Solved! Sub 15' gaming/school laptop

[Brockavich]

Hey Tom's.

So I recently bought (well a yearish ago) an M11x G1 (the version with the SU7300 and GT335M). While it's definitely as light and as powerful as I'd expect, I really don't feel it was worth it's $1900 (with tax) price tag. I'm seeing lots of laptops from ASUS in particular that are similar in size, a good deal cheaper, but have way superior performance.
So my question is, besides the M11X, what are some good gaming laptops at 15 inches or under? I haven't owned my M11x very long and I'll sell it for a high value or just return it...


These are my prerequisites:
IMPORTANT:
1. Looking to spend about $1000 tops
2. The lighter the better, as I will be hauling this around in my bag on campus all day.
3. Backlit keys would be greatly appreciated.
4. Has to have a decent enough battery to run low level word processing and net browsing for about 5 hours.

LESS IMPORTANT
5. Easily swappable battery would be nice, though I'm not married to it.
6. Sandy bridge would be epic. But I don't think a small laptop with a 2xxx series Core iX exists


Anyways I saw the G51 series... But it seems a little hefty for my liking.


Any suggestions would be appreaciated

 

[Maziar]

Hey Tom's.

So I recently bought (well a yearish ago) an M11x G1 (the version with the SU7300 and GT335M). While it's definitely as light and as powerful as I'd expect, I really don't feel it was worth it's $1900 (with tax) price tag. I'm seeing lots of laptops from ASUS in particular that are similar in size, a good deal cheaper, but have way superior performance.
So my question is, besides the M11X, what are some good gaming laptops at 15 inches or under? I haven't owned my M11x very long and I'll sell it for a high value or just return it...


These are my prerequisites:
IMPORTANT:
1. Looking to spend about $1000 tops
2. The lighter the better, as I will be hauling this around in my bag on campus all day.
3. Backlit keys would be greatly appreciated.
4. Has to have a decent enough battery to run low level word processing and net browsing for about 5 hours.

LESS IMPORTANT
5. Easily swappable battery would be nice, though I'm not married to it.
6. Sandy bridge would be epic. But I don't think a small laptop with a 2xxx series Core iX exists


Anyways I saw the G51 series... But it seems a little hefty for my liking.


Any suggestions would be appreaciated

You can't find a gaming laptop(15") with a decent battery life.
I found this Toshiba satellite model which should give you around 4hrs of battery life and has a good GPU too
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834214190

 

[Bacterius]

You can't find a gaming laptop(15" ) with a decent battery life.

Well if you game while on battery obviously your battery duration is going to be less than an hour. I'd say if you could get a Sandy Bridge it would truly be epic, because:
- they have lower power consumption = better battery life
- they have low-consumption integrated graphics which can take over when you shut off your main graphics card (when you don't want to game) = better battery life
Sounds like a deal maker to me...

I think if you stretched your budget to $1300, you could even get a little SSD in it, which would increase your battery life immensely (well, kind of). With SSD + SB you could probably get more battery life than a cellphone (.. maybe not, lol, but close).

Question: do you have a desktop PC at home? Because if yes, as a student, the most logical choice I would personally make is get a small SSD (80GB ~ $200) instead of a mechanical hard drive, get a lil' SB processor, pack in a decent graphics card, which would give you:
- great gaming value during sessions (where you have access to a power jack hopefully)
- great battery life (you wont run out of battery life during a class)
- no need for a large hard drive because you typically won't need to pack much data for the day - 6GB for the operating system, ~ 30GB for your games/applications, and the rest for your documents (I dare hope you don't typically process 40GB of data daily?), and you can dump data in your desktop computer at the end of the day.

That would make the most sense to me. A good laptop like this can probably be found for $1200-$1300 if you look well.

 

[Maziar]

Of course.Sandy bridge laptops have better battery life.
As an example,M17x R3 has up to 5hrs of battery which is impressive for a gaming notebook.
The thing I posted was about the options which are currently available and are in the OP's price range.

 

[drake123]

*cough* SAGER NP5160 @ xoticpc.com *cough* , I have my eyes on this laptop. I'm also in a very similar situation. Need 15 inch laptop with decent battery life with good performance ;D

Sager!

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Sandy Bridge w/ Optimus

http/newtechnotebook.com/uncategorized-avadirect-clevo-w150hnq-review

The Clevo W150HNQ gaming laptop feature NVIDIA Optimus technology that providing the outstanding graphics performance which switches between graphic cards and the integrated solution without having to manually change settings.

http/www.pro-star.com/index.cfm?mainpage=productdetail&model=W150HNQ

15.6" 1920 x 1080 Full HD (16:9) LED Backlit Glare Type Display
Intel Core i7-2720QM Processor, 2.2 GHz, 6MB Smart Cache
8GB, PC3-10600/1333Mhz DDR3
Switchable! nVidia GeForce GT 540M 1GB GDDR3 with Optimus Technology / Intel GMA HD for Power Saving
500/7200rpm GB Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid Drive w/4G SSD
6x Max. Blu-Ray Writer/Reader / 8x Max. DVD±R/2.4X Max. +DL Super-Multi Drive
Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit
Bigfoot Networks Killer Wireless-N 1102
1 Year Premium Parts Warranty + 3 Year Labor
# Built-In 2.0M Pixel Digital Video Camera
# Built-In Fingerprint Reader
# Built-In Gigabit Ethernet LAN Card
# Built-In 3-IN-1 Flash Memory Reader(SD/Mini-SD/SDHC)
# 2 USB 3.0 Ports
# 2 USB 2.0 Ports
# 1 eSATA Port
# 1 HDMI Output
# 1 CRT port
# 1 Kensington Lock Port
# Built-in Microphone and 2 Speakers
# 3 Audio Jacks for Line-Out, Microphone-In, and S/PDIF-Out
# 100/240V Autoswitch AC Adapter

$1500

For more info on Clevo and resellers in your area, see:

http/forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/91510-clevo-guide-v2-0-faq-reseller-info.html

Online sources include Sager, VoodooPCm Falcolnnorthwest, WidowPC, killernotebooks and xoticpc