Laptop for College / Work / Gaming

Cole2026

Distinguished
Aug 18, 2008
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18,510
I am looking for a laptop for university. I have always used a desktop and have always bought the components myself and put the computer together. As such, I am generally not in-the-know on laptop brands or components.

1_What is your budget?
I am looking for something under $1800 dollars.

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
Does not matter.


3_What screen resolution do you want?
Preferably a nice amount of screen real estate as I work with graphics in Photoshop/3DS-Max

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Moreover a desktop replacement; however, I do not want to be lugging around an unnecessarily heavy laptop.

5_How much battery life do you need?
As much as possible given the price and the type of laptop I want.

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)?
I play a lot of source games (Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2/Episodes, Left 4 Dead), and would prefer to be able to play them on high (5 year old engine). I also play many strategy games like Civilization 4, Command and Conquer, and the like. Generally I would like for the computer to be somewhat futureproof, and I would like to be playing the more modern titles on medium at the minimum.

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing, surfing the web, playing music, watching movies, Etc.)

I have a moderately large music library and keep a ton of it in FLAC (original source rip from EAC), so I listen to a ton of music. I use Photoshop/Illustrator quite a lot. Also, I'll probably be watching a ton of TV shows and movies from the laptop.

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?
My music library takes up around 34 GBs right now, and I am expecting that to grow a nice amount. As much as possible, around 320 gbs at minimum.

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them.
I usually would buy my computer components from either tigerdirect.com or newegg.com. I am not sure how much of a deal they are as far as laptops go.

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop?
I would prefer to keep it for the four years that I would be at undergraduate school.

11_If you would like to mention some other things about purchasing your ideal laptop, post them.
I would like a TV Tuner built into the laptop so that I can record different shows that I watch on television. My proposed major is also Computer Science.

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 have been led away from Apple because their prices are ridiculous given the specifications. Alienware seems also to be in the same boat.

13_What country do you live in?
The United States