Gaming Laptop, Suggestions?

[SnowBurst]

Well im looking to get a decent high end gaming laptop for around £1,000 that i can get in the UK. MSI's GT60 looked good with the 3rd gen i7 and the 680m in it, sagers NP9370 looks best atm but is like £2,000. Mainly want it to be a great gaming laptop to play new released on ultra for a while n at least be able to run latest games on low at a decent frame rate for a good 5+ years. dont know whether a 650 will cut it with a i7 not sure. I have an ati 5series in this laptop atm which has done good for a while now but its showing age with a 1st gen i3.

Bit lost as to what are good gaming laptops. Desktop is out of the question because i need a laptop.

 

[Wintermoot]

don't bother with gaming laptops. They have terrible battery life and weight a ton.

 

[Vault101]

don't bother with gaming laptops. They have terrible battery life and weight a ton.

eh, they dont bother me

Ive been thinking of getting somthing myself (Id rather somthing in RL rather than online though)

I saw my store has a couple of decently spec'd ones..but also an Alienware...I've heard bad things about alien ware....would there be alot of different between a "gaming one" and just a "normal" one with similar specs?

 

[Nouw]

Just invest in a new laptop that has a high price and you should be sweet. The laptop I'm using right now is great for gaming and it wasn't built for it, didn't cost much either.

snipped for gaming laptops

The price . I believe Alienwares are over-priced but someone with actual technical knowledge can correct me here.

 

[Altorin]

If you want a simple gauge for a gaming laptop, look for something in your pricerange that has the best dedicated vram. If you can find something with a gig or two of dedicated vram, you'll be aok

 

[SomeLameStuff]

*snip*

Ohhh yeah. Alienware and the new Razer laptops are COMPLETELY overpriced it's almost hilarious.

OT: If you're looking for a laptop that can run games for the next five years, good luck. The longest it'll last is probably three years, speaking from experience.

You can check out the ASUS laptops. Quite powerful and good value for money, if a tad bit heavy.

 

[Vault101]

Ohhh yeah. Alienware and the new Razer laptops are COMPLETELY overpriced it's almost hilarious.

OT: If you're looking for a laptop that can run games for the next five years, good luck. The longest it'll last is probably three years, speaking from experience.

You can check out the ASUS laptops. Quite powerful and good value for money, if a tad bit heavy.

what specs should I be looking for? *puts on PC dunce cap*

I take it at least 8gb ram (it seems they think an orphan dies for every GB of ram they have...stil I guess RAM is expensive), one of those 17 processors..that kind of thing?...not sure about graphics cards of coarse its not like I get a choice there

 

[DustyDrB]

Asus seems like a good value I guess. At least it is relative to the other gaming laptops I see.

It might actually be more affordable for you to buy or build a gaming desktop yourself (unless space is the issue, though you might be able to hook it up to your TV) and then have a netbook or tablet for your general needs. Even if you have to spend a bit more at first, you will definitely save money in the long term. Gaming laptops have a tendency to be overpriced.

Failing that, check out Asus.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

*snip*

Well personally, I wouldn't go over 6GB of RAM. 8GB is fine though, but anything over it is just excessive.

i7 processors are pretty solid for power. Look for one which is at least 2.2GHz. If it has a Turbo Boost option (lots seem to have one these days), all the better.

As for graphics, can't go wrong with the GTX 600 series. Just make sure it has at least 1GB of dedicated vram.

 

[Vault101]

usful info.

thanks!

You're about to buy a "gaming" laptop before a new console generation ships.

...Gonna have a bad time...

If you really need a laptop for some reason, buy a non-gaming laptop, cheapest you can find, and save up for a gaming computer for later. There is no gaming laptop on the market, not even any high end laptop on the market, that'll deal with post-newgen console designed games.

way to burst my bubble

but I want to play PC games NOOOOOOOOWWWWW
[spoiler/][img/]http://www.katiemay.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/crying-kid.jpg[/img][/spoiler]

 

[Steppin Razor]

-snip-

ASUS is good. I used to have a Toshiba and while it was reliable and had excellent customer service through Toshiba, ASUS is more power at the same or cheaper price point. Buying it online can also cut down heavily on the price you'll pay as well, at the cost of having to deal with manufacturers and the like for your warranty as opposed to walking into a store and yelling at the people working there.

 

[Phisi]

Rock Paper Shotgun has run a piece on buying a gaming laptop recently. I have an ASUS G73 Jw and it has served quite well for the past two years however it's CPU is slightly underpowered and has some cooling issues. The GPU, a GTX460m is very capable and plays games on good settings. The CPU overheats from stress while gaming and causes frame stuttering and sound delays however I think most of this is due to the fan's (The GPU and CPU have their own fans an heatsinks) filter not being as clean as it should be. The latest G series laptop has removable filters to solve this issue. Whatever model you do buy i would recommend finding out how hard it is to clean the filters, remembering that dismantling the laptop can be difficult and could void your warrenty. I would not be worried about the touch pad on a gaming laptop as mine spends most of it's time turned off. I would suggest you get an ASUS G75 series. I'll probably buy the next 17inch screen or greater series that comes out in a year or two from ASUS to upgrade. They look really sexy as well.

 

[Joccaren]

\The price . I believe Alienwares are over-priced but someone with actual technical knowledge can correct me here.

Well, saying Alienware is overpriced is like saying Superman is strong.

Yeah, its true, but it doesn't imply anywhere near how overpriced/superpowered they are. After I finished a full upgrade of my Rig earlier this year [Replaced everything except KB+M], Alienware had the balls to send me an email for a 'sale' that they had on a rig pretty much identical to mine, but for close to 4X the price.
From the few people I know who've actually bought Alienware, they apparently work, but they are way beyond what you should be paying for something.

