Need help choosing a laptop.

[itose]

Hey guys, I appreciate all the help you give in advance. I've been looking for a portable laptop capable of decent gaming for a while now, however being the type of person who doesn't like to part with his cash without knowing exactly what I'm purchasing and what competition there is I'd like to get some informed opinions on the issue..

1. What is your budget?
£0-£800 preferably, although reluctantly willing to go to £850 if its worth it.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
Not sure, something portable from around 11" to 15" screen size, 16" max

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Not too picky on this one.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable

5. How much battery life do you need?
Under a normal load (Word, web browser) preferably at least 5 hours.

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)?
Yes, Mass Effect 2, Age of Empires 3, Starcraft 2, Civ V possibly COD 4 or Battlefield: Bad Company 2,
preferably be able to run them on medium settings at least

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
Watching films, general usage (such as typing/research at college/Uni).

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
200GB plus, I don't intend to store video files or mass amounts of music on the system so this is not a
huge issue.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
No specific sites, however I am living within the United Kingdom (England) and so preferably those
that sell and allow insurance here.


10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
3 years.


11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD ROM/Writer would suffice.


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'm sceptical about Acer because of what I've read from others.


13. What country do you live in?
England/United Kingdom

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I'm a student, so this laptop will be lugged to and fro nearly every day so I'm looking for a laptop
with good build quality and reliability. .



On a final note I had a question - when looking at the M11x someone on the Dell forums said that laptops that size have a 30% fail rate within the first year, is this true? It was quite a shocker to read...

Thankyou for any help, it really is extremely appreciated.

 

[Maziar]

Hello and welcome to the forums
Well high battery life and great gaming performance don't usually play nice together, so you have to sacrifice one of them.(unless you need less than 13" inch laptop like M11x).
M11x is the best 11" laptop you can get, it has a good mid-range VGA which can handle games fine on medium settings along with a good battery life.As for the fail rate,well its best to check it from the people who own it
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/
As for other options,well there are other laptops with lower battery life, are you OK with a battery life of 3-4hrs ?

 

[itose]

Hello and welcome to the forums
Well high battery life and great gaming performance don't usually play nice together, so you have to sacrifice one of them.(unless you need less than 13" inch laptop like M11x).

Thankyou,

Yeah I understand this, which is why I've been looking around for a good month now at (literally) hundreds of laptops. I'm not too fussy about battery life whilst gaming or watching video, just general word processing usage. 3-4 hours would be acceptable, but I would prefer a 3 hour minimum.

M11x is the best 11" laptop you can get, it has a good mid-range VGA which can handle games fine on medium settings along with a good battery life.As for the fail rate,well its best to check it from the people who own it
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/

The M11x was actually my initial consideration (even though I'm not huge on the carnival lighting system Alienware love...but I heard you can switch them off). The screen at 11" isn't an issue for me (probably a bonus) as it makes it easier to move around. I will be sure to question the owners about some of the things holding me back from purchase.

As for other options,well there are other laptops with lower battery life, are you OK with a battery life of 3-4hrs ?

Sure, I'd like to get a well-rounded view on the laptops that are available. As long as it gives 3hours minimum I could handle it.

I have actually looked at the Kobalt GS510 (http://kobaltcomputers.co.uk/gs510_overview.html) which is a possibility (albiet it's not the prettiest thing in the world). Plus some multimedia laptops such as the Dell Studio and Sony Vaio ranges, but they don't seem too up to task.


Thanks for your time on this!

 

[Maziar]

Well Kobalt GS510 is a good choice,it packs GT 425M which is more powerful than GT 335M(in M11x)
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-Geforce-GT-425M.34152.0.html

 

[itose]

I think I'm going to go with that one yeah..currently getting some info from their own forums, thanks for the help

 

[Maziar]

No problem,post some benchies if you get it

 

[itose]

No problem,post some benchies if you get it

Yup will do, not much consumer reviews/info out there on it atm so if I purchase it (which it looks like Im going to be atm) I'll be sure to post up some benchmarks/comments on build quality.

 

[Maziar]

Sager is a great brand, they make good laptops with an excellent price/performance ratio,however they don't have much reviews in the internet(compared to other brands) so you have to check user reviews mostly.