I *think* it's a type of lapbook computer, originally on the smaller, lower end.

A netbook is a laptop/notebook type computer, which is generally quite small (some no bigger than a large paperback book), inexpensive, and low-powered. They're mainly designed for portability and very light functions like internet browsing, checking email, etc., but do not have the computing power for much beyond that. They may be able to play some games, but that's mostly things like Bejeweled and whatnot... Mine would run Sims 1, but wasn't great at it and boy did it sap the battery something fierce.

There's now a class sort of in between netbook and laptop that has slightly better specs, but in any case, if you want to game on any computer, whether it's portable or not, you really are doing a disservice to yourself and your hardware by not doing it on something made for the task.

It appeared before Apple made the tablet popular by introducing the Ipad.

Actually the netbook is now obsolete. It couldn't be used to play the Sims anyway.

Through my own experience, gaming can have a moderate effect on the depreciation of a laptop. Life variables have made it impossible to link to TS3 at this time, although there was a definite correlation with the brother's high-settings Team Fortress 2 gameplay. (Read: his laptop is on life support and he now plays on a dedicated gaming rig.) All of my laptops have run the vanilla base game fine on high settings, and all of them have run better with Windows 7 than XP. I have experienced no significant difference in strain between TS2 and 3 - this is taking three different laptops into consideration. Expansions always add bloat, and I'm trying to find ways to extract certain content from them for my own personal use as I have bought the games. I don't play heavily, but have definitely used both games enough since around 2008 to know what I'm talking about.

As for casual gamers upgrading for TS4, I would suggest not buying now as everything will be cheaper by the time it's released.

As for me...I plan on building one for Sims 3 and Sims 4.....That way, my hp won't have a mental breakdown with 3 & 4 trying to run it down.......But yes, wait and let EA state the specs the system will need to run it without crashing your system. Like the others have posted the componets (sp) will be cheaper to buy and upgrade your computer.

lol Sorry. I meant to answer you but I forgot.

A teeny-tiny little "laptop" that can't run much of anything, basically. I think it's mostly marketed towards students maybe? Or people who don't do anything but check emails or use wordpad, etc. They're usually pretty cheap too.
And it wouldn't be useful, at all. My friend has a netbook that can't even handle downloads. No way any netbook, no matter how "good" it is, will run anything other than Solitaire or maybe very old PC games that don't really require much.

--

I do plan on getting a new PC for gaming at some point now that I think about it. Not just for the gaming part, I'd use it for internet too. But I might as well get a desktop since the main reason my laptops keep dying is because of all the gaming I do on them... But I travel a lot.
I'm hoping to keep my current laptop from imploding, so I can have this for travel and a desktop for home when I can finally afford one. Whenever that'll be.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that my exe's netbook could, just barely, run the TS2 base game. He was well impressed when I managed to install it, because he didn't have a disc drive. I.m.o netbooks are good for nothing - and this is coming from someone who would take a rubbish laptop over a tablet anyday. If it's got to be a netbook, I'd rather use my phone.

There are gaming laptops on the market that perform quite well with demanding games. Razer just released one called the Blade. The specs are impressive. An i7 processor 2.2/3.2, 8 GB RAM, an ATI 765 mobile video chipset with 2 GB of RAM, a 256 GB SSD, and a 14" 1600X900 display (they claim they didn't go with a 1080 display because Win8 won't scale properly to it, which is news to me). I'll bet it can run TS3 quite well, and I think I can safely say it will run TS4 as well. It will set you back $2K US.

A gaming desktop is way more cost effective, but not nearly as portable, or as pretty to look at. There are other gaming laptops out there, and while they might not command the price premium Razer charges, they're still pricy.

I have to play Sims 3 on low/medium settings I'm worried I may have to buy a decent PC too. I'll wait for the specs to be released before I will start planning on buying anything though.

I'm running Windows 8 at 1080p right now and it runs as good as/the same as OS X and Windows 7. The codswallop and downright nerve of some companies these days... *I'm lookin' at you, dear ol' Sammy*

First Computer that I bought in July 2010 to play TS3.

AMD Phenom II x 2 555BE (Cannot unlock to 4cores)
Kingston DDR3-1333 2GB
Asrock 880GM-LE
WD Blue SATA II 500GB
Powercolor 5770 1GB VRam
Nox Urano II 530W. PSU
Samsung series 3 TV 23" 1360x768
Windows 7 32bit

Before seasons it run TS3 with all expansions perfectly. However after seasons , I see performance drop dramatically.
- My dual cores CPU work nearly constant 100% when play TS3.
- My game always crash to desktop because running out of memory.
- Framerate drop.

