Buying a gaming laptop

gopher1369

Distinguished
Jan 20, 2012
100
0
18,660
Hello all,
I’ve had a bit of a shop around and I’m liking the look of the Clevos. But I thought I’d pick the brains of the people here, see if anyone has any better suggestions.

1. What is your budget?
None in mind. Getting the right laptop is more important that what the laptop costs.
2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15"
3. What screen resolution do you want?
Doesn’t matter.
4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Doesn't matter
5. How much battery life do you need?
Doesn’t matter.
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)?
Medium/High @ 1366x768 resolution (the resolution of my TV, which it will be plugged into when I’m gaming)
7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
General internetting.
8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
180Gb (or bigger) SSD.
9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
pcspecialist.co.uk / Cyberpowersystems.co.uk / anywhere else anyone suggests.
10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
2 years probably
11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer, Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
None
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 no specific loyalty/hatred of any brands. I've been looking at a lot of Clevos but not out of brand loyalty, mostly because they are good for price/performance.

13. What country do you live in?
UK

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/optimusIII-15/ is my current favourite. Spec it with a 180Gb SSD, Core i5, 8Gb of RAM and remove the Windows 7 licence (I already have a spare W7 licence) and it comes to just over £700 (Or about $1100, although bear in mind that UK prices include tax so it’s $930 without tax)
At 1366x768 resolution, an i5 + 650m seems like more than enough grunt to run modern games at decent settings, I don’t see that more powerful components would benefit me much, although I’m open to persuasion on any component. I did look at the Lenovo Y580 with the 660m but it's £150 more. The 660m generally appears to be only slightly (~10 %) more powerful than the 650m but significantly more expensive.
 

ClownWalker

Honorable
Jun 21, 2012
12
0
10,560
I don't know much about laptop gaming but what I know is that :
- You shouldn't go for alienware and such, it's too expensive. Don't go further than 1000$.
- If you have the budget for it, look at the ''Republic of gamers'' series, I think it's from Asus. I've heard good critics about them.
- I'd say Sony, Toshiba and Asus have good video specs.
- What you want to look at are the processor and the graphic card (and make sure you have at least 4GB of Ram memory).
- With an i5 cpu, a 180gb ssd and 8gb of ram. it's definitly enough for medium/high gaming, I can assure you that. I don't even have an SSD, I have 8gb of ram, I only have an I3 on my desktop computer and I can game almost everything at Medium/high.

But as each person is different, it's always up to what you want.
Keep looking at all the stores that sells laptops near you and look on website like Neweggs, they have some pretty amazing stuff. Also, the price changes in a variable way and some laptops may not always be in some shop forever, so keep looking and comparing the laptops you see for money/quality.

Hope it helps!
 

my414

Honorable
Aug 29, 2012
10
0
10,570
It is a bit hard to sugest a laptop without a budget because there is such a wide range of laptops

I curently live in the US but I will give you the price in euros

These are some of the laptops I would recomend budget from 600 - 1900€ going from cheapest to most expensive (not always scaled in performance)

This is a company for the US only and these links are just for reference

1. ~662€ I realize that this laptop is a 17.3" model but you generally find them with more powerful components than the 15.6"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215410 This laptop will play allot of games at that resoloution at medium to high settings and would be the base line of a gaming lapotp.

***2. ~718€ HIGHLY RECOMENDED
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246628 This laptop will play basicly every game at that resoloution at medium to high setings and in the US this is an AMAZING price for this laptop and what hardware comes with it. I was looking at this laptop for myself

^same laptop as above but with 64gb boot ssd and storage hard drive ~ 798€ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246629^

3. ~957€ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152307 This laptop will play every game at that resoloution at basicly and settings. I must let you know that this is a laptop from last model season and has dated cpu and gpu but will still perform great.

4. ~957€ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152349 This laptop will play basicly every game at that resoloution at medium to high settings. This is a very nice laptop I think and even though the specs are a bit low for the price it is still a nice laptop that has better quality than the lenovo laptop with the same gpu.

this laptop basicly has the same specs as above just with a much better cooling system and a different look the might or might not suit you
~ 973€ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230404

----This is where you start to lose the ability to find a 15.6" gaming laptop---

5. ~1078€ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158587 This laptop has an amd radeon gpu instead of the nvidea but will slightly outperform the nvidea 660m on most games and has a very thin profile.

^same laptop as above but with ssd and a very nice 3d screen ~1197€ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158588

6. ~1396€ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834131270 This laptop will max out the setting on all current games at 1080p resoloution.

______I do not recomend laptops past this point as you are spending too much and a desktop would be more beificial______

7. ~1516€ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152356 This is the fastest 15.6" gaming laptop you can get for a price that makes sense.

8. ~1836 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152359 This laptop is insane...

I took allot of time to write this for you because I like helping people and even if u do not like any of those laptops I would say that you are smart to chose a clevo laptop as they are as good as these laptops. If you are to get one I would sugest getting a 660m or 670m YOU DO NOT NEED ANYTHING MORE POWERFUL

since you are playing at sub 1080p resoloution a 660m would be the best way to go if you want it to last around 3 years with your settings.

I wish you luck with your purchase :D