Lightweight, powerful, long lasting all rounder

[Hashman]

Hey guys,

So it was my birthday today, and so I am looking to replace my huge chunky 17.3" Fujitsu that freezes when I move it and sounds like a plane taking off whenever I run it.

I'm looking for something thats 14-16 inches, but if it's very light, 17.3 is ok.

I'm going to be using this when I go to university, so the weight is important, but battery life is also a huge factor. Gaming performance I'd like to do at high at around 1600x900, so pretty much an all rounder. So far I've narrowed it down to the Dell XPS 15, but am concerned about the potential throttling problems. Budget can stretch to around £1400, so I'm hoping to get the best there is.

Thanks in advance!

 

[IDontUnderstand]

First, Happy Birthday

Light weight can be defined differently from person to person. However, I will say that really powerful 17" gaming laptops comes in at a minimum of 6 lbs ish, and by that I'm talking about one of the lightest gaming laptop on market. Here are some of the lightest and most powerful gaming laptop out there.

Aorus X7 (17.3" 6.39lbs): http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834233033
Razer Blade (14" 4.14lbs): http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834326009
Lenovo (15.6" Starting from 5.95lbs, which means could go higher depending on config. SLI options in the next page):
http/shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/y510p/
MSI GS70 (17.3" 5.73lbs, it has a few config): http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152443

 

[dasulman]

drive a hard bargain buddy! - any gaming system is gonna have a low Battery life - my way around it was to get a high storage USB charger - plug it in the wall over night; and can power a gaming laptop about twice over (depending on it's capacity) - these normally cost about £50-75 for a good one?

On to actual solutions - you need a light as possible, HD gaming laptop that's fairly powerful.
Assuming you're from UK - links will be cheapest I can find.:
http/www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-GS70-2OD-409UK-17-3-inch-DisplayPort/dp/B00I0TXKAU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394143146&sr=8-1&keywords=gs70+stealth - thinnest and lightest; just not as graphically beastly - but it'll do a fine job of medium to high - for a list of game performance see here at the bottom: http/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-765M.92907.0.html
http/www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/VortexIV-15/ - you can configure this one how you like; but it's like 6.5 lbs / 3.1 kg which I dunno if it's heavy to you or not; but it's got some serious gaming power in there, along with can come with loads of features that you want.
other than that for UK vendors there isn't much really to play with; the lenovo y510p with 755M (the one that got fixed) is a nice piece; and is a bit lighter than the vortex; you could get an MSI gt60 2OC but it's very clunky.
hope this helped.

 

[sora]

I'd personally get a Lenovo although it could go pretty high with SLI, otherwise, I'd get the Aorus X7 like IDontUnderstand said if you want a 17'' laptop. If you have money to spend and don't mind a 14'' get a Razer Blade though, Razer also has GREAT customer support.

 

[Hashman]

These are all great suggestions guys,and I've given Razer serious consideration - but I have no idea whether they ship to the UK?

I'm probably looking for around 5 hours unplugged time, enough to go through my lecture, then café probably to watch a movie or something

 

[IDontUnderstand]

Amazon UK: http/www.amazon.co.uk/Razer-Blade-14-4702HQ-Windows/dp/B00GM5TR10/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394176550&sr=8-1&keywords=razer+blade

Battery: http/www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/razer-blade-14.aspx
http/forum.notebookreview.com/razer/730797-razer-blade-14-3rd-gen-battery-life.html

 

[dasulman]

If you want to get a really good battery life, you're going to have to compromise performance - unless you get an external USB battery pack; whilst in performance mode you won't get more than 2-3 hours on your own and lucky to get 4 hours on power saving.
the Razer blade Pro is simply too expensive for your budget, and personally I don't think it's worth the money at all.
I think your best bet is the MSI GS70 stealth - its the thinnest, one of if not the lightest, has fairly good gaming potential and when you've switched off the graphics card (if you fiddle with the settings) you can achieve around 4:30-5hours - source: http/www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/msi-gs70-2od-002us.aspx
hope this helps