For College would ya recommend a gaming notebook or an Ultrabook?

Green Arrow

Honorable
May 9, 2013
15
0
10,560
If so which would ya recommend?

Like I said before I'm seriously leaning towards the Lenovo Y500, but I know Ultrabooks will be a lot more portable.

I CAN'T DECIDE ON A NEW LAPTOP.

Thanks for the help.
 

_Brute_Force_

Honorable
Mar 27, 2012
6
0
10,510
Depends on what you need it for and more importantly how often do you need to take it with you.

Back when I had to make the same decision, I realized instead of getting a gaming notebook, I can get a relatively cheap much more portable laptop/ultrabook and gaming PC at home with the same budget.

good luck
 

Fulgurant

Honorable
Nov 29, 2012
10
0
10,560


To echo Brute, I had a laptop in college, and I found the portability overrated. Back then (15 years or so ago), laptops were rarer and more expensive creatures, though; it was generally less trouble to leave it at home rather than worry constantly about losing it.

That said, a gaming laptop will be heavier, will run significantly hotter and boast significantly less battery life than a typical low-end laptop. It will also be massively more expensive, hotter, less upgradeable, and more prone to problems than a comparably performing desktop. In fact, it's often much cheaper to buy a low-to-mid-range gaming desktop and a cheap laptop for portable note-taking or whatever. And you'll get more mileage, and more comfort, out the hardware you buy.

The gaming laptop isn't always a bad choice; for example, if you have a job that legitimately requires you to leave town for days at a time, it's nice to have a portable and powerful platform -- but in my experience, most people don't want the portability as much as they think they do. It starts out as a wonderful novelty, to be able to take your computer with you to the coffee shop or whatever, but after a month or two you quickly realize that's not all it's cracked up to be. These days, with tablets and smart phones everywhere, there's less reason than ever to want to drag a full size laptop out with you unless you absolutely need it.
 

guanyu210379

Distinguished
hmm..difficult..
Gaming laptops are relative heavy to carry around and have bad battery stamina.
Ultrabook is a lot more portable but really lack of performance for games.
A decent gaming PC will easily beat the performance of any gaming laptops for the same price.

I would recommend to have an Ultrabook and a decent gaming desktop PC.

I sold my old i7 gaming laptop and went for ASUS S56CM laptop/ultrabook while upgrading my old Q6600 PC to i7 3770k

 

whyso

Distinguished
Jan 15, 2012
253
0
18,960


Probably not. Ultrabooks are not cheap.

OP would have to buy a whole system including OS, monitor, keyboard ($200-250 for that)

Lenovo y500 costs $899 for the SLI 750m with i5 version.

750m is more powerful than the 650 desktop version (967 mhz + boost means it runs at around 1100 mhz vs 1058 of the 650)

The lenovo y500 is an exception because it doesn't have optimus but most gaming notebooks can last quite some time (4-5 hours surfing).

 
I tend to steer away from any laptop with an integrated battery. The battery is typically the 1st thing to go bad and if the battery needs to be replaced you need to send the laptop/ultrabook to service center to have it done for you.

Instead of an ultrabook / gaming laptop combo, perhaps a netbook / gaming laptop is better. Netbooks are generally smaller and lighter than ultrabooks and cheaper as well. There's a lot less processing power though, but it will be fine for taking to class.