Looking to buy a laptop for College/Casual Gaming.

TheFung

Honorable
Jun 25, 2013
6
0
10,510
1. What is your budget?
$900

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
I would like the screen to be 15.6" but the screen size doesn't really matter to me.

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Anything over 1600x900.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
This laptop needs to be on the more portable side.

5. How much battery life do you need?
It needs to last a long time. Around 6 hours. I'm going to be walking around campus a lot and there might not be an outlet available until I get back to my dorm.

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 usually will just play Minecraft, League of Legends, Elsword, and Cube World. Not the most graphic intense games but needs at least 30 FPS. I play on playing Elsword on high because you can do that with an Intel HD 4000, League of Legends on medium but can settle for low, and Cube World currently in Alpha phase, does not give you the option to lower your graphics so it's probably around the same graphic intense level as Minecraft. I'll be playing Minecraft in fast mode instead of fancy so anything that gives me 30 FPS or higher. League of Legends and Cube World will probably be my most graphic intense game I'll have.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Taking notes, casual gaming, internet browsing.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
I would like 500GB or higher.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
I'm currently just surfing newegg for deals and laptops but I will purchase from other sites.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
I would like the laptop to be in working condition for the 4 years of college.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc?
A standard CD/DVD drive is 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.
I usually purchase from Asus and Acer because I'm familiar with their products and I've never had a large issue with them. I tend to stay away from Dells because of my past issues with my laptops and their customer service.

13. What country do you live in?
USA.

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
To be quite honest, I have a desktop to play games on. I am welling to sacrifice gaming for speed/boot up time but it would be nice to have a decent graphics card so I could game while I'm away from my desktop (I.E: At a friend's house). To summarize, the most important feature I'm looking for is thin and light because I don't want to haul a huge laptop from classroom to classroom but it does have to have a CD/DVD drive. I cannot stress this enough. Battery life must be excellent due to traveling and "lack of an outlet" situations.

Thanks guys for the help. I appreciate it.
 
Solution
I'm in a similar situation, and honestly if I were you, I would say skip the internal optical drive and opt for an external one. Of course I don't know how often you will use one, but assuming it's to occasionally install something or watch a movie, no optical drive in the computer will bring off weight and size a LOT. I personally have been looking at some acers recently, and am probably going to go for this one: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DKFFLMY#productDetails
which is thin, light, should be fast enough, and not too expensive. For you it is lacking battery life by about 1.5 hours though, and of course it doesn't have an optical drive, but most decent external optical drives are in the neighborhood of $30-40 such as this one...

TheFung

Honorable
Jun 25, 2013
6
0
10,510


Yeah, I know it might be hard to find but there has to be one out there. Thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely keep it in mind.
 

lucdj3

Honorable
Aug 4, 2013
7
0
10,520
I'm in a similar situation, and honestly if I were you, I would say skip the internal optical drive and opt for an external one. Of course I don't know how often you will use one, but assuming it's to occasionally install something or watch a movie, no optical drive in the computer will bring off weight and size a LOT. I personally have been looking at some acers recently, and am probably going to go for this one: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DKFFLMY#productDetails
which is thin, light, should be fast enough, and not too expensive. For you it is lacking battery life by about 1.5 hours though, and of course it doesn't have an optical drive, but most decent external optical drives are in the neighborhood of $30-40 such as this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151262
 
Solution

TheFung

Honorable
Jun 25, 2013
6
0
10,510


Thanks for the recommendation. The optical drive was required by my college under their laptop requirements. I did message a friend who works in their IT department and he said that I don't need one but I want one just in case he's wrong. I was also thinking along the lines of not getting an optical drive and getting an external one. I guess now my requirements are just thin and light with a great battery life. Thanks again for your advice and I will bookmark it for future reference.
 

TheFung

Honorable
Jun 25, 2013
6
0
10,510


I do not have a weight limit. I would just prefer a laptop that is light enough for me to carry around without having a lot of strain. I would prefer around 5 pounds. By thin, I mean around 1 inch for the height. Over an inch is fine but relatively thin.
 

lucdj3

Honorable
Aug 4, 2013
7
0
10,520
I would look into these two, same thing as each other just different size/weight, and these do have optical drives. I am not a big tech guy so you may want to talk to others about which processor you want, but the nice thing about these two is almost everything is customizable, graphics, CPU chip, RAM and so forth.
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cdetland.to?poid=2000045742
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cdetland.to?poid=2000045900
 

TheFung

Honorable
Jun 25, 2013
6
0
10,510


Oh alright. Right now, I'm leaning towards opting out of an optical drive and purchasing an external optical drive. This would have a better battery life and still have the optical drive but just taking up one USB port.