baseball921

Honorable
Mar 22, 2013
3
0
10,510
I've been searching for a laptop for a while, but I've had a hard time finding the right one.

-I'd prefer a light ultrabook, for I'm going to college in a couple of years.
-prefer at least an nvidia 650m
-ivy bridge i7 greater than 2 GHz.
-preferably hybrid storage, HDD-SSD. (not a huge deal though)
-Windows 7 or 8.
- around $1,000 if possible.
- 14 - 15.6 inch screen
- Looking to do casual gaming, programming, use unity 3D smoothly, have a quick laptop, and have it be portable for college.

If anyone could help that'd be great.
 

baseball921

Honorable
Mar 22, 2013
3
0
10,510
Alright, yeah I was looking into those custom sites as well as the y500. The thing is, a lot of the custom laptop sites make pretty hefty laptops which I wasn't sure would be the best option for college. But on the other hand it's difficult finding a laptop with good specs that's truly considered portable for a cheap price. I'd say the y500 may be what I'm leaning towards at this point.
 

wdmfiber

Honorable
Dec 7, 2012
31
0
10,590
The RazerBlade is under an inch thick, less than 7 pounds and exceeds your specs. Except for... price(it's $2500). You can get a nice laptop for $1000, but ya... they have some weight. Although they aren't too bad really.

But you may just want to consider a 4th generation mobile i7 and integrated graphics. You'll be able to play older games well and new ones if you lower the settings, provided the title(eg. Crysis 3) isn't too demanding.

http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade
 
Just about every laptop you have same with some company's name on it was in fact not made by the company on the label. 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


The "boutique" laptop phenomenon began with Alienware and those were made by Clevo (until Dell bought Alienware) and Clevo still provides the chassis and parts for FalconNorthwestVoodooPC, WindowPC, Sager and many other brands you might recognize.

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

I buy mine from LPC Digital and have ach one custom amde to my user's specifications. here's what I'd suggest for you

Clevo WT350EQ $1,029 before discounts
http://www.lpc-digital.com/sager-np6350-features.html
Discount Link - http://www.lpc-digital.com/notebook-review-members-military-and-student-discounts.html

15.6" Full HD 1920 x 1080 LED-Backlit Display
NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 660M with 2GB GDDR5 Video Memory
Intel Core i5-3230M Processor
Intel HM77 Express Chipset
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 2 X 4GB
750GB 7200rpm SATA Hybrid Hard Drive with 8GB SSD
8X DVD±R/RW/4X +DL Super-Multi Drive & Software
Internal 802.11 B+G+N Wireless LAN + Bluetooth Combo Module
Removable 8 cell smart Lithium-Ion battery pack 76.96Wh
FREE UPS Ground Delivery
High Definition audio interface
S/PDIF Digital output
1 Built-in Microphone
2 Built-in Speakers made by Onkyo
THX TruStudio Pro Sound System
1 HDMI 1.4a output Port
1 CRT output Port
2 USB 3.0 Ports
1 USB 2.0 Ports
1 eSATA Port (USB 3.0 Combo)
1 Headphone Jack
1 Microphone Jack
1 S/PDIF output Jack
1 RJ-45 LAN (10/100/1000Mbps)
Built-in Gigabit Ethernet LAN
Integrated 802.11 b/g/n wireless LAN + Bluetooth™ V3.0 + HS Combo half mini card module
9-in-1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/MS/MS Pro/MS Duo/SD/Mini-SD/SDHC/SDXC)
1 MiniCard Slot for WLAN module
Kensington® Lock
Integrated Fingerprint Reader
5.95 Lbs with Battery Pack

Upgrade to Intel Core i7-3630QM Processor and / or 16 GB memory are $70 each

Recommended at sightly higher budget
At $1,172 (before discounts) , you get a significant upgrade with the Clevo 151EM
http://www.lpc-digital.com/sager-np9130.html

Includes:
15.6” Full HD 16:9 LED-Backlit MATTE Ultra Clear
Intel Core i7-3630QM Processor
NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 670MX 3GB GDDR5 Memory - FREE Upgrade Special!