Best gaming laptop around $500?

[wheresperry]

1. What is your budget?

Around $500. (Willing to pay around $600-700 if it was worth it.)

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

Around 15-17"

3. What screen resolution do you want?

Best possible, I suppose.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?

The need to purchase arose because of college. I'll still have my home desktop (iMac) though.

5. How much battery life do you need?

This isn't that big of a deal. Good battery life would obviously be preferred, but a laptop with not-so-good battery life wouldn't be the end of the world by any means.

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)?

Yup. I primarily play Team Fortress 2, and I would like to play that on max settings. I'll also be playing a bit of Battlefield 3, but I have realistic expectations and don't expect to be running it on Ultra @ 60 fps or something like that with a ~$500 laptop, lol.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

Primarily just web browsing, but maybe a bit of video editing.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?

Not a whole lot, I suppose.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

Currently considering this:

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246328

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?

2-3 years, maybe 4 tops.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?

DVD ROM/Writer, and a Bluray ROM would be preferable.

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 have an open mind, and will look at all suggestions.

13. What country do you live in?

USA.

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

I want to avoid buying a laptop that looks like a gaming laptop (neon green keyboards, exaggerated designs, etc.) I want something low profile.

Thanks in advance!

 

[WR2]

That combination of HD 6650M dedicated graphics card plus the integrated HD 6520G is known as
AMD Radeon HD 6720G2.
The link should give you a rough idea of the gaming performance you can expect.

BF3 will run on medium graphics but you might need to adjust some settings or run on low graphics to get smooth, fluid frame rates.

Team Fortress 2 should run on the higher graphics settings. You can probably confirm that by visiting some of the TF2 fan sites.

 

[dreamslides]

I definitely agree, I bought an NV55S03u back when the APU's first came out and later replaced the A4 chip with an A8-3500M but wow this thing would kill mine to hell in games lol

 

[wheresperry]

Le bump.

 

[wheresperry]

Thanks everyone. Yeah junky, I even linked to that Lenovo in the original post! I don't know anything about graphics cards though, so how is a 7670M equal to a 6650M? Which of those two computers would you say is better for gaming?

Also, would this one be worth the extra $100-150?

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215417