You're about to buy a "gaming" laptop before a new console generation ships.

...Gonna have a bad time...

If you really need a laptop for some reason, buy a non-gaming laptop, cheapest you can find, and save up for a gaming computer for later. There is no gaming laptop on the market, not even any high end laptop on the market, that'll deal with post-newgen console designed games.

TBH I'm not so sure about that. It all depends on what the Nextbox and PSnext will offer, and if this generation is anything to go by - they won't offer much.
An i7 with 6Gb RAM and a fairly recent graphics card will, IMO, outclass a next gen console even with the OS holding it down.
As if that's not enough, there is always an 'adjustment period' when a new console comes out, where it is just basically utilized rather than being pushed to its limits. During at least this time a gaming laptop should sustain play, though afterwords I'd look at getting a PC.

Honestly I personally would get a PC rather than a laptop - cheaper, easier, better - but that depends on your needs. If OP needs it portable... not a lot you can do really.

 

[Vault101]

ASUS is good. I used to have a Toshiba and while it was reliable and had excellent customer service through Toshiba, ASUS is more power at the same or cheaper price point. Buying it online can also cut down heavily on the price you'll pay as well, at the cost of having to deal with manufacturers and the like for your warranty as opposed to walking into a store and yelling at the people working there.

I had a TOSHIBA that worked pretty well up untill more or less recently (it wasnt exactly top of the line eather) so yeah..I hear I should stay away from DELL too

as for online...its just that I'm a little uncomfortable shifting that amount of money online (I'd have to use paypal...in fact I'm not even sure what limit there is, if any) at least if I bought it IRL I know for sure its there and not disapeared into the universe/internet

 

[Joccaren]

I guess RAM is expensive

RAM, at least when building a PC, is one of the cheapest components you can find out there. Prices rarely rise above $50 for up to 8Gb, whereas a decent graphics card will start at $200, and often move up in $50 intervals from there.
In Laptops my guess as to a massive price jump between RAM amounts would be partially cash in, and partially because it might utilize a cheaper Motherboard in lower RAM systems, that needs to be upgraded for higher RAM amounts. RAM itself, however, shouldn't be too expensive.

 

[Steppin Razor]

ASUS G75 series

Yep, they're pretty awesome. Not cheap, but if you're gonna buy a gaming laptop instead of a traditional desktop you may as well pay a bit more to get something high end.

I had a TOSHIBA that worked pretty well up untill more or less recently (it wasnt exactly top of the line eather) so yeah..I hear I should stay away from DELL too

as for online...its just that I'm a little uncomfortable shifting that amount of money online (I'd have to use paypal...in fact I'm not even sure what limit there is, if any) at least if I bought it IRL I know for sure its there and not disapeared into the universe/internet

Never had a Dell myself, so I can't comment on them personally. And if you're going to buy from a retail store, you might want to look into JB HiFi's selection. Harvey Norman, too. JB's cheaper, but there's no guarantee that they'll have a good laptop in stock. Harvey Norman might set you back an arm and a leg, and you might end up having to buy the display model at a ~$500 discount since they never seem to have anything but display models on them, but they usually have a good selection of fairly high end laptops in decent-sized stores.

 

[VladG]

I'd say avoid gaming laptops altogether because frankly I'm not very sure you can get what you want for your budget. Gaming laptops that come even close to a medium PC are very expensive.

But if you MUST have a gaming laptop, stay away from MSI, they are the WORST manufacturer on the market (they have the highest number of warranty cases of any manufacturer out there) and they design is... well, terrible.

Had a friend who bought an MSI gaming laptop a few years ago for about the same budget you have and it was RUBBISH. Great specs on paper, but the thing would overheat so badly that the GPU would run, and I'm not even remotely exaggerating, at HALF clock speeds of what it normally would (and that's half of the mobile GPU, not the desktop equivalent) and the CPU would run at about 70%.

And there was nothing wrong with the unit itself (well, not at the start), that's just how it worked. Also in the course of about 1 and a half year he had to take it into service no less than 4 times, every single time for a different issue.

ASUS is a good manufacturer, HP (though I don't think they really have any "gaming" laptops) Lenovo (though they sometimes do run a bit expensive) and Acer. Dells are kinda crap, generally overpriced and not very reliable.

 

[Vault101]

Never had a Dell myself, so I can't comment on them personally. And if you're going to buy from a retail store, you might want to look into JB HiFi's selection. Harvey Norman, too. JB's cheaper, but there's no guarantee that they'll have a good laptop in stock. Harvey Norman might set you back an arm and a leg, and you might end up having to buy the display model at a ~$500 discount since they never seem to have anything but display models on them, but they usually have a good selection of fairly high end laptops in decent-sized stores.

I didn't really expect to find anything decent in-stores since I-crap is all the rage thease says (sorry that was a little inflamatory)

JB HI FI did seem to have a few though (and an alienware surprisingly)...I'll need to look again now that I remember the specs

 

[Steppin Razor]

I didn't really expect to find anything decent in-stores since I-crap is all the rage thease says (sorry that was a little inflamatory)

JB HI FI did seem to have a few though (and an alienware surprisingly)...I'll need to look again now that I remember the specs

Eh, they usually have a semi-decent selection of stuff. Sometimes they have some awesome ones in-store, and then other times there's nothing but shit, shit and more shit.

You can also check their online store to see what's available, then go into your local store and see if they can get it in for you. And if you're looking for something that'll play games for a few years yet, my experience is with a ASUS G75 series laptop and it runs Battlefield 3 on Ultra settings.