Gaming Laptop Advice

I

ImpurePhoen1x

CAGiversary!
I'm looking for a decent laptop for college, preferably a decent gaming laptop for no more than around $1600 or $1700. I've been eying the Alienware M11x but want to know if anyone has any other recommendations.
 
I'm no pro but I've never heard anything good about owning a gaming laptop considering the costs.

you can get a nice laptop that can run any blizzard game and source engine pretty well for half of what you're willing to spend. if you're looking to play stuff like Mass Effect 3 or FFXIV -- well getting a desktop for $1000 or under would easily suffice.

my HP laptop is the former kind of computer, and after 2 years of college that thing has very rarely ever left the desk except to visit home. honestly, if you have that kind of money to throw down, you could get yourself a really high-end gaming experience set up for yourself instead of throwing it all towards portability.

your needs may be different though, but that's my side of it. sorry i couldn't recommend any hardware.
 
Wrong place. But what do you prefer, a huge/heavy laptop that you can barely carry around or a medium one/small one to be able to carry around easily/enough? Do looks matter? What settings do you want to be able to play on? "Gaming" just doesn't cover it unfortunately.
 
[quote name='MYFIREMANISHUGE']Wrong place. But what do you prefer, a huge/heavy laptop that you can barely carry around or a medium one/small one to be able to carry around easily/enough? Do looks matter? What settings do you want to be able to play on? "Gaming" just doesn't cover it unfortunately.[/QUOTE]

I'm looking for a small to medium laptop. Looks aren't really an issue and by gaming I simply mean a decent machine that can run games like mass effect on at least medium settings.

And to answer the 1st poster, I have desktop but it's definitely not built for gaming, the laptop however, is required by my college so I decided why not go for a decently powerful machine since I'm going to be relying on it for the next four years for both school work and down time
 
I'd say the envy 14.
i'll look around more and edit this post if i see something else.

quick finds from newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220739 $919
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114925 $999, the graphics are a tad slower but it has automatically switching graphics, so you'd get better battery life
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834127212 $1849

the envy 14 starts at $1099 (plus you can use coupons or get an academic discount with a .edu email), the graphics are better than the first 2 laptops and the screen is a higher resolution. plus if you really wanted, you could get a quad core processor and still be under your budget.
 
Well I am not sure, there are tons of laptops that can easily max ME 1/2 and several other games at that price range.

I'd go for the Sony Vaio Z series myself if I had that money, but would probably spend like 800 on my rig and the rest on a really nice laptop. I've heard the Envy series gets really hot, but most laptops do anyway. ( depends on your environment, cooling pad, etc )

Do you really want to spend that much? Or would 1.2k or less would be better?

Here's a good website, they had a awesome laptop for under a grand that was on sale, don't remember it though.

http://www.techbargains.com/?r1=1

There's also slickdeals, they have coupons, codes, etc for example on Dell's website you can save a good deal of money ( I saved $50 on a cpu since they had a coupon for 30% or so )

Now then you have several choices, the Envy (14/15) series, Vaio Z or something series, a Macbook ( lol ) most of them got good gpus so they can easily max most games. There also some good ones in chidesd's link, just post a link of whatever you like and we'll see if it's good enough ( or you can see yourself if you understand )
 
[quote name='ImpurePhoen1x']alright, thanks man[/QUOTE]

no problem. i'd say 14" is the best size, since you'll get a good amount of power, battery life, and it's still pretty portable.

the only thing about xoticpc is the only laptop that can sort of compare to the envy 14 is the asus N82JQ, and the asus has a lower res screen and slower graphics. i'm not trying to push hp on people, since i know many people dislike them, but the envy line is pretty nice.

the envy 14 doesn't get nearly as hot as the older ones, you can find people online that already have it that say this (while playing games, too).

i would not recommend a macbook since the GPU is pretty mediocre in the 13" macbook pro, so you'd have to jump up to the 15" one. that's a huge price increase, and at that point you're better off getting the vaio Z (13"), since it has the same performance in a smaller package.
 
$1499 HP Envy 17 at NewEgg.com will get you:
Model Brand HP Series ENVY Model 17-1011NR Part# WQ831UA#ABA General Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit CPU Type Intel Core i7 720QM(1.6GHz) Screen 17.3" Memory Size 8GB DDR3 Hard Disk 640GB Optical Drive BD Combo Graphics Card ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 Video Memory 1GB Communication Gigabit LAN and WLAN Dimensions 16.38" x 10.83" x 1.25" - 2.15" Weight 7.51 lbs.
 
[quote name='mariol90']no problem. i'd say 14" is the best size, since you'll get a good amount of power, battery life, and it's still pretty portable.

the only thing about xoticpc is the only laptop that can sort of compare to the envy 14 is the asus N82JQ, and the asus has a lower res screen and slower graphics. i'm not trying to push hp on people, since i know many people dislike them, but the envy line is pretty nice.

the envy 14 doesn't get nearly as hot as the older ones, you can find people online that already have it that say this (while playing games, too).

i would not recommend a macbook since the GPU is pretty mediocre in the 13" macbook pro, so you'd have to jump up to the 15" one. that's a huge price increase, and at that point you're better off getting the vaio Z (13"), since it has the same performance in a smaller package.[/QUOTE]
Mediocre you say? The 330m is on par with the 5650, what are you talking about? Maybe the older macbook pro, but certainly not the new one. Not trying to defend Apple, but get your facts straight ;)

The Envy is like the Macbook, almost a clone you could say, but depending on what OS you prefer either are good.
 
