Need help choosing a laptop, FAQ filled

[AlterJ]

Hi, any help will be greatly appreciated!

1. What is your budget?
Under or about $1000

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
Any

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Not sure

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Whichever is better, I do not have a problem carrying a big laptop

5. How much battery life do you need?
An average amount, I will be near an outlet for most of the time

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)?
If I do play games, it would only be Sims 4 and im not sure about that.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Photo editing with photoshop, video editing, watching movies online

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
I am not sure. I do not plan to store a lot of pictures etc.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
As long as possible

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Blu-ray, if that's possible under $1000, if not then it doesn't matter

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 do not want to use a MacBook. I would prefer Windows 8 and A8, but it doesn't have to be that

13. What country do you live in?
USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

 

[skywere]

i am not sure what price they are (not available in my country) but i think a Dell Studio series laptop is what you are looking for.
-good battery life
-some have blue ray player
-the name says it, Studio, should work with photoshop and video editors

i don't know much about these laptops but i thought i would let you know

 

[jaguarskx]

Overall you have very basic needs with the exception of the Blu-Ray drive. Most laptops that I have looked at do not come standard with a BR drive since it is not a big concern for me; a DVD drive is just fine. Generally speaking you can simply get a laptop in the $500 - $700 range. At the lower end of the range you can get a laptop with a 1366x768 resolution screen. At the upper end you can get a 1920x1080 resolution screen. I prefer high resolution to low resolution for multitasking purposes when switching between two or more windows / programs. A high resolution screen means you can see at lot on the screen at once and you can size two windows next to each other and still see a lot of "stuff".

An example would be the Lenovo Z50 series in the link below which can fill your basic needs, but it does not have a Blu-Ray drive. The $469 version has a 1366x768 resolution screen and the Core i3 with the Intel HD 4400 graphics core can be used to play some causal games like the Sims 4; it is currently on sale. Ignore the $549 version which has a slower Celeron CPU and weaker graphics core, it is not currently on sale which is why it is more expensive than the i3 version. The $679 Z50 is the one I would get because it has a 1080p resolution screen, the core i7 is more powerful than the core i3 and you also get an nVidia GT 820m graphics chip. It is fairly weak compared to other dedicated graphic chips, but more powerful than the Intel HD 4400 and more than capable of playing the Sims 4.

http/shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/z-series/z50/#tab-customize

 

[jaguarskx]

For a laptop with a Blu-Ray drive you can consider the Toshiba Satellite P50 series. There are two basic versions. The $750 version relies on the integrated Intel HD 4600 graphics core. The $850 comes with a Radeon R9 M265X graphics core which is actually a pretty good graphics card that is more powerful than the nVidia GT 820m in the Lenovo Z50 laptop. Definitely no problems playing the Sims 4 with high settings.

The Toshiba P50 is currently on sale. Included is a quad core Intel Core i7, the Lenovo Z50 only has a dual core i7 CPU. The downside is the quad core version uses more power so battery life is shorter. Additionally, you get 8GB of RAM instead of the usual 4GB of RAM. Both come with a 1920x1080 resolution screen.

A Blu-Ray Drive is a $75 option for both laptops which brings up the price to $825 or $925 depending if you choose the one with the Radeon graphics chip.

http/www.toshiba.com/us/laptop-finder?family=Satellite&model=P50&bopt=bto#resultsMatrix

 

[jaguarskx]

In the end the Sims 4 should be playable using the Intel HD 4400 / HD 4600 graphics core because EA / Maxis wants to reach out to the largest possible player base for their very popular franchise. Therefore, the game has been purposely designed to run on relatively low spec desktops and laptop because most people generally do not upgrade / buy new desktop / laptops very often.