I'm going to college and I need a laptop. Now, before you all tell me to get a cheap laptop and a good desktop, sorry, that's not going to happen. I'm not going to be an avid gamer in college, but I still want to be able to play recent games on decent settings. I realize that I won't be able to run games on high/ultra without wasting a bunch of money, but that's okay. Right now on this desktop, I can run games like Skyrim on medium-high and SC2/D3 on mostly high, and that's good enough. Since this computer's over a year old and has a shitty graphics card (AMD HD Radeon 6450) and only an AMD Athlon II X2 260 processor, I'm sure you guys can find something that has better hardware than this. I really like Vaio's, but I'm pretty sure they're a waste of money... but they are really sexy. D; Roy and Sac said that Lenovo's are good, but I don't know a single person who has one of those. Are they actually reliable? I'm sure that laptop brands really don't matter that much, but I really don't want to shy away from the big names like Sony, HP, Asus, etc...

My budget is going to be under $1000. Once again, I realize that I won't be able to get a great gaming laptop with that amount of money, but there's got to be something out there that's decent, right? Also, appearance does matter to me a bit. I really like laptops that are sleek and flat (like this) instead of the bulky, 'bubbly' look that older laptops have (like this). Oh, and I really want 1920x1080 resolution with a screen of about 15-16". Thanks in advance if you guys find something for me. :3

I am a single person who has one of those. I don't specifically remember saying they are good. They're quality, but pretty expensive. Also when Windows 7 was released, it took Lenovo a while to get all their firmware on my W500 (specs) to be entirely compatible with it (several features, albeit relatively unimportant, weren't working or were shoddy for about a year), but I suppose that won't really matter to you. This thing can run SC2 on medium on a good day, as long as you have your fan set up right (else it will overheat); I normally play on low settings with medium shaders to get better FPS, though. The bottleneck is definitely the GPU. Anyway, I've owned the thing for about three years now, and I can't complain (except for how much money I spent on it); it still works, and there's a program called TPFanControl for ThinkPads that helps a lot if you want to game with it.

The other laptop I've owned was an Acer, which was alright, I suppose. This was way back in the early 2000's when I helped buy it as a birthday present for myself, and while it has a few quirks a decade later, it still runs. It was pretty cheap for the specs at the time.

Anyway, if you want a gaming laptop, you should also try to fit a cooling dock into your budget, because it will run hot when you game. I don't have time to hunt down laptops at the moment (nor would I be the one to find you the best deal), but you'll want a decent GPU if you want to run SC2 on medium-high.

Something cheap, that if it gets lost, stolen or broken you won't cry home to your parents for another. I had a Dell first (it sucked) and then I switched to an Acer (much better) and now that I'm out of school I have a Lenovo G570 (which I am appreciating thoroughly). The Acer went through a lot and still worked exceptionally well, we upgraded the RAM at one point...so if possible I'd make sure that such upgrades are available for your laptop, but the Acer was a $330 laptop. I could still use it right now if I needed to. The Acer allowed me to do 10 Man ICC, so I was pretty happy with it's gaming capability. I haven't raided with my Lenovo, but the only discernible difference is that my Lenovo now handles nicer, prettier graphics on WoW better, but it has a long way to go before it gets ultra.

From what I've seen, $350 laptops are the cheapest you can go without going to older versions, but they'll have the things you need like office and such. The next bracket where the money you're spending is worth it is at $600-700, and then after that there is minimal improvement until you break $1000. Anything between 700-1200 is usually unnoticeable as far as quality is concerned. And on 'wasting a bunch of money' to play on ultra...you would need an annoying, bulky monstrosity that won't work in classes and will be a pain in the ass to lug around campus - not to mention a price range around $1500....

What you should be looking at is something light weight, that can take some hard handling (my Acer faithfully worked after being banged around frequently on the rush hour train to and from campus), and with a decent battery life.

