Best fast and laptop for gaming, programming with good construction

[liolliokas]

Hello,

I'm searching for new laptop, I know parameters I woul like to have in it, but I want it to be long lasting too. Now I'm using Dell Inspiron 1521 (it was a gift) an I hate it. I have it for at least 4 years. It always works with critical temperature, since day one I had problem with it. Before that I had old (at least 7-8 years old) IBM ThinkPad laptop with titanium carcass and I loved it. Its parameters was morally old, but it was trustworthy. I think You've got the idea...

1. What is your budget?

Normaly I would go for 1350 USD, but can go up to 1930 USD.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

15.6'' is in satisfaction, but can be higher.

3. What screen resolution do you want?

I think, that 1920x1080 would be good in perspective

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?

I need portable laptop. My Dell is 3.1 kg weight, MSI - 3.5 kg, i don't know if this 400g is a big difference, I have wery comfortable bagpac for laptop, and I don't feel its whole weight...

5. How much battery life do you need?

Don't care really

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?

I intend to play with it games like WOW, waiting for Diablo 3, Siberia 3, always wanted to try The Witcher etc.. I think it would be best if I could play without lag, everything else is good enough.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

I'm kind of girl, that loves to rule mashine and not the way around. I hate waiting for it to finish the job, I love to do many task at one time, like programming, testing another program (that needs many resources), watching video or music listening, searching the web (it meant very much tabs), running some simulation program through linux on virtual machine, etc..

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?

I don't care, I have additional 1TB HDD (couse every minute I'm afraid of loosing my data from my hot Dell)

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

I think I will by from my country, but I need You to point me at the right direction

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?

Very long, 6 years at least (if it is possible)

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?

DVD ROM/Writer

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.

I have Dell Inspiron, I don't like it, but I know, that there is huge quality difference between Insiron and XPS or Vosho, so i'm not against Dell, i'm agains bad quality. And I don't like Lenovo for sure. I like IBM, but Lenovo isn't IBM, it is something in the middle...

13. What country do you live in?

Lithuania

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

Also I would like to have these parameters:

>= Nvidia GeForce GTX 560,
Intel i7,
RAM >= 4 GB

I saw this laptop: http://www.msi.com/product/nb/GT683.html

Its parameters wonderful, but for that price (in our country it costs ~1930 USD, and this is about double any other laptop costs) it should work very very long, until i feel the desire to change it. This is a highest limit I would want to pay for laptop (and I would feel very dirty after that ).


I think these parameters will let me play new games and do whatever I need and I won't feel discomfort after year or two, that there is need upgrade my laptop again.

I'm waiting for Your opinion, feel free to teach me something new about laptops
Thank You in advance

 

[liolliokas]

I want to edit this one:

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

I think I will by from my country, but I need You to point me at the right direction what laptop to choose (not the buying place )

 

[Wave Fusion]

I'm rather fond of my current notebook, an HP Pavilion DV7 Quad Edition.
Mine cost me about $1,200; about $150 more to include a 1080p display. (mine is 900p)

There is a smaller, 15.6 inch version, but I chose the larger one because of the higher standard resolution screen, free blu-ray, second HDD bay, and a built-in subwoofer.

I'm using mine for literally everything, news, media, games, and college.
So, I'm fairly likely to upgrade whenever possible; however financially, I rely on it not breaking anytime soon.

It came a free two year warranty, something very few computers (or electronics) have these days. Only the DV7 Quad Edition and ENVY series from HP have 2 yr warranties though.. the smaller dv6 unit does not.

The only downside I should mention is the graphics...
My 6770M (same as the current 7690M) is plenty of power to run The Witcher, SWTOR, Rift, Mass Effect, etc without lag or low FPS.
But although it is very close in performance to the 560M, is it slightly slower in most benchmarks.

I'm banking on the theory that they wouldn't offer me a 2 yr warranty unless it was made to last. 11 months in and so far so good =)

 

[liolliokas]

Thank You, Wave Fusion, for your answer.