So I upgrade to
i5-2500K OC 4.8GHz
Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO
Biostar tZ77Xe4
Kingston DDR3-1333 8GB
Plextor M5Pro Extreme 128GB SSD
Windows 8 64bit

Now it's ok , my quad cores CPU still heavy load ~60% , RAM is enough , old VGA is just fine not too powerful or too weak.
Maybe I will upgrade VGA to 7970 when TS4 come out.

So basically DO NOT plan to buy computer to play TS4 with ALL EXPANSIONS !!
maybe in 2017-2019 you will NEED to upgrade again , each expansions consume more and more computer resource

I predict TS4 "later EPs" will use 6-8cores CPU , VGA 7950/7970 with max setting but that is still expensive now may be in the future 9790/9850 will "equal" to those powerful card but a lot cheaper.

Antec Twelve Hundred case
i7 3930k
Corsair H80 Water Cooler
Asus Sabertooth X79 mobo
Gigabyte GTX 780 3gb @7000mhz
8GB Corsair 1866mhz Vengeance
500GB S-ATA III
Corsair 180GB Force3 SSD
1050W Corsair HX Modular

runs everything like a beast, i only use it for browsing and casual gaming. i feel stupid.

Might as well go ahead and post my specs.

i5 4670k
GA-z87x-ud3h
G.Skill Ripjaws X series 1600Mhz 8GB
ATI HD6970 2GB (the oldest part, but still sufficient)
Kingston 60GB SSD
Samsung 840 120GB SSD
Hitachi 3TB 7200rpm
NZXT Phantom 630 case
Seasonic 760W PSU

I do not fear Sims 4.

You don't have to buy a new laptop, if yours can run sims 3 then the graphics card will be good for any future sims releases. Consider buying a new processor. Intel do really good laptop processors - it'll sort out the problems you're having and it'll also mean you can play better games on higher settings :D. If you do have a problem with your graphics card then get the NVidia 630 GTi Laptop range. It's seriously £200 for a really decent graphics card and processor (you'll find they'll exceed the requirements for any future releases and it's much cheaper and simpler than a whole new computer!

Another thing people don't actually think of: Get a power cable that can deal with a higher wattage. Part of the problem with using laptops to game is that it drains the power quicker than your cable can pump in.

Hope I helped/ saved you money :D

I don't believe for one second you had TS3 running on a netbook.

? why not? My 3 year old laptop still never misses a beat no matter what I throw on her (which is a lot) - I have no issues with running Sims3 and she is a store bought machine - not a custom built rig!

Because a netbook is not the same as a laptop. A netbook has, by design, low-end specs that make it inexpensive, small, lightweight, and usually with lower power consumption than a standard laptop. It's simply not made for "proper" gaming. My netbook can barely run Sims 1 - Sims 2 and Sims 3 are simply out of the question for it. A particularly strong netbook -might- be able to play base game TS2, but even then, it would be a bad idea as I don't know of any of them that have anything but the absolute simplest of graphics cards (Integrated Intel, which I have seen scores of sim-players have issues with).

My copy of sims 3 has more glitches than any other game I know even if I run it at high res it will still have that problem. It was worse on my old laptop more glitches and missing textures. It all depends on what computer you have and how good it is to handle the game for I think my copy or at least the sims 3 in general decides when it wants to work well.

This is what I'm doing now with a techie I trust. (If you can DIY, even better! Unfortunately, I don't possess that skill. ) It's my first time doing this.

I looked at the pre-builts in my budget, and with every single one, there was at least one item I would have had to replace/switch, anyway. For instance, as Issie wrote, I looked at a few interesting new models where I would have had to replace the graphics card. By the time I would have replaced it, the costs between the two models would be very similar.

It is amazing what you CAN recycle on an old model. I'm amazed that with just a couple of pieces of inexpensive parts, I can make a new external hard drive out of my old one. I can reuse my case and apply what I would have spent on a new one toward upgrading a piece of hardware. This experience opened my eyes on how we can recycle our computer parts. Made me wish I did this sooner!

Last night I 'built' a computer online, and I'm hoping to purchase it and get it as soon as I can. Money is tight right now, though, so I'm just gonna have to wait. I have a laptop, and it's pretty powerful, so it can run Sims 3 okay. There's times when I get lag spikes, but it's nothing really terrible. I hate having a laptop, though. This thing gets extremely hot really fast, and I hate it. I don't even see how it's still running. I'm just gonna wait until they release the specs, then I'll definitely look into it.

I just recently got a whole new PC (well actually it's a hand me down since my dad was getting a new one and his PC was better then mine) after years of using the same PC with upgrades for memory and video card. My dad personally assembled both this PC and the one he has now, we never buy prebuilt desktops.

