Any great deals on a gaming laptop for $1000 or less?

MrSticky

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1_What is your budget? $1000
2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 15” minimum but 17” or so would be great.
3_What screen resolution do you want? Not sure. For games, would I be better off with a 17” wide 1440 x 900 or a smaller 15” screen with a 1920 x 1080? Is the lower resolution a fair trade for the larger screen? Opinions welcome!
4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Primarily a desktop replacement.
5_How much battery life do you need? Good battery life is a plus but not required as it will primarily be plugged in to a wall outlet.
6_Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low, Medium or High)? Solid gaming ability is the main purpose of this system. My current system is a 5 year old slug that won’t play pretty much any of the newer games so I can’t really list any specific examples or settings. This will be my only system upgrade for at least a few years, so solid game performance that will last a few years is critical to me.
7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
Photo and music viewing/listening. But I mostly want the best game laptop I can get for my limited budget.
8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need? Large HDD space is always a plus, as I have a lot of photos and music files I like to keep local when possible. But I’d be willing to take a smaller drive if it meant a better gaming system.
9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them. Gateway - FX Edition however I don’t know if this is the best deal for me or not. If anyone knows of a current great deal I’d be thrilled to hear about it!
10_How long do you want to keep your laptop? At least 3 years.
11_What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? DVD Rom required. BluRay would be a nice bonus, but I can live without it and I don’t expect I will be able to get it with my current budget anyway.
12_Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. I don’t have any preferences. Whatever is the best deal works for me.
13_What country do you live in? USA
14_Please tell us any additional information if needed. This is primarily a gaming laptop, so a very nice video card would be a high priority. I find myself multitasking (several large apps open at once) frequently so the more system memory the better. Also, Windows 7 is a requirement for work. Other than that, I’m just hoping someone who knows a lot about laptop gaming on a budget can spot a better deal than I have been able to!
 
Solution

If the Gateway model is cheaper then go for it,its a good choice

bliq

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There are several laptops with ATI 4650s under a $1000. There's a Sony FW520F at amazon for around $915 with a 16.4 1600x900 screen, 4GB of RAM 500GB hard drive, a P7450 (I think), blu ray, and HDMI among other nice things.
 

bliq

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MrSticky

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Thanks for your reply Maziar. I'm wondering why you would pick the Asus over the Gateway also from Best Buy?

The Gateway has the faster CPU, larger battery, larger screen, higher resolution, DDR3 Memory, eSATA, and a PCMCIA slot.

The Asus has a faster HDD and is $50 cheaper.

Is the Gateway just a bad brand? What did I miss? My apologies if the answer is obvious, it's my first laptop so I have a lot to learn still.
 

MrSticky

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Thanks Bliq,

I like this Sony quite a bit, but how do you think the ATI 4650's compare to the GeForce GTX 260M's? If they are close to the same in performance, I would go with the Sony for the blu ray and larger HDD. But if the 260M is significantly better, I might have to go with the Gateway.

Any opinions on how these two cards compare?
 

If the Gateway model is cheaper then go for it,its a good choice
 
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MrSticky

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Thanks for the help guys. I think I'm going for the Gateway becasue of the GeForce GTX 260M card and the DDR3 memory. I wish the screen resolution was better, but my budget isn't very high so I think it's a good choice for the cost.
Let me know if you disagree, otherwise I will probably make the purchase tomorrow.
 

bliq

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I remember there;s an asus model at Best Buy that has 260M graphics also at $1000. I just received my son's Asus and it's beautiful and looks well made. So that may be another choice if you're dead set on buying at Best Buy. One trick I found (if you're willing to do the work and the risk) is that you can often buy BB gift cards at 80-90% of face value to save some money. I saved more than $200 on my wife's $1000 laptop last year that way by snapping up 100-500 GCs from Craigslist at 80% of face value.

I believe the 260M is one class higher than 4650. Gateway (and eMachines) is now owned by Acer i believe, so quality has probably improved dramatically from a couple years ago.
 

gailey78545

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If you could get your hands on the Sony VGN-NW265F/B laptop with Blu-ray from Black Friday ($479 Best Buy package deal). That would be a nice review. I haven't seen any reviews on it yet and I waited in line forever to get this laptop.