I looked for HP Pavilion DV7 laptops in lithuanian websites and saw only 17,3'' laptops (size is good, but smaller would be better), price is good. Also I saw here: http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/hp-pavilion-dv7t-quad-edition.aspx that this laptop performs almost two times better than other, but almost all other test it fails and ASUS G73SW-A1 stands at a top (more important is cooler). And I think cooler means longer lasting?.. Problem is that I do not see this exact Asus model in our country. And do not know if it would be trustworthy... I'm killing myself with this quiz

 

[WR2]

MSI GT683 Series reviews

 

[liolliokas]

MSI GT683 Series reviews

As I already wrote, I saw this MSI laptop, but maybe I can pick something less expensive with my desired or very similar parameters? If I'll find nothing else, then probably I'll pick this one.

 

[WR2]

It's not easy for us to see what's available in your area.
If you find something you want to know more we can help you find out more about it.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Your requirements are somewhat in conflict ..... computing power is by definition inversely proportional to weight, battery life and price...... the more computing power, the bigger the price, the bigger the weight and the shorter the battery life.

First be aware that just about every brand you ever heard of doesn't actually make a laptop, they have and ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) make it for them and slap their label on it. I have oft seen posts labeling one brand as great and another as junk when both were in fact made by the same ODM.

Major relationships include:

Quanta sells to (among others) HP, Lenovo, Apple, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, Sony, Fujitsu and NEC
Compal sells to (among others) Acer, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo and HP/Compaq
Wistron (former manufacturing & design division of Acer) sells to Dell, Acer, Lenovo and HP
Inventec sells to Toshiba, HP and Lenovo
Pegatron (former manufacturing & design division of Asus) sells to Asus, Toshiba, Apple, Dell and Acer
Foxconn sells to Asus, Dell, HP and Apple
Flextronics (former Arima Computer Corporation notebook division) sells to HP
Clevo sells to boutique brands Alienware (pre-Dell buyout), WidowPC, Falcon Northwest, Sager, etc.

For the past 6 years, I have limited my purchases (11 laptops) to the Clevo brand. Main reason is it's a quality product and I get to pick most of the components in a custom built laptop..

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/91510-clevo-guide-v2-0-faq-reseller-info.html

CLEVO is a large Taiwanese computer company specializing in laptops. While the Clevo brand name is perhaps not widely known, their products are re-branded and sold by known boutique brand OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers)… notably Sager, VoodooPC, Falcon Northwest, Eurocom, etc.
They are also considered (by whoever knows about notebooks) to design and manufacturer the best of the best notebooks in terms of superior build quality and innovative designs.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/592609-clevo-guide-v3-0-faq-reseller-info-read-before-posting.html

As with any product, service depends on the individual distributor.....for years I used Pro-Star but their service tailed off when the economy went south so no longer buy from there. They still have a great web site tho, so I still use it to pick my model and then go buy it somewhere else.

http://www.pro-star.com/index.cfm?mainpage=product&filter=4

I need high end performance in CAD, so I'm grabbing the P170HM or P150HM series. The CAD computer building market kinda died when peeps relaized that a great gaming box also made a great AutoCAD box and CAD specific builders kinda disappeared .... so it also does damn fine in gaming. If rendering tho, I'd customize it with a Quadro.

Again that level of performance comes with increased weight and shorter battery life. Looking for a compromise between weight (150 is 6.8 pounds, 170 is 8.6) and performance .

The above come with a base GFX card of a 560M, one step down is the 555M (W50HR and W170HR)which have Optimus technology which significantly increases batter life.

The days of having to give up battery life to obtain high-end graphics performance are a thing of the past ...... NVIDIA's new Optimus Technology optimizes performance with a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M GPU with 2GB GDDR3 memory. For less demanding applications, the GT 555M GPU is powered off and the integrated Intel GMA graphics handles both rendering and display calls to conserve power and provide the highest possible battery life. Best of all, these transitions are executed instantaneously, seamlessly and automatically without a hiccup. With the NVIDIA Optimus, you can now enjoy watching a HD movie, surfing the Web or playing the latest 3D games with the assurance of getting the best performance and the longest battery l

Xoticpc.com is a well respected supplier here in the US and ya can check the Clevo guides above which list distributors by region throughout the world.

 

[liolliokas]

Thank You, JackNaylorPE, for so much new information for me! I'll study it carefully.

