Laptop for a college kid

[Arp Laszlo]

I'm the family geek & advising on my nephew's laptop for college. Obviously most laptops are fine for educational purposes but there will be gaming involved. I don't game much so it's unclear to me how good a graphics card he'll need without breaking the bank. He did mention a game called Battlefield and he'll be toting his laptop to class & such. He's already got an Xbox but I can definitely see him wanting to game with friends on laptops.

1. What is your budget?
$1k or less

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
At least 13"

3. What screen resolution do you want?
flexible

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

5. How much battery life do you need?
flexible, apparently they have outlets everywhere in his college

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)?
Battlefield, at least Medium if possible

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Writing papers
Watching videos
Reading ebooks
Listening to music (he wanted something with 'great sound' - I recommended external speakers and headphones)

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
Games need space. Ideally we could find a laptop with an SSD for the OS and a traditional hd for storage.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
I only looked at the Surface Pro but it's out of budget.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
4 years of college

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Probably none

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.
I myself like Macs 😛 I've had good experiences with Dell & Lenovo. I have a Toshiba tablet I love. We also own an Acer that is so-so.

Just checked out the Alienware 13 too - that might fit the bill (thecheapest with 8gb ram).

13. What country do you live in?
USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Guessing the choice will depend on the best budget graphics card for gaming available.


Thanks!

 

[DHFF]

You might try this for $979
http/store.asus.com/us/item/201504AM210000009/A23314

Asus makes good laptops for gaming. This model has 8GB of RAM which is pretty much as low as you want to go for modern apps and games. the model with 16GB is $1300. but you can easily get this model and upgrade it yourself for a lot less then $300.

 

[Thineswar]

there are many options to choose from besides alienware.
i found this: http/www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/best-gaming-laptops-top-5-gaming-notebooks-reviewed-1258471
you might want to look into that
also, it helps if he or you be more specific in the type of games he wants to play. then, you could decide on the minimum specifications you are looking for.

 

[Arp Laszlo]

You might try this for $979
http/store.asus.com/us/item/201504AM210000009/A23314

Asus makes good laptops for gaming. This model has 8GB of RAM which is pretty much as low as you want to go for modern apps and games. the model with 16GB is $1300. but you can easily get this model and upgrade it yourself for a lot less then $300.

Not bad, processor seems better to (i7 vs i5). I'd be concerned about the performance feeling slow with that hd.

 

[Arp Laszlo]

there are many options to choose from besides alienware.
i found this: http/www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/best-gaming-laptops-top-5-gaming-notebooks-reviewed-1258471
you might want to look into that
also, it helps if he or you be more specific in the type of games he wants to play. then, you could decide on the minimum specifications you are looking for.

Everything at that link is $2k+, unless I missed something. Great laptops but out of budget.

 

[Thineswar]

there are many options to choose from besides alienware.
i found this: http/www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/best-gaming-laptops-top-5-gaming-notebooks-reviewed-1258471
you might want to look into that
also, it helps if he or you be more specific in the type of games he wants to play. then, you could decide on the minimum specifications you are looking for.

Everything at that link is $2k+, unless I missed something. Great laptops but out of budget.

sorry, must have overlooked that.
anyway, i found this on amazon: http/www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-VN7-591G-70RT-15-6-Inch-Gaming/dp/B00WJSQRNK/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1437057923&sr=1-2&keywords=gaming+laptop&refinements=p_n_intended_use_browse-bin%3A9647497011

but, why don't you just get the alienware?

 

[DHFF]

You might try this for $979
http/store.asus.com/us/item/201504AM210000009/A23314

Asus makes good laptops for gaming. This model has 8GB of RAM which is pretty much as low as you want to go for modern apps and games. the model with 16GB is $1300. but you can easily get this model and upgrade it yourself for a lot less then $300.

Not bad, processor seems better to (i7 vs i5). I'd be concerned about the performance feeling slow with that hd.

The HD is a little on the slow side but those are very easy to upgrade. you can get any 2.5" HD and just clone the laptop drive over. software like Acronis is fairly cheap ($50) and makes cloning drives easy.

 

[Ashwin Kumar]

Take a look at all this MSI GE62 Apache-082 or 276[1099$],MSI GE72 Apache-027 or 078 or 235,[1199$], Lenovo Y50(4 gig 960m,16gb ram)[1099$], Asus Rog GL551JW-DS71[1050$],Asus Rog GL551JW-DS74[1150$],Asus Rog G751JL-DS71[1200$], Acer Aspire V15 and v17. And yes none are 13". Why dont you get a 15" version?

