Advice on $700-900 Laptop Purchase

[poorprae]

Hello all.

I'm looking to spend $700-900 (maybe up to 1K) on a new laptop. I need a laptop with the following:

1. 17.3" display - When I'm not at my PC, I am browsing/trading stocks. I need to have a 1080p display.

2. Fast and efficient - Doesn't take 5 minutes to boot-up. I need to be able to have half-a-dozen tabs open in Firefox without feeling any sort of sluggishness.

3. Not concerned about gaming. BUT, if I am spending 1K, it would be nice to know that the laptop can handle Skyrim, Battlefield 3, etc. at medium or medium-to-high quality.

Please let suggestions, thank you.

 

[Tibbs01]

Your budget is pretty light for all of those requirements as you need to step into the 1300-1500 range to cover all 3 of your points.

This is the closest I think you could safely do all 3 requested points (except the 1080p, but it's close), but stepping up to a quad core in an i7 would be your best bet: http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834214490&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pe-_-NA-_-NA

If you can stretch your budget this would be ideal: http/www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Asus-G75V-Notebook.73636.0.html

If you eliminate point number 3 there is a decent selection of notebooks in your pricerange: http/www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006740%20600004346%204022&IsNodeId=1&name=%24750%20-%20%241000

 

[saratj1]

You probably need to pick wich is more important:

1. An SSD
Or
2. Better discrete graphics card

You can probably get either one of these and fall within your budget but not both.

I would get the discrete graphics and upgrade to an aftermarket ssd myself. Upgrading a graphics card in a laptop is expensive and difficult, sometimes impossible depending on the laptop. Upgrading to an ssd is always an option.

 

[poorprae]

Ah, I didn't think my budget would have to go over 1k. In that case, 1k to 1.2k would be the range I am in since it seems necessary to do so.