Your requirements are somewhat in conflict ..... computing power is by definition inversely proportional to weight, battery life and price...... the more computing power, the bigger the price, the bigger the weight and the shorter the battery life.

I was hopping, maybe I can somehow evade this law In this conflict the most important for me is computing power and lower weight (what point then to buy laptop if I can't lift it up ).

 

[game junky]

For laptops, there is a solution for every problem. For laptops, I usually look at form factors from Dell, ASUS & Sony depending on goal and price. Sony has nice designs but you're usually paying a premium just because it's a Sony. I like their Z series - they have a 13" laptop w/ a 1080p screen and their media bay houses an external video card so that you can conserve battery on the go but game when you're at home. From dell, I like the 15z - it's thin, lightweight and still has a nice screen and a good enough graphics card to handle most games. Don't get me wrong, you're not going to have a phenomenal experience on BF3 or Skyrim, but it still gets the job done. From ASUS, they have an array of different laptops depending on what screen you want.
Here's some links - the G535X:
http://usa.asus.com/Notebooks/Gaming_Powerhouse/G53SX/

Dell 15z:
http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-15z/pd

Sony Z-series (13"):
http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=8198552921644570897

Sony S-series (15.5")
http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666409511

 

[liolliokas]

I thank all of You for many good ideas! My head is now exploding

I have looked at Clevo line, I can pay that price, and if quality is really so good, its double win. I hope that prices is similar in my country too (I've send the request for distributor and waiting for answer with prices ) If nope, I will consider Game Junky's offer. Thanks again!

 

[Wave Fusion]

I've never seen a review site compare laptops like that before, particular the XPS 17
(That was a computer I looked at before getting my DV7)

Anyway there are a few things I noticed. This ASUS G53SW-A1 might be a smaller 15.6 in,, but the spec sheet says it is 2 lbs HEAVIER than the larger DV7.
(the latest HP revision says the dv7 is 6.72 lbs, depending on the battery [6 or 9 cell])

Yes, the DV7 gets hot while gaming/heavy load, but that's a result of the thinner size/weight. Also, the metal finish tends to conduct heat better.

However, it idles very cool and quiet, and at just under 7 lbs it is very mobile for its size.

As the tests reflect, the 560M is significantly faster at World of Warcraft (lol)
But again the 560M is a much hotter, larger GPU. Which requires more bulk and fan noise to accommodate.

I'd highly recommend an external cooling pad, such as a Zalman NC2000
http://www.amazon.com/Zalman-ZM-NC2000Black-Notebook-Cooler-Black/dp/B0012WXFO8/
for when you're playing The Witcher or other games

Both have served me faithfully for almost a full year without incident.

It is a very hard decision. I waited a whole 2 years doing research and waiting for the 2011 processors before sealing the deal

I wish you the best of luck.

 

[liolliokas]

I'd highly recommend an external cooling pad, such as a Zalman NC2000
http://www.amazon.com/Zalman-ZM-NC2000Black-Notebook-Cooler-Black/dp/B0012WXFO8/
for when you're playing The Witcher or other games

Thank You for advices, I always use external cooler. In fact, I think it is only thing, that keeps my laptop still running.

 

[game junky]

If money was no object, I would probably go with an Origin laptop - they look clean and they have some killer customization options. Not sure if they ship international but it would be worth investigating. Worst case scenario, you could use a freight forwarder to send it on your behalf (you have it shipped to them, they resend it to you, etc.). Here's a link to enjoy:

http://www.originpc.com/eon15-s-gaming-laptop-features.asp

 

[liolliokas]

If money was no object, I would probably go with an Origin laptop - they look clean and they have some killer customization options. Not sure if they ship international but it would be worth investigating. Worst case scenario, you could use a freight forwarder to send it on your behalf (you have it shipped to them, they resend it to you, etc.). Here's a link to enjoy:

http://www.originpc.com/eon15-s-ga [...] atures.asp

Never heard of it before today, but as You've guest there is no shipment to Lithuania and to the nearest country, Latvia, shipment would cost half that computers price

 

[hpfreak]

Asus G74?

 

[liolliokas]

Asus G74?

Interesting, but haven't found it in Lithuania... Maybe such Asus production is not so popular here, don't know...

 

[liolliokas]

Best answer selected by liolliokas.