Gaming/Work Laptop help

[farroo]

Hi all, my work laptop (Dell Latitude D630) warranty is up and I've been given permission to research buying outside of Dell. The big issue is support, right now if we have an issue we get onsite support within 24 hrs. I don't believe we can get that with like Asus, MSI, etc. but my fight is hey you spend 2k on a POS Dell what if I can get double the laptop for less?? If support is needed we have training laptops that would suffice until repairs were done. So I get to be the guinea pig so I'm looking for help in finding a good laptop that will also allow me to game on the road.

1. What is your budget? ~1700 USD

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 14-15 in

3. What screen resolution do you want? 720 or 1080

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

5. How much battery life do you need? The more the better but not a huge concern, usually always have a plug in 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)? Yes. WoW, Battlefield 2-3, League of Legends. The higher the better

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.) I will be running VM's for demos and watching movies. Everything else is minimal.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? 500gb+, TB preferred

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. Newegg or anyone else comparable. I'm typically a Newegg fanboy

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? We rotate out Laptops 3-4 yrs

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? Any writer

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. Have always been a desktop guy, not overly familiar with Laptops although my current Dell sucks

13. What country do you live in? USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed. Warranty and service are important even if there is an extra charge. Also a docking station is important even if universal. The current Laptop they would like to order for me is:

Dell Latitude E6410
i7-620M
8 GB DDR3-1333 Ram
512MB Nvidia NVS 3100 discrete GPU
250GB 7200RPM HD

The rest is fluff but with warranty, dock and service options it is $2089 and for me I just cringe at these specs with that price. Maybe I'm completely off base, I dunno.

Any help appreciated.

 

[WR2]

Hello farroo;
Compare that Latitude E6410 with a ASUS G53JW-A1
i7-740QM quad core, 15.6" 1920x1080 display (glossy or matte=+$185), GTX 460M, configurable HDD/SSD and other options.
$1437 plus any options you choose.

 

[WR2]

On NewEgg: ASUS G53JW-A1 NoteBook $1,390
Core i7 740QM, 15.6" 1920 x 1080, GTX 460M, 6GB, 750GB HDD

Standard Warranty 1 year ASUS Accidental Damage Warranty + 2 years by Asus

Aftermarket extended warranty and insurance might make sense: SquareTrade
not a recommendation, just info on what else is out there.

 

[farroo]

Best answer selected by farroo.

 

[Fadekyn]

Not sure on the G53 but on the G73's you have to manually flash the Bios and vBios. It's not hard, but this ensures that there is no conflict between the gpu and motherboard.

(Although that is with an ATI card, might be different with Nvidia)

One other thing I recommend with ASUS G53's or G73's is to download HWiNFO32 and Furmark and run an hour long test to make sure you get laptops with good thermal pasting jobs. Due to the higherend card you could run hot if you get a bad pastejob. Which I think you'd be more likely to discover on the road while working in cramped conditions or whatnot vs. back at the home office.

Here's a link to everything you need to know about G53's and G73's by ASUS.

http/forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/

This site has forums for every maker and model by that maker. On this link open the "Read Before Posting" thread. It has everthing stickied for the G53 and G73. (G73 is just the 17 inch version)