<p>Alright I'm going to have about 2500 or so for a laptop (don't need to spend it all, or I could spend more but yeah). I will definitely use it for gaming, and I'm either majoring in game design at USC or somewhere, or dual majoring in physics/math at UofM so I'll use it for those as well. I'd like a laptop for the portability, and I know it will weigh a LOT if it's really powerful like I'm looking for. But I'm hoping it won't affect me too much if I have a carrying case and whatnot. Idk haha looking for advice, please/much appreciated</p>
<p>Just put 1000-1500 into a gaming laptop and some more into a laptop. Best of both worlds.</p>
<p>You’ll regret carrying around a 10lb laptop after a week. Spend a bit on a gaming desktop, and get a laptop that is more portable and gives you a better battery life.</p>
<p>Buy a good desktop and a good netbook.</p>
<p>Perfect combination.</p>
<p>why laptop? desktop is far better than laptops as far as gaming. and for 4k you can get a BADASS desktop capable of running anythig for 3-5 years.</p>
<p>Just got an alienware m14x for around 2K. Will run nearly any game I throw at it with top graphics, anti-aliasing, etc. It weighs around 7lbs, but it’s all I need in my bag, and I love it. Go ahead and get this or the new razer blade, and max out on the options. They’re more powerful than any desktop I’ve ever seen (of course, alienware desktops will obviously have better performance). You’ll regret not having one computer with all of your info and games on it in college if you go for a laptop and desktop.</p>
<p>I tend to agree with the people who say desktop and laptop. $500 will buy you a laptop that is more than sufficient for any mobile computing task, you’ll feel better about taking it around campus (less worry about it being lost/stolen/damaged), and a $2000 dollar desktop will give you more power than a $2500 laptop would.</p>
<p>gaming laptops are a waste of money, you can build a screaming fast desktop for <$1k and have a $400 laptop that is by no means bad.</p>
<p>If he’s majoring in game design, then won’t he want a really powerful laptop to take with him to class, though? It would help to have the power of a really good gaming laptop when in class designing games. Not like it will just be for word processing and excel.</p>
<p>Well, designing games is little different from word processing computationally, and for testing games you actually want a lower-end machine, unless you only intend to market your game to hardcore gamers.</p>
<p>The only case where I see a powerful laptop being useful would be if he is going into computer graphics and will be doing a lot of on-the-fly rendering.</p>
<p>A lot of PC based games have on-the-box requirements that would top the Mother Of All Architecture Professional PC’s… I thought my computer was decent till we loaded Crysis :-(</p>
<p>As with others, tho, I suggest the OP asks the school in question. They usually have some pretty well defined requirements for a computer.</p>