Looking for powerful portable laptop for coding, multitasking & gaming

vortium

Honorable
Jul 10, 2013
2
0
10,510
1. What is your budget?
$2200

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
13 to 15" (14" ideally)

3. What screen resolution do you want?
1920x1080

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

5. How much battery life do you need?
4h+

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)?
Medium to High (Civilization V, Skyrim, Dishonored...)

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Coding, running simulations requiring powerful proc (i.e. no i3, quad core preferred, also strong preference for a new Haswell proc.)

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
256GB minimum, 512GB would be nice

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

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

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Not needed

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.
The only brand I'd like to avoid is Apple - I know the MBP Retina could be a good option, but I don't care about OS X

13. What country do you live in?
Canada - but I can easily buy from the US or Europe

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I want to run Linux (except for gaming) so a laptop known to have compatible drivers would be a plus

At this point, one of the best matches I've found is the new Razer Blade - I'm just turned off by the low screen resolution (not convenient for coding or multitasking), and I also don't have any information about how well Linux runs on it.
Ideally, I'd like something similar to it: I'm willing to give up a bit of power (graphic card is mandatory though) and a bit of thinness/lightness for a better screen resolution.


Thanks!
 

renz496

Distinguished
Jun 16, 2009
68
0
18,610
Isnt that Razer blade over priced? So if you want to multi tasking then you want quab based cpu. As for gpu you might want to look cpu combined with nvidia gpu since nvidia are well known to have better support in linux
 

vortium

Honorable
Jul 10, 2013
2
0
10,510
Thank you both for your reply!

@renz496: It is a bit overpriced indeed, and my wallet wouldn't mind a cheaper option if available while remaining relatively slim and light. But this is also my main work tool so I'm definitely willing to pay the price if it's worth it.
Nvidia would indeed be preferable, but I don't think (I could be wrong) that a combined CPU/GPU can reach performance anywhere close to what the one of a dedicated GPU. And while I don't play the most demanding games out there, I'd like to be able to play in relatively correct conditions to any strategy game or RPG coming out in the next 2 to 3 years.

@tosaytheleast: the new MacBook Air is indeed a nice machine, but my two cons would be the lack of dedicated graphic card and the lack of need for OS X.