Trying to decide what laptop to get for multimedia and gaming purposes

[Electroice]

I'm looking for a laptop to take to college. It will be used for school work, multimedia purposes, and light/medium gaming. Preferably it would be thin. I've been looking at gaming laptops like the msi GS70 stealth and non-gaming laptop like the Dell xps 13. There are two main problems I'm having. The first is that many laptops that support gaming have garbage battery life so I'm trying to find a decent balance. The second is that I'm still trying to figure out if a 3k res laptop is worth it. I know scaling can be a problem but how big of a problem actually is it? I've read threads saying it's the end of the world and some threads saying it's irrelevant. Also, my budget is around $1,500 but as shown by my searches, I can go a bit higher.

 

[metalicgeek]

You should try to avoid 3K-res laptops because at the price range you're aiming for, most GPUs won't be able to play games at native resolution. Playing games on a 3K resolution screen at below native resolution will look very blurry and unattractive, too.

If you want that 3K screen, I can recommend the Alienware 13 with a Graphics Amplifier:

http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-13/pd

Purchasing the Amplifier will allow you to extend the capabilities of the already-competent laptop using a desktop graphics card.

 

[velo3100]

This will depend on the game. I would recommend the asus ux501 as it is a good laptop for people that priorities multimedia useage rather than gaming. If gaming is the ultimate aim then an asus rog gl series is good. You could look into if you can get the aurus x5, 15 inch model as it is quite good for this purpose.