MMO/Casual Gaming Well-built Laptop - Not a powerhouse?

[Grimezy]

I'm looking for a 3rd PC to share between my girlfriend and I for when we're at each others houses. We both own desktops at the moment and spend most evenings on Guild Wars 2 together.

I looked at building a £500 rig using the new overclocked Intel Pentium Anniversary GPU with a R9 270x alongside it but the hassle of transporting it, having another monitor to lug around and set up, wireless keyboard + mouse, etc is way too much hassle and it makes more more sense to pay the premium for a nice portable laptop.

I'm not looking to set the world on fire, I don't want a 17 inch, i7, GTX 880m beast that is benchmarked based on games like Crysis 3 + BF4. They're not the kind of tasks I plan to use it for. I purely want it for casual single player games and MMO's.

My main concern is build quality and portability. I want something that's got a solid but light chassis, a nice screen and can be used on my lap without endangering my future babies due to excessive heat being produced in the crotch area (yes I can get a laptop cooler but I don't always want to carry one around with me).

I don't want to spend a fortune as I'm not looking for a beast but at the same time I know that build quality comes at a price. My budget is probably around the £1000 mark.

To give you some information, so far I have looked at the following:

- PC Specialist type-company laptops - I bought my own desktop from PC Specialist so have no doubts about their customer service, I'm just not too sure on the build quality of the laptop chassis as they use the same generic ones in each build and I've heard they're nothing special as most custom-pc companies do.

- Auros X3 - Absolutely love this laptop, great look to it, excellent build quality, good screen and components and great size/weight for portability. The only issue is it's around £1500 and it's a bit too overpowered for my needs to justify this price.

-Alienware X14 - Again, seems to have a good build quality but the thing looks absolutely huge and boxy and is apparently not as portable as they make it out to be, plus it's very expensive for what it is (although the other half definitely likes the option of using Pink LED's...)

- Asus G550JK - Read about this in the 'Custom PC' mag and it got very good reviews. Exactly what I'm looking for in terms of mid-range performance but with a good build + chassis. It's expensive considering it's only housing a 850m but I assume the £1000'ish price tag is based on the build quality. It just doesn't seem to be very readily available in the UK. This is looking like a front runner at the moment.

- MSI Laptops - Checked most of these out especially the Ghost series, great variety, price and spec. However, most reviews suggest that the chassis isn't brilliant and produces very high amounts of heat when under use, particularly in their 'portable models'.


Basically, any suggestions on the above ones I've listed would be great if people own them or if there are any laptops I've not mentioned I'd love to hear about them. I've heard Lenova and Gigabyte do good ones but they look very bland and generic?

It's proving difficult to come up with an answer from reviews as critics seem to criticise anything that doesn't have enough power to run BF4 on Ultra.

Sorry for the rant! Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Sam

 

[Mahisse]

I do not live in UK so I won't point out any laptops for you since I don't know the prices on the market but I will point out some other things.

First of all, you say that you're not looking for laptops that are made for high end gaming but from what I can see from your list this is what you're kind of doing anyway. But I do understand the concept: "Get the most perfomance out of my money!". I just think you need to reconsider your needs a bit. Is this laptop only meant to be able to play GW2, LoL, etc? Because then you don't necessarily need to look for laptops with 800 series graphics and can probably save you a bit of money. No doubt that the 800 gpu series is a very good laptop gpu, though because of the power consumption and heat output.

My other advice is to look for laptops that are easy to disassemble and clean. At some point you will need to clean the laptop's fan(s) and it's just easier to be able to take out the back cover instead of having to disassemble the whole laptop to get access to the fan/heatsink (looking at you HP).

As you mention yourself, good heat distribution is important for laptops, especially the ones build for gaming. Alienware is notoriously known for being overpriced but I do think that you get a good quality gaming laptop for the money that handles heat excellent, which is probably one of the reasons for the case design.

I'm a bit of a fanboy when it comes to ASUS laptops. They are nice quality, easy to disassmble and a have a nice design. The GJ550JK will handle GW2 easily of course.

I have no experience with MSI laptops but the MSI GE60-033 Apache looks like a pretty good deal, specs wise.

 

[Grimezy]

Thanks for your input Mahisse. Yes you're exactly right, things like GW2, ESO, Skyrim, Borderlands, indie games, etc. Things that you can probably play on an Intel HD4000 laptop but would struggle with framerates if you attempt to turn any settings up. My list is definitely aiming out of my 'requirement' range but I want something that has a great feel that has been designed with gaming in mind rather than just an office laptop with a graphics card shoved in.

Your advice is great though, I will look into the G550JK some more although it's proving difficult to find retailers in the UK (Amazon have a 1-2 month wait time). http/www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00LCXGU2Q/ref=s9_simh_gw_p147_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=01QN24BPF256GD9B7WEF&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=455344027&pf_rd_i=468294

The price is slightly off-putting when you think I can get this for less: http/www.amazon.co.uk/G750JM-T4049H-17-3-inch-Notebook-i7-4700HQ-Bluetooth/dp/B00I1BRDVO/ref=pd_sim_sbs_computers_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=0R6ZMN959GYQCBNS0GZ4

But at the same time, I suppose I'd be paying for the slickness and portability of the G550JK.

Will also keep looking into the MSI's and see whether all reviews agree that they get too hot. It would be a shame as they have a great range of options.

 

[velo3100]

You could look at the lenovo y50 but I have heard the screen is not very good. Asus are another good manufacturer for games as they have very good cooling. Barebone laptops are also a good alternative if design is not an issue.

 

[Bolin]

Look at sager too. Their screens are usually very good, they have good designs and cooling and good prices