Honestly, I don't think I'd even take my laptop to classes that often. I'd just take notes on paper and use my laptop for homework and stuff after class. I do want it to be light-weight and have a good battery life regardless, though. I wish I knew a little about graphics cards so I could figure out which were decent and which were trash. >_> Also, would getting an i7 on a laptop just be a waste of money? Should I look for i5's more seriously?

i7 is a waste of money in a laptop, you could get by with an i3, really.

i5 to i7 was one of those things that needlessly made the price of the laptop jump drastically, unfortunately, and it was usually at the expense of other things, like your graphic card, being not as powerful...unless a lot has changed since I got my lenovo. I have an i5 and I don't have issues with it.

I have both an Acer and an Asus and they both seem decent enough if not way overly expensive for the mediocre power they have. Laptops are ridiculous in pricing no matter which way you go. So, be prepared to drop bank.

You should bid on this right now.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gateway-P-6860-FX-Gaming-Laptop-Notebook-w-upgraded-1920x1200-WUXGA-screen-WOW-/180914427790?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item2a1f57178e

I bought this computer when it was brand new for $1200. Do a little research on that video card. It was state of the art when it came out and is still pretty awesome today. I love this laptop, haven't had a problem in the 7 years I've had it, and it runs SC2 on High graphics

Edit: I should mention that this laptop doesn't hold a charge for very long on high settings, and even on low settings it isn't the best.

Looks nice, but my dad isn't very hip with the whole online bidding thing, and he's the one buying it, so I'd rather just get a new one. Honestly, though, I'll probably just end up wasting a lot of money on something that seems really nice but in the end is only moderately decent.

You can buy it used from Amazon, then ("Like new" for $460): http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B001BNDSU4/ref=dp_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=all

He'll probably have it plugged in more often than he thinks he will. I remember I used to care about battery life once.

I don't know if in this day and age we can still be recommending an 8800GTS M.

A quick look has me recommending this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230454

The laptop Excalibur linked has very good specs for that amount of money (GTX 560M; to put things into perspective, that's about 50% faster than the Razer Blade's GPU). It is, however, over your budget slightly, and more like a gigantic brick than a portable laptop and likely has a battery life shorter than one average university lecture.

It also pretty much isn't going to feel like a $1000 "upgrade" compared to your desktop, performance-wise. Cramming high performance into the low thermal envelope allowed for mobile components is not simple and commands a significant premium. I would recommend you go the route of laptop with long battery life and a fast processor with integrated GPU, and spending the leftovers on a desktop upgrade. Gaming laptops that big often end up anchored to a desk anyway because you're pretty much not going to be moving that mass.

He said he wanted to be able to play modern games at high graphics. Maybe in 4 years he'll be playing newer games on low graphics, but it meets his needs decently enough. The laptop you recommended has 8GB Memory, the Nvidia GTX 560, and that brand new processor, which are all nice for that price range, but based on what he's going to be using it for, it doesn't seem necessary to pay 2.5x more for a laptop.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 27 2012, 9:13 am by Leeroy_Jenkins.

I understand its a little overpowered for his uses, but for the price, I figured it couldn't hurt. I wasn't seeing many laptops with a decent GPU in his price range. Honestly, most mobile GPUs are so cut down and power starved, getting a decent gpu in a laptop becomes a very expensive task.

I have the high end model of this laptop, T8300 processor instead of T5500, 2x200GB 7200RPM raid0 hard drive, etc. As Excalibur said, it is no longer even close to the upper end of the spectrum anymore. Aside from that, I have no idea how its possible that you're running SC2 on High. Maybe for 3 minutes, but then the temps inside the laptop hit 100C and higher. I've melted the motherboard twice, and I keep my laptop on top of a cooling pad all the time.

Edit: Just did a test run and opened SC2 on high for 90 seconds, and the temp rose to 85C, started to level out. Thats not quite as critical as 100C, which I've hit before (the gateway P-models cut out at 110C, which I know both from experience and from researching the specs sheet of the motherboard), but that's not quite a recipie for success either, and I wasn't even playing an actual game. Sc2 isn't actually a "new" game anymore either, its nearly 2 years old now.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jun 28 2012, 1:31 am by Vrael.