Need a new college laptop

[ilikeberrypie]

Don't like lugging around a huge laptop like the MSI I bought about 4 months ago, also it's pretty much overkill since I never game on it and just do school work. Anyways, the MSI laptop I got crapped out and is currently on its way to msi for fixing, I'm going out of state so I need a laptop ASAP to make sure I don't get behind in any classes. Anyone have a good laptop suggestion? Like I said I'll do little to no gaming on the laptop. I'll just need to log into Runescape (yeah yeah I still play it. Need to grow up but it just keeps bringing me back, oh well.) to check some things and do some dailies. Will really only use it for that since I already have a good gaming desktop. Now, time for the questionnaire.

1. What is your budget? ~$600 (I can go up more if needed, just don't want to spend too much)

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 15.6" or 17.3", don't want any smaller but will settle with smaller if it's necessary.

3. What screen resolution do you want? 1080p

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? thin, lightweight, portable.

5. How much battery life do you need? 4+ hours if possible. The more the merrier.

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)? Runescape3, flash client, low detail.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) College stuff... Type essays, do math homework, maybe some powerpoint stuff.. Nothing that will really eat up the ram/gpu/cpu

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? 1tb HDD is good. I'll take less if I can swap the HDD out with a bigger HDD or SSD (without causing warranty termination ofc).

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. Would only like to buy from newegg or some other trusted site, please no amazon or ebay.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? 2-3 years is fine. Again, the more the merrier!

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? Would like one with a DVD ROM. That fancy Bluray stuff is not needed, since it just drives the price up.

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. PLEASE NO HD, Dell, Alienware, Apple, that weird eluktronics crap on newegg, or Toshiba. Everything else is fine with me. I've had bad experiences with 3 of those companies and Alienware is just like apple, you pay for the name not the hardware.

13. What country do you live in? USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed. Please don't suggest any of that Chromebook garbage. Windows 7, 8, or 10 only. No other OS.

 

[StormBrew]

This laptop should meet your needs and under budget!
https/www.amazon.com/A555DG-EHFX-Full-HD-FX-8800-Graphics-Windows/dp/B01D90P8ZO?ie=UTF8&tag=portablepicker-20
The laptop with the 1TB hard drive starts at $579, while packing a surprisingly powerful punch for gaming and productivity. It offers a DVD tray, just as you stated. The screen is 15.6" wide and is 1080p.

If this does not suit your needs, feel free to search here: https/portablepicker.com/

 

[Martell1977]

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834232793
$539.99, Free Shipping

Or, if you don't mind "Open Box":
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834232954R
$559.99 +$2.99 Shipping

 

[ilikeberrypie]

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834232793
$539.99, Free Shipping

Or, if you don't mind "Open Box":
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834232954R
$559.99 +$2.99 Shipping

This laptop should meet your needs and under budget!
https/www.amazon.com/A555DG-EHFX-Full-HD-FX-8800-Graphics-Windows/dp/B01D90P8ZO?ie=UTF8&tag=portablepicker-20
The laptop with the 1TB hard drive starts at $579, while packing a surprisingly powerful punch for gaming and productivity. It offers a DVD tray, just as you stated. The screen is 15.6" wide and is 1080p.

If this does not suit your needs, feel free to search here: https/portablepicker.com/

From the reviews of those laptops, it seems as if they have a lot of problems right out of the box.. If I up the budget to around 800, will that get me a decent laptop with minimal bugs/problems? Also, will that budget get me at least a 950M or 960M (More of an intel guy so idk what the equivilent would be with AMD)? Will the laptops mentioned hold out for 2-3 years?

 

[Martell1977]

My cousin just bought this one:
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834232946
There are 2 of these in my family and both have been perfect, the older on is about 3 months old. The one my cousin bought, he uses for WoW.

 

[ilikeberrypie]

My cousin just bought this one:
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834232946
There are 2 of these in my family and both have been perfect, the older on is about 3 months old. The one my cousin bought, he uses for WoW.

Woah that is exactly what I'm looking for. It even comes with both an HDD and SSD which means I won't need to upgrade anything. Since you know someone that owns this laptop could I ask you some questions about it? Like how long does the battery last while gaming? What about just normal usage (word doc's and such)? Does it have a removable battery? Does the fan get very loud once it gets hot? Once it is hot, does it burn your legs or make the keyboard hot? Is the ventilation any good?

I see it comes without a DVD ROM but that's fine.. I never really use them anymore.

Would be very grateful if you answered these Q's, but if you can't answer some/any of them it's all good. I'll most likely buy it anyways.

 

[Martell1977]

Not sure about the game battery life, as when gaming we set them to high performance battery setting and keep them plugged in for best results.
Normal usage, like web browsing or word docs, it lasts about 3 hours, on balanced battery setting.
I'm not sure about the battery, but it looks like the entire bottom is one large panel that has to be removed to access the drives or battery.
We use cooling pads all the time so it never gets very hot, but the keyboard gets pretty warm while gaming. not as hot as my old Dell, but warm.

It's funny, I have ordered 2 of these personally now and never noticed it didn't have a DVD drive. I only noticed yesterday when I went to install Office from my disc.

It's a really nice machine, I'm thinking of getting one to replace my old Dell...

 

[ilikeberrypie]

Not sure about the game battery life, as when gaming we set them to high performance battery setting and keep them plugged in for best results.
Normal usage, like web browsing or word docs, it lasts about 3 hours, on balanced battery setting.
I'm not sure about the battery, but it looks like the entire bottom is one large panel that has to be removed to access the drives or battery.
We use cooling pads all the time so it never gets very hot, but the keyboard gets pretty warm while gaming. not as hot as my old Dell, but warm.

It's funny, I have ordered 2 of these personally now and never noticed it didn't have a DVD drive. I only noticed yesterday when I went to install Office from my disc.

It's a really nice machine, I'm thinking of getting one to replace my old Dell...

Ugh.. Really dont like how manufacturers are now building laptops with batteries under the back panel (which I think is some sort of money scheme they all thought of since people will actually buy warranty now just bc everyone knows batteries get bad quick) but I guess I'll just have to deal with it. I'll be buying warranty anyways so it doesnt really matter.

I'll be buying this laptop on monday, you saved me nearly 1k! I was about to buy another MSI but decided to go the cheaper route and it all worked out perfectly.

Thank you very much for your suggestion and help!