Solved! Decent budget multimedia/programming laptop that can handle gaming.

[Variablesum]

Hello,
I'm going to to be starting school soon and Im looking for a multimedia laptop that's good for programming and animation but can also run a game such as wow on decent settings (high settings would be nice, but the programming and animation qualities are more important). I have a budget around $800-$1000 and dont know much about computers, so any help finding me a good laptop within my price range would be appreciated. Hoping I could get some solid reccomendations before I blow money on the lastest piece of hardware.

 

[Maziar]

Hello and welcome to the forums
Fill the FAQ first(link in my sig)

 

[Variablesum]

Thanks for your reply, sorry for not doing this correctly at first.

1_What is your budget?
$800-$1000 (can go higher if required to meet ideal specs)

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
A Normal size laptop. Not really sure what that is though..

3_What screen resolution do you want?
I wanna say really good. (Note that I dont know much about computers)

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable .

5_How much battery life do you need?
4-6hrs.

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)?
World of warcraft. med-low settings.

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.) Programming and animation

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?
whatever would be best for programming and animation

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
None.

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop?
As long as possible.


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

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.
No preference.

13_What country do you live in?
U.S

14_Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I don't know much about computers so any help would be appreciated. Im looking for a laptop that I could possiby preform some school work on and do some gamming on.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Maziar]

Well,there are no laptops that can play WOW on high settings with 8hrs of battery life, so you have to sacrifice one of them a bit.
I can find laptops that can handle wow fine,but their battery life is between 1hr-4hrs(depending on the model)

 

[sebian_dsl]

the Asus UL50VT (got mine from best buy) has a nice long battery life and can play Left4Dead2 with no problems. I like it quite a bit. ~5lbs, 8cell batt, Nvidia 210M/Intel 4500 HD switchable graphics. only problem is updating the nvidia graphics drivers, but folks have already figured out ways around that and i'm running the latest WQHL drivers now. I was able to break 4k 3dMark06 points on it with some slight overclocking. I realize thats not a lot, however, when i can actually play L4D for 3.5-4hrs on battery instead of say .5-1hrs on battery, i say thats a win.

the alienware M11x has optimus now so it's MUCH easier to keep up to date on drivers, and it will play games much better, but it's more expensive than the Asus (over $300 more when comparably equipped with ram and hd space)

either one of those will get you close to where you want to be, but it depends on if you want to spend $700 or $1000. sometimes you can find one of the Asus UL50VTs on referb for around $550 or so.

 

[Variablesum]

Updated the battery life and settings.

 

[Maziar]

If you are OK with a 11" laptop,then have a look at AW M11x,its a good option.

 

[evilavatar]

variable I have been looking at the same kind of setup myself and have a couple suggests.

A used dell XPS 16 can be aquired for the samish price as the m11x but has a slightly better GPU (check the dell outlet) and more ram.

there is also a decent acer aspire on newegg.com that is slightly better than either of these but is built a little more cheaply in terms of some of the other items. http/www.techspot.com/vb/topic18780.html