[quote name='MYFIREMANISHUGE']Mediocre you say? The 330m is on par with the 5650, what are you talking about? Maybe the older macbook pro, but certainly not the new one. Not trying to defend Apple, but get your facts straight ;)

The Envy is like the Macbook, almost a clone you could say, but depending on what OS you prefer either are good.[/QUOTE]

the GT 335m is below the 5650, read here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3822/laptop-buyers-guide-14inch-and-smaller/7
plus the comments talk about it a bit. and there's more here:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5650.23697.0.html
it's about the same performance as a GTS 250M/350M (of course one will beat the other at certain things).

and there's even more here (GT 330m):
http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...gt-330m-vs-ati-mobility-radeon-hd-5650-a.html

the 13" macbook/macbook pro has the integrated geforce 320M with 256MB shared memory. that's why i called that "mediocre". the 330M is a good improvement over it.

The envy is pretty much a clone though, yeah. It seems to be cheaper if you compare specs directly though.

BUT, the only other thing about the 15" macbook pro is the size. the OP said "I'm looking for a small to medium laptop.", which generally fits the 11"-14" range. There are a lot of nice 15" notebooks that are very fast with 1080p screens, but they are simply larger than small to medium.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
[quote name='mariol90']the GT 335m is below the 5650, read here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3822/laptop-buyers-guide-14inch-and-smaller/7
plus the comments talk about it a bit. and there's more here:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5650.23697.0.html
it's about the same performance as a GTS 250M/350M (of course one will beat the other at certain things).

and there's even more here (GT 330m):
http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...gt-330m-vs-ati-mobility-radeon-hd-5650-a.html

the 13" macbook/macbook pro has the integrated geforce 320M with 256MB shared memory. that's why i called that "mediocre". the 330M is a good improvement over it.

The envy is pretty much a clone though, yeah. It seems to be cheaper if you compare specs directly though.

BUT, the only other thing about the 15" macbook pro is the size. the OP said "I'm looking for a small to medium laptop.", which generally fits the 11"-14" range. There are a lot of nice 15" notebooks that are very fast with 1080p screens, but they are simply larger than small to medium.[/QUOTE]
Well it only seems to get several FPS in several games more than it, oh well. I forgot, I was looking at the 15" model, my bad :whistle2:#

He didn't really say how much inches "medium" was, it could be 14" or 15" for some people, large being 16"+

Anyways OP did you find a choice or anything at all? :bouncy:
 
well after searching around with everyone's advice I've decided to go with the M11x with these specs
for $950.40 after Dell's student discount and a $100 off coupon I found, my only gripe is to whether or not to take the base 160gb 5400 RPM hdd and save $60 bucks from the 320 GB hdd and just buy a 500gb one and install it on my own since Dell stupidly overpriced their 500 gb option

Alienware M11x, Soft Touch Stealth Black
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ i7 640UM (4M Cache, 1.2 GHZ with 2.266 GHz Max Turbo Frequency) - Overclockable
GRAPHICS CARD NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 335M
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1 Year Basic Plan
MOBILE CONNECTIVITY No Internal WWAN Antenna Installed
MEMORY 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 800MHz
HARD DRIVE 320GB SATAII 7,200RPM
BLUETOOTH Bluetooth Module, 2.1+ Enhanced Data Rate

Btw does anyone know any coupon codes that can stack with the $100 off any dell EPP system $999 or more? Tryin to save a little more cash if I can lol
 
Last edited by a moderator:
That link is invalid man, and yeah I know the screen is small but I'm used to it, I'm typing this out on an Aspire One as we type lol
 
[quote name='ImpurePhoen1x']well after searching around with everyone's advice I've decided to go with the M11x with these specs
for $950.40 after Dell's student discount and a $100 off coupon I found, my only gripe is to whether or not to take the base 160gb 5400 RPM hdd and save $60 bucks from the 320 GB hdd and just buy a 500gb one and install it on my own since Dell stupidly overpriced their 500 gb option

Alienware M11x, Soft Touch Stealth Black
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ i7 640UM (4M Cache, 1.2 GHZ with 2.266 GHz Max Turbo Frequency) - Overclockable
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1 Year Basic Plan
MOBILE CONNECTIVITY No Internal WWAN Antenna Installed
MEMORY 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 800MHz
HARD DRIVE 320GB SATAII 7,200RPM
BLUETOOTH Bluetooth Module, 2.1+ Enhanced Data Rate

Btw does anyone know any coupon codes that can stack with the $100 off any dell EPP system $999 or more? Tryin to save a little more cash if I can lol[/QUOTE]
You listed everything but the graphics card lol, but yeah save the money and install your own.

http://slickdeals.net/coupons/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top