Gaming laptop

[lannmann]

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for a desktop replacement/gaming laptop, but I'm also going back to school and need to use it on campus. I'm wondering if it's possible to find a laptop in this category that lasts more than an hour on one battery, or one that I can buy an additional battery for. I'm not set on any particular laptop, dell studio xps seems like a decent generic laptop, but the ASUS G73Jh looks like an awesome deal for the money, and the falcon northwest TLX has a nice battery life for a gaming laptop, because it switches off the dedicated video card when its not being used. Of course, the macbook pro has an amazing battery life, but I'm not sure if its any good for gaming (can anyone shed some light on the possibility of gaming on a mac?)

I'm also trying to decide weather I should go barebones, or just buy a pre-configured one. Suggestions?

any input at all would be awesome!
thanks in advance for your help

1 What is your budget?
around $2000, give or take.

2 What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
Doesn't matter. I cant decide between 15 and 17, so if someone can tell me pros and cons that would be great. Definitely not bigger than 17 though.

3 What screen resolution do you want?
At least 1680 x 1050
Anything higher would be nice.

4 Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Doesn't matter. I don't mind taking a monster laptop to school, as long as it can make it through my class without dying.

5 How much battery life do you need?
As much as I can get. Mostly all I will use it for in school is typing notes, but the longer the better. (I don't mind buying a second battery as well if its available)

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)?
Games are a must. Higher graphics are obviously better. I'd like to have this laptop for a few years without having to replace it. I'm playing Starcraft II at the moment, as well as Dragon Age, and Left 4 Dead 2. I'm looking forward to Brink, and Diablo III when they come out.

7 What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
Photo editing is a must, as I'm a photographer in my spare time. I also listen to music pretty much constantly. I'm also going to use it to watch movies while at home.

8 How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?
Anything really. A SSD would be awesome, but expensive. I plan to get a nice portable hard-drive to carry most of my stuff on anyway.

9 If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Not really. See the laptops I mentioned above.

10 How long do you want to keep your laptop?
At least 2-3 years. The longer, the better. The option to upgrade would be nice.

11 What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD writer at least please!

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.
Nothing low-end. I need reliability, because I wont have the money to fix it if it breaks. After I buy this laptop, I'll be the definition of a poor student haha.

13 What country do you live in?
Canada

14 Please tell us any additional information if needed.
When at home I'll probably plug the laptop into my Samsung 2233rz monitor, so hdmi/dvi out is a must. It would be nice to have usb 3.0 or firewire or e-sata to plug in a nice and fast portable harddrive (any info on a decent one would be appreciated!). I'm unsure if I need a case or not, I think my backpack has a laptop sleeve built in. I'll also need a decent mouse, so suggestions on that too would be awesome!

Thank you so much for your help!

 

[buwish]

I cannot find anything any better than the Asus you are looking at for the money, at least on NewEgg. However, with such a large budget, have you tried to configure anything on say, Dell's website. You might be able to move up to an i7-840 or even an extreme chip (920) and stay well under $2k.

http/www.dell.com/ca/p/alienware-m15x/pd

 

[sidewinderx2]

If you register for HP's HP Academy (aka: college student discount thing) online, you can configure a very nice Envy 17 for about $2000. Since it has 2 Hard drive bays, one of the hard drive configurations that you can choose is a 160GB SSD + 640GB HDD, which is the best of both worlds Unfortunately I don't think it comes with a Slice battery (Only a 9 cell option), so i'm not sure if it'll have enough battery life to last your day of classes... but it's a very nice computer regardless.

http/www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Category&v1=ENVY&series_name=ENVY17_series

 

[lannmann]

Thanks for the response!

I always though Alienware was a little overpriced, but it looks a little more affordable now that dell has taken over. I'm still not sure if I want one though. That HP looks quite nice, and there is an option of a second battery, but dell seems to have that option aswell. There are too many decisions haha.

My brother also just told me to upgrade my existing/buy a new desktop, and buy a crappy laptop for school. I hadn't really thought of this option before
Is this a better choice?

any input would be appreciated.

 

[sidewinderx2]

That could work too, depending on how lazy you are with syncing up files between the two computers and such. You can easily get a netbook for note taking, and keep your desktop for gaming, which is probably cheaper anyways (depending on old your desktop is, of course)

 

[lannmann]

Syncing doesn't bother me. I have a decent flash drive, and I'm thinking about getting a portable hard-drive anyway.

Netbooks are ok, but a bit too small for my liking. I'd want something like a 14" or 15". Hp has some decent stuff that I can buy right off the shelf, but I've never dealt with them before. I'd like to spend between 600 and 800 on a laptop, and the rest on parts, or a new computer, if I go this route.

Here are the specs for my desktop:

AMD Athlon 64 FX-62
ASUS M2N-32 SLI Deluxe
BFG 8800GTX OC2
6 gigs OCZ gold
500gig Seagate HD
Antec 900
1000 watt psu

 

[lannmann]

Best answer selected by lannmann.