Help me find a good laptop

Psycho Mantis

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Hey guys, I have store credit to best buy and so that's the only place I can shop. I'm looking for a good laptop that can play some games nothing too crazy, looking to spend 850 or less, preferably less. I'd like 8GB Ram, i7, and dedicated graphics(if possible). Thank you very much for any help
Also, I do not want an iBuyPower or CyberPowerPC :p
 
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for your price range, yes, this sounds like the one. just remember that if you ever want to upgrade any hardware..its a pain. on the plus side, i think i remember reading that the only void warranty sticker is on the CPU (but check on that before taking a screwdriver to it)

Psycho Mantis

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Thank you, but I don't know how I feel about the 14".. If I don't find a better one I'll have to go see a 14" in person. The last one I had was 15.6 and that was okay, so smaller would be a lot weirder. haha, thanks though
 

my414

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chulex67

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First of all Its an GTX 660m VS GT650m, difference its like 20-30ish fps in every single game.

Now, i know its an 14 inch screen but its the best gaming laptop at the moment at that price in that store, now, when you have a dedicated card, you think everything its gonna be fine, well no...
First of all Asus Gaming series Laptops are made of a material that isolates heat, got one of the best cooling systems and this will prolong the life of the laptop.
The Dell laptop Its an aluminion laptop, that spreads the heat over all the keyboard, were your hand will be placed, burning it, and its cooling system its on the left side... were your hand will be.

Do not think a cooling pad, will fix the dell problem, because it wont. The asus is made for gaming with a dedicated card, the Dell its made for selling you another one in 1 year. Pick your poison.

 

mc962

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Jul 18, 2013
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I too was in the exact same position looking for a laptop and before I decided on building a desktop I planned on getting that very computer (ASUS G46VW), from the research I did on it it seemed like an excellent laptop, especially for the price, and the few faults I found were mostly small/user issues instead of any major problems. They even have it on display in the store if you want to try it out (at least at the store by me.

On the good side from what I heard it has great cooling and I think the graphics card will be enough to play "nothing crazy". It felt fairly solid, the only parts that had any flex at all were areas where it probably would not be as much of an issue. There are more pros, but you can do a bit of research to find that one out.

In terms of cons/comments/things you should be aware of:
You mentioned you wanted an i7, Best Buy sells it with an i5. Do you do anything that specifically needs the i7, like video editing or something? Because i think the i5 is fine for games.
the hard drive best buy sells with it is a 5400 RPM HDD, which many consider slow, although i would argue its more personal preference, the laptop should still run fine
the screen is, i believe, 1366x768 instead of 1600x900. A lot of people were annoyed with that, personally I didnt really care.
the laptop has an msata slot (which may or may not interest you) but it is not designed to fit full sized msata drives without resorting to some creative solutions (from what ive heard)

which leads me to my next point (dont read if you dont plan to ever upgrade/change parts):

if you dont like what's in the laptop (like the hard drive) and want to upgrade it, it's a pain to do so. You apparently have to take the whole keyboard off just to get in at the parts (aside from ram, which has a much easier spot at the back). You can get Best Buy to do this either with you Geek Squad warranty, or by paying them $50 to do it (im not sure if cheaper places would void any warranty you have as they arent best buy). Keep in mind that the entire system will be warrantied, but THAT PART will not be covered by the 1 year warranty that comes with the computer. The best option I found if I wanted different specs from Best Buy is to order from a site called HIDevolution, which allows you to do a fair bit of customization. But its pricey and ive heard that it takes a while to get the system and customer service after they get your money is sometimes a bit dodgy


To sum up: It seemed like a great computer as I was researching it. It is last year's model, but definitely seems like a good deal and I would recommend considering it. You can even go see it in Best Buy (if they still have it sitting out). I decided i wanted to try to build a desktop because I thought it would be a better value for me, but if i was going to get a laptop i would probably be getting that one
 

Psycho Mantis

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Thanks for that. I've never done any of it but I want download some programs to record guitar and play with the sounds, and also maybe make some videos. (I want this more than the video games: the guitar effects and recording). I'd prefer the best bang for the buck, but also I would be willing to go for a little worse graphics card (gt650, 640) if that meant I could get a larger screen... Aside from this I don't know much and thats why I come to you all for help :D I also what will last me the longest
 

mc962

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well a desktop would last you the longest, at least if you treat laptops like i do :)

I would do more research into how much power/features your programs need (or wait for someone else to post again).
For example: I do use my computers for editing, but I do it like 3 times a year for short little things using Premiere Elements (version 7 or 10, I can't remember). I dont plan to do anything major like super long Final Cut Pro videos would all sorts of fancy special effects and rendering, so i feel fine with an i5. It still works fine for my needs its just that the i7 has some features that could make it go faster. Personally im fine with my 13" laptop screen, it works just fine for games, but i understand some like bigger. Consider the possibility that your laptop can hook up to a larger screen (i used to do this, but i tend to game in some inconvenient positions for the wires so i was always afraid of knocking down the screen and so stopped using it for games).
 

Psycho Mantis

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Yeah, hopefully I can get some more posts. But I don't see the programs being super demanding... My 15.6 was a good size for me and I don't know much smaller a 14 is, so I need to see some more haha
 

mc962

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well it was in best buy when i looked at it a few weeks ago (although i cant say for sure if its in your store, would have to go check)

again, im not the best to ask because anything bigger than an ipod screen is usually close to what i like. however, i dont think 14" would feel that much smaller. if you wanted a big screen an external might be the best for that

*my first laptop was a 15", and going down to 13" wasnt really much of an adjustment to me..biggest annoyance was probably the keyboard if anything

do you know what applications you will be using, and what games? like, you wont have to worry as much about graphics playing something like KOTOR 1 (10 year old star wars game), but something like skyrim would definitely be hardware hungry (although from what ive heard the g46vw cuts right through)
 

Psycho Mantis

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Seriously it plays skyrim? Thats cool. And I mean I was interested in playing all the new games like tomb raider and whatever else come out and is cheap on steam... but I gave up on that since it's too expensive and involves a desktop and whatever plus I play guitar more than I do video games so thats what's more important. Anything that can run Runescape on max (won't take much to do that) is good with me :p I'll go to the store and check out the 14" because I'm pretty sure they'll have it (I think i remember the screen looking funny) so I'll do that. I do have a nice screen to plug into but the chord didn't plug into my old laptop (from last year i had to return under warranty, thats why I have store credit). So I'd have to get a new cable or soemthing
 

mc962

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last i checked, i remember because i made "plays skyrim" for my minimal criteria of what i wanted. Runescape almost certainly (although its been like a decade since ive wandered around there, maybe the graphics got better)
i think the screen had a thicker(wider? might be the word) than average screen bezel which some didnt like, but i didnt have problems with it. personal preference i guess

and i know you said you were looking for a laptop..but would a desktop suit your needs? i dont think you ever mentioned if there was some particular reason you needed a laptop (although i could probably guess it would be for mobility reasons). for the same price you could likely pack in a lot more power into a desktop..or at the very least keep what you have running cooler
 

Psycho Mantis

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Yeah, just a laptop. I know about the desktop but yeah mobility is for me :p So this is the laptop I'm gonna get if I get one then? hahah thanks for replies, and yeah graphics got a lot better xD
still horrible compared to others :p
 

mc962

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for your price range, yes, this sounds like the one. just remember that if you ever want to upgrade any hardware..its a pain. on the plus side, i think i remember reading that the only void warranty sticker is on the CPU (but check on that before taking a screwdriver to it)

 
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