Recommend me a laptop

[Gnawer]

I am looking for a new Windows laptop. It's mostly for work, but I'd also like to do some gaming on it. It will be used as a desktop replacement, with external monitor and keyboard. So I may be willing to sacrifice portability for performance, but not if it can be avoided (option to carry it around is also nice). I'd also especially like it to be quiet and not overheat when not under higher load. I only ever had desktops until now, so your advice is appreciated.

1. What is your budget?
Up to $1500 maybe.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
14"-15", may consider 17", but it's already too large.

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Higher resolution will be a minus. Because of the eyesight I prefer larger UI elements. I'm perfectly fine with 1366x768 on a laptop screen, but 1920x1080 is close to unacceptable. Glossy screen is a big minus.

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

5. How much battery life do you need?
Doesn't matter.

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 want to occasionally play newer games on the level of Borderlands 2 or Bioshock Infinite. Medium to low settings are fine. Not looking for a crazy gaming rig, better build and stability is a priority over gaming performance.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Mostly software development, performance required for games will cover these needs.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
320 Gb minimum.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
No specific sites.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
I'm usually keeping computers for around 5 years.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
None

12. What country do you live in?
United States

 

[armapker]

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152404

This delivers great gaming performance, and MSI is a rock solid company who devlivers really quality products. Even the picture portrays a quality laptop.

While is it a 1920x1080 display, you have two options to deal with this:

a) Windows includes an option to maintain the 1920x1080 resolution (making everything still look good) but blow up everything so it is bigger. You can reach this setting by heading the the control panel, and going "Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Display" and changing it to "medium". Again, this makes everything bigger while keeping the 1920x1080 res.

b) you can also just right click on the desktop and click screen resolution, then bring the slider down to 1366x768, this changes the laptop's screen resolution to 1366x768

Anyway, gaming performance wise this is really great. It has a GTX 770M (great for gaming) and a quad core haswell 2.5GHz i7 (again, fantastic for gaming).

Hope this helps

 

[Gnawer]

Thank you for the suggestion, that seems worth considering.

I've tried these options for a high-resolution display before, but they just do not work very well, specifically when working with Windows (not games / multimedia), which I'll be doing most of the time. I'm still considering a high-resolution screen, because there will be an external monitor most of the time, but not if it can be avoided.

 

[armapker]

Thank you for the suggestion, that seems worth considering.

I've tried these options for a high-resolution display before, but they just do not work very well, specifically when working with Windows (not games / multimedia), which I'll be doing most of the time. I'm still considering a high-resolution screen, because there will be an external monitor most of the time, but not if it can be avoided.

Well like I said, it may come with a 1920x1080 display, but it can be easily changed so it looks and feels EXACTLY like a lower res display