Time for a new laptop (and not a new pile of bricks)!

Hey everyone! So a while back I posted about a need for a new laptop, and now the time has finally come. I really would love your help because I am not so savvy with computer information, so I'll tell you what I'm looking for! Basically the equivalent of this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834214050

Only NOT a monster. I'm looking for something that isn't 18" and won't weigh a ton. I'll give you an idea of some attributes I would like:

-Play GW and GW2 on high settings without lag/with a good fps, and can download more games (Fallout, Oblivion).
-Portable, not a moving desktop
-Able to fulfill my school needs

So if I'm asking for more than possible, just let me know. But I would love it if I could a the laptop just like the one I posted a link to, only smaller. Price range is up to $1300. Thank you!

Something like this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220921

any real gaming laptop is going to weigh a couple pounds extra and have poor battery life.... exactly how big is too big and how long of a battery life do you need?

That's actually really nice! I just don't like the look of it so much, but I could deal. I'm more into "sleek" looking laptops, hence the qosmio. I just wish it weren't so huge! Haha.

Too big = 16" probably. I'm looking for a battery life of 2 hrs maybe?

EDIT: If you can find one 15" or under, I'll be an even happier camper. But that is just an if.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834152230

It's quite similar performance wise to the ASUS G53, but perhaps the looks may be more to your liking. A laptop with a good video card is going to have to be bigger and bulkier, both to fit the parts, and to be able to dissipate the extra heat that they create.... Now if you want a 15" or smaller, you might be looking at a lower resolution (say 1366 x 768) which would mean you could get away with a weaker, cooler, and cheaper video card..... and still game on it.

I like the look of that one a lot more!! Thanks! My only concern with it is the GTX 285M graphics card instead of the 460M. That seems like a big difference - is it?

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Compari...rds.130.0.html

It's 2 spots lower on this chart..... very comparable performance, within 95% in just about every game. The biggest difference is DX11, which at this point in time is not that big a deal. I would get the ASUS, but if you like the look of the MSI better, it's certainly a viable option and I don't think you would regret either.

The G53 is one of the best price/performance laptop but if you don't like the looks go with MSI or clevo

Here are a few more options

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834152231.

http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8130-...ch-p-2973.html

http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8150-...ch-p-2972.html

You might want to upgrade the battery on the sagers as they sometimes come with a 3 cell battery

EDIT: the np8150 comes with an 8 cell battery so you should get away with easily 2-3 hours of battery in work and it looks professional, more so than the MSI.

Those look very professional! Thanks for posting.

I think it is between these three:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834152230

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834152231

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220921

Really, I would choose the first MSI instantly, but I'm not sure how big of a difference a NVIDIA GTX 285M is from a GTX 460M...Would they both make GW2 look as beautiful as it is supposed to be? Haha. And the second one has the updated graphics card, but less memory and and i5 instead of i7? I'm so stupid with this, so please forgive my probably obvious-answer questions, but what is the difference?

Basically, I don't want a laptop with a better graphics card but bad memory, or visa versa. Or is it not even a big change?

They are going to be equal in GW2 for all practical purposes. They should both produce playable FPS at high settings.

Sweet. Now with this one,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834152231

Is an ATI Radeon HD better or worse than a NVIDIA GTX? I see that is a different graphics card than the other one.

And like I said in my edit above, how does the i5 processor contrast with the i7?

Thanks so much for your help, you guys are so great!

The debate about the 460m and mobility 5870 raged for a while on the notebookreview forums. It might still be . Both cards give similar performance and each has the advantage in a few games but it ranges from 5% to 15% so no big deal.

the i5 is a dual core processor while the i7 is a quad core. Unless you plan to do video encoding and the likes you'll be fine with a dual core. As far as RAM goes, you shouldn't need more than 4GB. Make sure to get one with a 7200RPM hard drive though, you'll notice a difference in loading times.

Oh, one more thing, get a GPU with GDDR5 instead of GDDR3 though i don't think any of the ones we listed have a GDDR3 GPU except maybe the 285m

Awesome, thank you so much!

I think they both have GDDR3 though, according to the info? What is that/why is a GDDR3 worse?

Final question, which one would you guys choose?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834152231

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834152230

Well. my personal opinion is that gaming on a 1366 x 768 screen is unacceptable, so I would definitely go for the other option, even if it has an older and slightly slower video card. However, if you get a 1920 x 1080 resolution on a little 15" screen you won't be able to read the text.... I would try to find a 1440 x 900 or 1600 x 900 screen resolution if it were up to me...

Okay well, I found a link to the same laptop I am using right now. It's older and slower than you could imagine, I had to switch to this because my other one broke.

http://www.google.com/products/catal...d=0CDcQ8wIwAw#

So is this 15.6" also? Because I don't think going a little bigger than this would be a problem, I actually would like that. I don't know the resolution of this laptop, though. So I couldn't say what I picture is better.

EDIT:

Ok, I think I have found my decision for the time being, the i5 one. Now the only thing keeping me from being 100% sure is the memory difference.

Here is the i5, ATI Radeon 5870:

MSI GX660-260US NoteBook Intel Core i5 460M(2.53GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870

And here is the i7 GeForce GTX 285M:

MSI GT660R-004US NoteBook Intel Core i7 740QM(1.73GHz) 16" 6GB Memory 1TB HDD 7200rpm BD Combo NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285M

Is that a big difference? I don't want to get the laptop with the potential memory loss.

Also, the i5 has the DDR5 video memory, the i7 has the DDR3

Ouch, I feel your pain there... nothing like a 2003 era laptop to help you appreciate a new one! You could purchase almost any laptop on the market right now and cry tears of joy at how much faster it is with "modern" programs, games, etc...

As for the memory difference; the i5 processor uses dual channel memory while the i7 processor uses triple channel memory. Now for gaming, every day web browsing and word processing you do not need more than 4GB of RAM, in fact you will likely not even use that much. There are programs that utilize more RAM, but 98% of people won't need to be worrying about that. From a pure gaming perspective the i5 with the HD 5870 is going to perform just as well and a little better in most games. In fact with the low screen resolution you should be able to play every game on the market at high settings, which would not as likely with the higher resolution.

Hahaha yeah, I am really looking forward to those tears!

Ah ok. So do better graphics cards increase your fps as well? And the DDR3 vs. DDR5, I was trying to read up on that but it's a tad confusing.

GDDR5 has double the bandwidth of GDDR3 which gives it the advantage over GDDR3 at the same clock speeds. Now, if you can live with the 1366x768 screen, the 5870 will destroy every game out except metro 2033 and crysis at that resolution. If you do something that requires a lot of screen real estate then go for the one with the 285M. Remember that 1080p on a 15" screen will make everything rather small though.

As elder said, at 1080p the GTX285M won't allow you to max every game, then again the 5870 can't max every game at 1080p, you'd need a sli 485M or crossfire 6970 to be able to max out crysis with 2x AA (we're talking over 3K for the laptop right there).

To wrap it all:

If you're after performance and you don't mind the lower resolution go for the one with the 5870.

If you prefer high resolutions and you don't mind lowering the graphics down a bit then go for the one with the 285M.

EDIT: If you do multi-threaded CPU heavy tasks like video encoding then go for the one with the i7 for sure.

EDIT2: the 285M, 460M and 5870 are all very close in performance (in games) from what i could gather on the notebookreview forums and don't worry about the 285M not being a dx11 card, the 5870 wont give you playable fps in most dx11 games at high settings.