Hey all! My name is toomeyp , I use to be a strong part of the mapping community many years ago(on ZM). I find myself having hr time to get back into mapping, and am anxious to start again.
if anyone remembers me, glad to see you again.

anyways, I’m going shopping for a laptop this week so I can re-enter the community and provide content. If I were to go buy a BASIC model lap top would that be able to run the tools and WAW ?  I would think so with the age of the game, but wanted some opinions before I waste money on something that won’t process well.

obviously I’m gonna make sure the specs are suitable for waw first but I have no idea what the basic laptops specs are this day and age.

Welcome to UGX!

A basic laptop will definately be able to run W@W, both game as well as modtools.
When I started modding years ago on my laptop i believe it only had 4GB of RAM, a lame i5 and (although dedicated) a small Nvidia GPU. So as long as you get enought RAM (definitely 8GB) and a good processor you'll probably be fine. Make sure it has enough storage though, assets can and will take up a lot of your space 
Hope this helps a bit! Enjoy your stay.

Lukkie1998