<p>Well my current laptop is getting a bit too old and I have decided to replace it. Now whatever laptop I buy, I have to use in college and obviously, I want to be able to game on it. I'll probably be playing games like COD4, Starcraft II, etc... and would prefer to be able to play them on high graphics. My budget is flexible and max I can go for is around $2000. I'm not in any hurry to buy (Sandy Bridge is coming out soon, but who knows when notebook manufacturers would implement them) So is there any good gaming laptop which is:</p>
<p>1) Fast
2) Reliable (last me four years of college)
3) Has a decent battery life (I'd prefer 4+ hours when NOT gaming, more is definitely wanted)
4) It should not be bulky or heavy (My current toshiba is approx. 6.5 pounds and around that is what i would prefer +- 2 lbs)
5) I would like a screen size around 14" - 16" (any bigger/smaller then reason please)</p>
<p>I got a Toshiba Satellite A665-S6065 over the summer, and it’s performing quite well for me right now. Honestly, I got it because the specs were great and it was on sale for just $800, but… oh hey, I can’t seem to think of any downsides to it.</p>
<p>I can run SCII on mid-high graphics no problem. Haven’t tried CoD4, but I’m sure it will be fine. It does get a bit toasty when running full-bore, but I haven’t had any crashing of failures.</p>
<p>The only kicker is battery life, which is only decent. With Eco mode activated, I can get about 3-4 hours running on the battery doing standard work, nothing fancy.</p>
<p>Comparable models are going for $800 to $1000 right now.</p>
<p>Bulky is where the compromise is. You can get a 15 inch one with a 460m, but its thick compared to what a 17 inch gaming laptop would be. In terms of battery life, good luck with that, because that just wont happen.</p>
<p>My advice: Keep laptop cost under $1000, put the rest into a desktop setup.</p>
<p>16.4" 1920 x 1080 screen, C2D 2.53 GHz, ATI Radeon 4650 1 GB vRAM, ~3.5 - 4ish hours with a 9-cell battery. I think it weighs around 6.5 - 7 lbs. Under $1450, and that included a 2-year accidental damage warranty, mouse, and sleeve. L4D2 and Alien Swarm run on high settings pretty smoothly.</p>
<p>I agree with Hawkwings. Any cutting-edge mobile graphics card will be outdated and underpowered in 2 years. Best to get a desktop graphics card if you want ** enthusiast ** gaming.</p>
<p>Not as good as all the components are geared towards OSX. You’ll have bad battery life, the touchpad will be ****ty, and you’ll have to deal with shutting down one OS to boot the other which will be a pain in the ass. (Done it before and my roommate refuses to use BootCamp for this reason.)</p>
<p>The combination your asking for is nearly impossible
A gaming laptop means bad battery life… and if you want to enjoy the game better then it means a large screen which is definitely not going to weigh 2 lbs so i would recommend a great desktop for a lower price ~$1000 (if you dont include the monitor) + a decent laptop i3 for ~$600</p>
<p>I do not suggest any HP computer since they have the highest failure rate. </p>
<p>here are my suggestions for laptops
[Newegg.com</a> - lenovo IdeaPad Y560(0646-2EU) NoteBook Intel Core i7 720QM(1.60GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730](<a href=“Are you a human?”>Are you a human?)
[Newegg.com</a> - lenovo IdeaPad Y560(0646-54U) NoteBook Intel Core i7 740QM(1.73GHz) 15.6" Wide XGA 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730](<a href=“Are you a human?”>Are you a human?)
[Newegg.com</a> - ASUS G Series G73JW-XN1 NoteBook Intel Core i7 740QM(1.73GHz) 17.3" 8GB Memory 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M](<a href=“Are you a human?”>Are you a human?)</p>
<p>oh and Macbook Pro’s are definitely not gaming computers</p>
<p>^Only thing is the HDs are 5400rpm, with no additional drive which </p>
<p>So, if his plans are for a laptop only:
[url=<a href=“Are you a human?”>Are you a human?]Newegg.com</a> - lenovo IdeaPad Y560(0646-2YU) NoteBook Intel Core i5 460M(2.53GHz) 15.6" Wide XGA 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD + 32GB SSD HDD 5400rpm HDD BD Combo ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730<a href=“pretty%20much%20a%20better%20alternative%20imo%20to%20the%20first%20two.%20i5%20instead,%20but%20due%20to%20the%20general%20tendency%20of%20games%20to%20be%20limited%20more%20so%20by%20the%20gpu%20it%20shouldn’t%20be%20an%20issue,%20and%20rather%20the%20ssd%20addition%20would%20have%20the%20biggest%20practical%20impact%20in%20terms%20of%20general%20OS%20speed”>/url</a>
Or the g73jw you listed but buying a ssd, copying the data of the 500gb to the ssd and using the 500gb as a storage drive instead since the g73 series has room for 2 harddrives.</p>
<p>SSDs are great upgrades for a laptop but the prices of any flash memory technology like SSDs and flash drives will fall a lot next year. So you can buy now or wait later. You can always choose to buy the laptop first and the SSD later.</p>
<p>For those who complain about battery life, you can extend the battery life by a lot by either 1)Buying and installing an SSD or 2) Disabling useless hardware components in Device Manager, turn down brightness, and switch to classic theme. I did the second one and I extended the battery life of a Dell Studio 1555 by about 20 minutes.</p>
<p>The Alienware m11x doesn’t cost that much, it’s around $1000 and you can’t upgrade it that much. You’re probably talking about the m15x or m17x. </p>
<p>Only the m11x is good, you can find better alternates to the m15x and m17x like the Asus G73, it’s cheaper, just as big and a lot more powerful compared to the m17x.</p>
<p>I just recently bought myself a laptop in order to get ready for my 2011 fall semester at Berkeley. I was pretty much in the same situation as you, wanted a a laptop that could support both Diablo 3 and SC 2 and I stumbled across this great find: [Newegg.com</a> - Acer Aspire AS5745G-7671 NoteBook Intel Core i3 370M(2.40GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce GT 420M](<a href=“Are you a human?”>Are you a human?).</p>
<p>I was fortunate enough to make the purchase on Black Friday which gave me an instant $130 off. i3 2.4 GHz, geforce gt 420m(ranked pretty up there on the videocardbenchmark site), and 4gb memory.</p>
<p>the toshiba qosmio x505-q892 is the best deal imho if youre willing to have an 18’’ screen…it’s got the highest end gfx card and amazing speakers…and it’s only 1100$ on newegg</p>
<p>Spending more isn’t always a bad thing, I am on an Alienware M15x and I see it as an investment. Sure I had to work for a year to get the money but hey…you get what you pay for and I can’t complain</p>
<p>You are doing it wrong if you are looking for a good gamikng laptop. What I have recommended to. Many people is taking 400 out of your budget to get a decent laptop and spending the rest to build a high performance computer that’ll beat any “gaming laptop”</p>
<p>I would also suggest checking out the asus g series.They have good components, cooling, and slick designs. Some laptops have graphics card with optimus technology which helps with battery life while not gaming. Unfortunately most of the graphics cards that support this aren’t the most powerful.
If battery life is important I would look for a laptop with nvidia gt 555m.
There are plenty of laptops. You may also want to check out sites like xotic pc.</p>
<p>Actually, I can see the point to having a very agile laptop, as you can go hang out and play with others. </p>
<p>I have a Vaio F, and at the time it seemed like a great deal for the performance and features. I mean, it really was! At 6.9lbs it’s juuust on the border of too heavy to be a laptop (The 17" MacBook Pro weighs about the same). </p>