Help Buying a Laptop

[Nithl]

Want to get a new laptop for school, portability is a must. mostly programming will be done on this, gaming is a close second. so far ive been looking at the Lenovo X1 Carbon, but it doesnt seem to have enough power for the games that i want. any other recommendations?

1. What is your budget?
1500

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
14, no larger than 15

3. What screen resolution do you want?
1600x900

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
a little of both

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

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)?
Guild Wars 2/SWTOR/Dots 2. Medium at most

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Programming

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
200gb +

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
N/A

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
minimum 2 years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
not needed

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.
Prefer Lenovo. dont like acer (had alot of bad experiences with them breaking down quickly)

13. What country do you live in?
Canada

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
will need to run Linux. preferrably windows 7

 

[plasmaj12345]

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152368

 

[whyso]

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152368

Not the best deal, the 675M is last generation, you should be able to get 675MX (30% faster) for the same price. You might also be able to get a 680m if you really try and look around. The 7970m should be a decent performer as well (though beware of driver problems).

 

[jaguarskx]

While the GTX 675M is essentially a GTX 580M with higher clockspeeds, it is still a very good performing graphics chip.

Regardless, the MSI laptop suggested above will likely be rejected as an option by the OP since it weighs in at 7.7lbs. That's is much more than double the weight of the ThinkPad X1 Carbon which weighs in at 2.9lbs.

 

[jaguarskx]

You might want to see if the Samsung Series 7 700Z5C (or similar model) is available for sale in Canada. It just recently came out. It's not an ultrabook so it does weigh in at more than 4lbs.; in fact it's 5lbs. But it does have a 1,600x900 resolution screen and a GT 640M for games. It sells for about $1,400 in the US so it is likely to be very close to your max budget.

Here's a review:

http/www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Samsung-Series-7-700Z5C-Notebook.85799.0.html

 

[Ramazan007]

MEDION® ERAZER® X6821

Intel® Core™ i7-3610QM processor, Windows® 7 Home Premium, 39,6 cm. (15,6") breedbeeld TFT scherm (LED backlight), 8 GB intern geheugen, 2 x 500 GB harde schijf, NVIDIA® GeForce GTX670M videokaart met 1,5 GB GDDR5 videogeheugen, USB 3.0, HDMi-out, DVD-RW brander, Bluetooth 4.0, WLAN

Price= 1199 euro

Link=
http/www.medion.com/nl/prod/MEDION%C2%AE+ERAZER%C2%AE+X6821+laptop/30013954A1

 

[jaguarskx]

Over at Newegg.ca you can buy the 14" TOSHIBA Tecra R940-00K for $1,300. It weighs in at 4.4lbs and it has a Radeon HD 7570m and 1600x900 resolution screen. The Radeon HD 7570m is not nearly as powerful as the GT 640m.

http/www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834214981CVF

http/www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-7570M.70631.0.html

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Lenovo does not "make" a laptop.

The vast majority of laptops on the market (94% in 2011) are manufactured by a small handful of Taiwan-based Original Design Manufacturers (ODM), although their production bases are located mostly in mainland China. Major relationships include:

Quanta sells to (among others) HP, Lenovo, Apple, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, Sony, Fujitsu and NEC
Compal sells to (among others) Acer, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo and HP/Compaq
Wistron (former manufacturing & design division of Acer) sells to Dell, Acer, Lenovo and HP
Inventec sells to Toshiba, HP and Lenovo
Pegatron sells to Asus, Toshiba, Apple, Dell and Acer
Foxconn sells to Asus, Dell, HP and Apple
Flextronics (former Arima Computer Corporation notebook division) sells to HP
Clevo sells to WidowPC, Sager, FalconNorthwest and was the original make of Alienware laptoipos until Dell purchased.

I'd suggest an Optimus based laptop to save power and utilize the dedicated GFX card only when needed such as the Clevo 150EM, customized to fit ya needs

http/www.lpc-digital.com/sager-np9150.html
15.6” Full HD 16:9 LED-Backlit1920 x 1080 Super Clear Screen
NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 670MX 3GB GDDR5 Memory (675MX is an extra $100)
3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM Processor (various upgrades available)
Windows 7 or 8, 32 or 64 bit
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 2 X 4GB (16GB + $50)
750GB 7200rpm SATA 300 Hard Drive Hybrid SSD/HD - Seagate Moments 750 GB + $90)
8X DVD±R/RW/4X +DL Super-Multi Drive
Integrated 802.11 b/g/n wireless LAN + Bluetooth
8 cells smart Lithium-Ion battery pack 76.96Wh
Integrated Fingerprint Reader

About $1279 before discounts
http/www.lpc-digital.com/notebook-review-members-military-and-student-discounts.html

http/forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/91510-clevo-guide-v2-0-faq-reseller-info.html

CLEVO is a large Taiwanese computer company specializing in laptops. While the Clevo brand name is perhaps not widely known, their products are re-branded and sold by known boutique brand OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers)… notably Sager, VoodooPC, Falcon Northwest, Eurocom, etc.
They are also considered (by whoever knows about notebooks) to design and manufacturer the best of the best notebooks in terms of superior build quality and innovative design.