreadsheet sim I can put up with this. Bob Help Me!

You sir deserve a medal. Thank you very much, and I am pleased to say that my budget has been increased to $500 (Decided a class ring wasn't worth it) So I'll still look into the T410, if you have any higher-priced suggestions I'd love to hear them!