New laptop for school

[Navy4422]

My laptop (asus g73sw) keeps breaking and along with several other issues(it\'s too big and has a very short 1h30m battery life) I\'ve decided to start looking for suggestion.

My hopes for a laptop:

Core i5 (2nd or 3rd gen) or comparable amd chip - the i7 is just too much and very power hungry

A dedicated card (I prefer nVidia but AMD is good as well) that could run most games well at medium or better settings

6 gb of ram (4 at min with room to upgrade)

HDD doesnt matter as I have a spare 750gb 7200rpm to use

Good battery life 6h would be awesome but 4h is good

Size and weight no larger than 16inch display and no more than 7 pounds

EDIT: Oh and a backlit keyboard is a plus

Thanks in advance

[cardgame]

Do you have a budget in mind?

[Navy4422]

Well as long as its reasonable <1500$ but Id prefer 700-1200$

[Naelo]

I recently bought a new laptop for school, I went for a Dell Alienware M14x. Its small, has a powerful nvidia 650m card and has good build quality for a reasonable pricing. (Compared to the horribly overpriced Desktops).

Some people however dont like the way it looks (Not exactly discrete) and its also a bit on the heavy side for a 14-incher though I never had problems and I carry it to school everyday.

When running on the integrated Intel card you can get about 4-5 hours out of it when not doing too intensive stuff.

Beware though, when playing games on the small screen, while suitable, its not as good as bigger 15-inch FullHD screens. Also, it gets really loud when playing games on the NVidia card.

It stays cold and quiet when running integrated though.

Also, dont buy HDDs or RAM from Dell,its a complete ripoff, upgrade it yourself.

Btw, i think i7s stay quiter and cooler at heavier workload because they are not as heavily loaded as i5s although

i5s performance is fine for pretty much everything.

Of course there are very good alternatives from HP or other manufacturers aswell, I just dont have any experience with them.

[cardgame]

m14 is a tad small and alienware laptops are on the heavy + pricy side...

Here\'s a full 1080p capable 15' laptop under $1200

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230141

8GB RAM is all you need, unless you\'re playng Skyrim, Crysis, and editing HD video all simultaneously...

(2GB) 560M is one of the best discrete cards, about the same level as 650M IIRC.

Missing an SSD, but 7200 rpm HDD is better than the usual 5400.

Nice i7 (bit low clock speed though)

I... can\'t find the weight or battery life estimate ?_?

Here\'s another nice 15' for ~$100 less:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152339

Third gen i7 as you can see...

Also 1080p screen

6GB of RAM

650M GPU

7200 RPM 750GB HDD

[LukeTim]

Running games on medium or better settings?

I thought this was a laptop for school...

[cardgame]

Haven\'t you heard? School\'s all about the gaming 8)

[LukeTim]

Haven\'t you heard? School\'s all about the gaming 8)

Ahh, I see. Changed since my day.

[Sky Visitor]

I got a Dell XPS 15 last year for college/gaming. It has:

2.3 GHz i5 w/ TurboBoost up to 2.9 GHz

4 GB RAM

Nvidia GeForce GT 525M, 1GB with Optimus

500 GB HD

Backlit Keyboard

9-cell Extended Battery.

Never had a problem playing any game (granted I don\'t play high-intensity stuff like Crysis). Battery lasts for 6-7 hours of web browsing/note taking. It cost me about USD $830 last year. No problems other than a dead pixel

[NASAboy3000]

Does AMD make laptop processors? If they do you could probably get a good laptop for half the price by going AMD. Also I would stay away from ASUS as much as you can as I have had nothing but problems with their laptops.

[Navy4422]

m14 is a tad small and alienware laptops are on the heavy + pricy side...

Here\'s a full 1080p capable 15' laptop under $1200

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230141

8GB RAM is all you need, unless you\'re playng Skyrim, Crysis, and editing HD video all simultaneously...

(2GB) 560M is one of the best discrete cards, about the same level as 650M IIRC.

Missing an SSD, but 7200 rpm HDD is better than the usual 5400.

Nice i7 (bit low clock speed though)

I... can\'t find the weight or battery life estimate ?_?

Here\'s another nice 15' for ~$100 less:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152339

Third gen i7 as you can see...

Also 1080p screen

6GB of RAM

650M GPU

7200 RPM 750GB HDD

First one is a no for several reasons it uses the same parts(minus the gpu) as my current one and weighs almost as much with a 2hr battery

Second at 2h battery life so id prefer not thank you though

Running games on medium or better settings?

I thought this was a laptop for school...

Yes it is but I like to play games on vacation at my house (not my college one) and I want to be able to run some heavy simulation programs (autoCAD, flow, etc.) very well.

For gaming my desktop maxes every game I\'ve played so far so that\'s not my goal I\'m looking at while I\'m at home to play like Battlefield and some other.

Besides some classes I can\'t pay attention I just go to answer lecture questions (They can\'t speak understandable English) so I play KSP or use an emulator while I\'m waiting for said questions

I got a Dell XPS 15 last year for college/gaming. It has:

2.3 GHz i5 w/ TurboBoost up to 2.9 GHz

4 GB RAM

Nvidia GeForce GT 525M, 1GB with Optimus

500 GB HD

Backlit Keyboard

9-cell Extended Battery.

Never had a problem playing any game (granted I don\'t play high-intensity stuff like Crysis). Battery lasts for 6-7 hours of web browsing/note taking. It cost me about USD $830 last year. No problems other than a dead pixel

This is more what I was looking for good performance but not too much I could upgrade the ram myself other than I like it maybe I\'ll check out the new xps 15\'s

I was looking at this one as well I\'d like for the i5 (its a U version)to be a little stronger but other than that nice

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215401

Does AMD make laptop processors? If they do you could probably get a good laptop for half the price by going AMD. Also I would stay away from ASUS as much as you can as I have had nothing but problems with their laptops.

Yes they do but 2 issues the optimus (graphics switching) isnt supported by what I have heard so that kills battery life and 2 no turbo boost but as for the Asus I know I\'m trying to avoid but I won\'t shut out any options yet (my asus is unreliable (has broken 25 times in the last 3 months just out of warranty ) thats why I\'m getting a new laptop)

I don\'t want to sound critical but after this last experience I\'d like to do better and all suggestions are appreciated

[Navy4422]

What does everyone think of this laptop?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834200525