I may upgrade the graphics card for Sims 4 though, it's actually the same model as the one I was using in my old PC so it's a couple of years old now.

Personally, I have been holding back on making new Game Purchases (besides little indie games that don't require much) because I plan on upgrading my computer. I already bought a graphics card, I just need to buy a new CPU and motherboard. I was planning on buying an FX-6300 and a good quality AM3+ Motherboard that could possibly overclock the CPU.


--Ocram

It's a skill that's very easy to acquire, and your friend could probably teach you easily. There are plenty of guides that show you what plugs into what, and all the connectors have been made as foolproof as they possibly can them. When I did my first build back in the 90's, I bought a book that showed me what to do. Now there are more guides and tutorials on youtube to poke a stick at.

The only thing you really need to watch out for is static electricity, as that can damage the components. But if you follow a few simple rules, you should be okay.

Agreed here re the netbook. Mine runs Sims 1 fine ... up to Unleashed. After that, it will not cooperate, and I don't force it. But that wasn't what I bought if for, anyway. Back when I bought it (around 2009),I wanted a small, inexpensive computer for mainly e-mails and surfing that is easy to fit in a duffle bag when dealing with certain transportation entitles that are very strict on carry-ons. My netbook fits that purpose fine. It's not a gaming machine ... well, except for solitaire, a mahjong game I downloaded some time ago, and my (truncated) Sims 1 series.

For a while, I thought that I bought a "bad" Superstar expansion, but I recently put all of the expansions on a laptop (NOT a netbook) just to see if that was the case. It wasn't. The laptop played all the expansions just fine.

If my netbook is getting all temperamental with some of 1, I'm sure as hay-ell not going to try 2 or 3! My netbook with Sims 1 usually gets my Sims fix satisfied until I get home to my PC. Besides Sims 1 has its own charm.

I'm fairly certain that my computer could handle it to some extent. It's a Core 2 Extreme QX6700 overclocked to 3.2GHz with 8GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1600 RAM and an XFX Radeon HD 6770 1GB. It's able to run The Sims 3 at max settings with no slowdown after install (of course, after immense amounts of playtime in a world, that changes, but that's par for the course).

I am, however, working on building a new computer. My new build is an Intel Core i7-4770K, 16GB G.Skill Trident X DDR3-1600 with a CAS latency of 7, 128GB Plextor M5M solid state disk, 2TB Seagate Constellation hard drive with 128MB cache, ASRock Z87E-ITX, and an Nvidia GTX 780. I've already bought and assembled something workable from it, as I purchased the processor (and cooler), case, power supply, and SSD. I didn't buy the new RAM yet, as I already have a spare 8GB lying around, and I'm just using the onboard video (which is surprisingly decent, given it is an integrated chip). For the video card, I'm not sure if I want to wait for a version with more VRAM or settle with the 3GB version that's already out. I've already decided against Titan, purely because of cost ($1000 is just too much for me). I'm also not doing this all at once. I've been ordering parts continuously for the past month or so.

The Sims 4 was a major factor in doing this build, as well. I mean, The Sims 3 is very CPU and memory hungry, and I can only imagine what The Sims 4 is going to be like, if it has similar circumstances to The Sims 3 (old engine for new game, poor coding, and all that jazz). I also want to be able to play the game well for a while.

However, I'm not doing this build solely for The Sims 4. I also do programming, some game development, and a lot of PC gaming aside from The Sims. I also wanted to give my little brother something decent to play his games with, and I didn't want a towering monstrosity anymore, so I'm giving him my old computer mentioned above. And did I mention how big it is? For a size approximation, the case was so big, there wasn't even an inch between the top of it and the desk it sat under.

If you know someone who can, or you can do it yourself, I would say build a computer. That way, you can skimp out on areas that you don't particularly need (chipset is usually one) and put the money towards areas that you do (RAM and CPU, two of things needed most by The Sims). You'll usually save some money building one, too, and you can even choose a case that matches the room it'll be in.

If you do buy prebuilt, avoid IBuyPower like the plague. A few of my friends have bought from them, and they all had problems with their computers. My one friend bought his with a GTX 650 Ti preinstalled, and they only gave him a 300-watt power supply, which is clearly not enough power for that video card. My other friend's computer is incredibly poorly assembled. The hard drive was not mounted correctly (half of it was correctly inserted into the mounting rails, the other half was forced in between two sets of mounting rails), and all the cables had incredibly loose connections. The SATA and power cable to the DVD burner and the case fans, especially so, as they weren't connected enough to even get power.