 

[DHFF]

beware of the Lenovos, I have had two and both had issues with the keyboard and touchpad drivers.

 

[logainofhades]

The hospital, that I used to work for had nothing but Lenovo, those things took a beating.

 

[velo3100]

The asus laptop is good that DHFF has linked but they are not designed to game. Take it from somone who owns one. I used to play on mine a lot for a year. Then it started to slow down as I think one of its fans broke, probably due to dust.

I would either recommend looking at the asus rog series if you like asus as a brand or do one of the following:

Look at the msi ge range
Look at barebone laptops.

A cheap alternative maybe is to bring his xbox and buy a cheap win laptop. They he can use the xbox streaming app to play the games from his xbox on his laptop as they will be connected to the same wifi. This assumes that the laptop is compatible with win 10.

 

[DHFF]

Its true the ROG series is pretty much made with gaming in mind. here is a good one for just a touch over 1k. you get considerably more memory with it.
http/store.asus.com/us/item/201503AM100000016/A17602

 

[logainofhades]

MSI gaming laptops aren't too bad either. This one even has a newer broadwell chip.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152879

 

[Ashwin Kumar]

No brand is perfect. I've heard very good things about Lenovo and yes some bad also but i think t shouldn't affect your decision here.I wouldn't recommend what DHFF and logainofhades recommend.

1.DHFF: That is a 2014 model why do you want to buy the old one when the newer version is out and cheaper?
Im talking about this one
http/store.asus.com/us/item/201503AM110000025/A18486
http/www.amazon.com/GL551JW-DS71-15-6-Inch-Gaming-Laptop-GTX960M/dp/B00T7XRH2A

The Asus store is cheaper but currently out of stock hopefully you'll get them soon!

2.The MSI with 5700hq is a good option but you get a 950m which is not really powerfull. Even the 960m is not the most powerful card and getting anything less with that budget is not recommended. You'll not notice the difference between 4720hq and 5700hq as much as you would notice the difference between 960m and 950m

 

[logainofhades]

I chose broadwell based rig, more for battery life, as this will be used in college.

 

[Ashwin Kumar]

I chose broadwell based rig, more for battery life, as this will be used in college.

Is it such a great improvement compared to the 4720hq? And is the 950m compromise worth it? And battery performance in a gaming rig is it that important?

 

[Arp Laszlo]

I'd rather the hard drive be good out of the box - they're not going to be swapping anything out themselves so the prebuilt option is the one I'll recommend.

The 15" Asus ROG looks great - hard to argue with the 16gb ram. That'll help with having a standard hd (albeit 7200rpm). Glad I asked here, that one is an excellent option.

When comparing the Alienware 13 & the ASUS ROG GL551JW-DS71 the big issue is screen resolution. Both of them have the same graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M).

The Alienware's resolution is 1366x768; the Asus is 1920x1080. On max settings, games should run better on the Alienware, right? The Asus is implying performance that I doubt it can provide.

 

[Ashwin Kumar]

I'd rather the hard drive be good out of the box - they're not going to be swapping anything out themselves so the prebuilt option is the one I'll recommend.

The 15" Asus ROG looks great - hard to argue with the 16gb ram. That'll help with having a standard hd (albeit 7200rpm). Glad I asked here, that one is an excellent option.

When comparing the Alienware 13 & the ASUS ROG GL551JW-DS71 the big issue is screen resolution. Both of them have the same graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M).

The Alienware's resolution is 1366x768; the Asus is 1920x1080. On max settings, games should run better on the Alienware, right? The Asus is implying performance that I doubt it can provide.

Yes on max settings by default some games will run netter in the 1366*768 resolution than in the default in the FHD screen. By why would you not want the FHD screen?These days 4k is selling like cupcake and why not atleast get a FHD screen? Also do remember if set to 1366*768 both should perform equally why maybe even better in Asus let me explain why. Did you ever check what cpu the Alienware 13 has? Its an totally crap 5200U or 5500U..Kidding why are you even comparing it to the 4720HQ ? Just check about the CPU performance here https/www.cpubenchmark.net/laptop.html

Alienware 13 is no where near the Asus. But do checkout the Lenovo Y-50 laptop. Its a serious contender..Also why not the MSI GE62 002 ? It has an 965m..