Gaming Laptop Under $1200

[Xlerator]

1. What is your budget?
Under $1200
2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15"-17"
3. What screen resolution do you want?
Prefer 1920x1080
4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable
5. How much battery life do you need?
2hrs at the least
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)?
TF2,Dota 2
7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
500gb at least
9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Newegg,OriginPC(http/originpc.com),Any other custom built gaming laptop site
NO Amazon or Ebay
10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
2-3yrs
11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD/CD Writer/Reader
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.

13. What country do you live in?
US
14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I need a laptop that doesn't get too hot on the palm rest area(under the WASD Key, next to the touchpad)

 

[dudewitbow]

Prebuilt laptop recommendations:

Lenovo y580

Customized Laptop recommendations:

A customized Sager NP6370
A customized MSI FORCE 16GA(or 1756 for 17" display)

(using xoticpc as customization reference)

 

[mikehurley]

this ^

 

[dudewitbow]

just to be clear on why i'm saying this, the Gtx 660m is the slightly more power efficient gpu in high end mobile gpus(others being the 650 kepler, and 680m, but thats way off budget, the 670 and 675 are fermi based, and only offer a bit of a performance boost). the 660m is more or less a good standpoint in mobile graphics(I would think its similar to a 550ti/7750 desktop in performance) so it should considerably play games well on the mobile front.