Gaming Laptop?

As a graduation present, my parents are buying me a laptop for college. In addition to using it for my Nuclear Engineering courses, I would also like to be able to use it for gaming purposes.

So what would you recommend I get for a gaming laptop?

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I'd recommend not using a laptop for gaming. I spent a bunch of money on a laptop for gaming, only to find that if I run it on maximum settings, it overheats and crashes in about fifteen minutes.

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Oh, I'd be using minimum settings anyways. I just want a PC that can run most of the games available.

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What's your spending level?

Toshiba has their Qosmio line, but if you don't like the bright colors, you may wish to choose otherwise.

Sager or iBuyPower may have some other options, but they can be a mixed bag.

Also, Microsoft has their plan where if you spend more than 699, you can get an Xbox 360 with it.

What are you using? I have a Macbook I bought two years ago running (via Windows7/Bootcamp) new games on default settings and while it gets warm rather quickly and I have to keep it plugged in to keep the battery charged I've never had a heat related crash.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

As far as spending levels go, my parents said they'd pay up to/around $1000. I'd also be using Skype on it, so webcam/webcam support would be necessary.

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An HP. That said, this is the computer that convinced me never to buy another HP product, so it's probably not a good baseline for quality in laptops

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DEFINITELY go with brands like Asus and MSI.

If you're willing to spend a lot and you REALLY want to play high-end games, this one is very, very good.

I would also say that cost-wise, indeed laptops are not very good for gaming. But the common meme of "don't buy laptops" isn't very good considering that there really isn't much an alternative for some things aside from shuttle P Cs, and lugging around a portable monitor, power charger with a good battery life, foldable keyboard, mouse, and all the other goodies you'd need to plug-in to a tiny shuttle, it's a pain not exactly comparable to having a good laptop. Mini-ITX P Cs are really just the midway road between a full sized desktop and a laptop, not a replacement.

And that statement about breaking down is terribly untrue for the majority of cases if you get a good one. It's based around your unlucky experiences. It would be like me saying to not buy LCD screens because I've had bad luck with them in the past, and I have.

Since your budget is around a thousand dollars, and you need a convenient, portable gaming machine, this is at least close to your price range, though a little over.

[1] It should handle most games pretty darn good. It's expensive, but it's good.

edited 28th May '11 7:06:06 PM by Ukonkivi

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HP is either junk, or it's just barely acceptable.

ETA:

Really, the guy is going to college, these days all the college kids buy laptops. It's just the way of things. Yeah, anybody with half a brain could build a desktop twice as powerful at half the price, but it's still an issue of taking it to class and whatever.

edited 28th May '11 7:07:31 PM by blueharp

Yeah, I definitely wouldn't recommend buying Hewlett Packard for a gaming computer, at all.

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I can definitely back that statement up. I'm planning on building a nice desktop to replace it right before Skyrim comes out and getting a netbook or something to take to class.

edited 28th May '11 7:37:26 PM by INUH

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@ Ukonkivi: I checked out the one you linked, it seems pretty good.

Any second opinions on it? Also, I'll need to find a good cooling lap thing for it.

edited 28th May '11 9:35:39 PM by Firebert

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It's certainly a nice solid laptop BUT I would recommend going to a store and seeing if you can find a similar ASUS model, so you can have your eyes on it before you buy it.

Cooling pad, well, do you want one for your lap, or one for a hard surface?

For my lap, I suppose. Laptops sure heat up fast...

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Well, for that I think you might want to wait till you get the laptop, sometimes you need to have it on hand to try for comfort.

It turns out Dell is having a 25% off sale on certain laptops. Would any of these, given the options provided for them, be comparable in terms of power and price?

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I've never really trusted Dell much. Their products, at least the ones I've seen, don't seem all that reliable.

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What would be your suggestion, then?

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I don't really know. My experience probably leaves me better at saying who not to buy from than who to buy from; I've gone through a lot of crappy computers.

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My laptop is pretty good for gaming - it's a HP HDX 18 with 4 GB of RAM, and it runs recent games very well. Only issue is overheating which I have to use a cooling mat to rectify.

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Dell desktops can be reliable. My mom's had one for... nearly 10 years and it hasn't given up on her at all. She even upgraded it from XP to 7.

Granted, she and the rest of my family have done their fair share of stupid things to get viruses and malware onto the damn thing, but I do a decent job of keeping them in line and keeping that thing intact... but that's another topic.

I assume that the same quality might be slightly lesser in their laptops. I'd suggest looking up product reviews.

edited 29th May '11 7:31:15 PM by nomuru2d

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I've known people who love their Dell machines. I've known people who hate them.

Totally not worth worrying about.

However, I did just see Nvidia announce a new set of GP Us for notebooks, so I'm going to suggest you wait for a price drop, or for them to come out if you want one of them. Not that you need one, but I would wait and see if the prices go down as they try to clear inventory.

Concerning reliability: Buy a warranty, it's not that expensive and can save you tons of money. That is all.

Eric,

the new Dell 15" macbook clone is actually pretty decent for the price, and it's $1k for the base model, but it has decent specs at that price, and the video card on it is good enough for light gaming at low settings.