Solved! Advice on New Laptop (casual gamer)

kaymm

Distinguished
Dec 27, 2011
1
0
18,510
1. What is your budget?
I have 834 in store credit for best buy, and I can probably but up up to 200 additional, but I'd rather NOT put up that much as I'm saving up to pay of my loans.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15-17"

3. What screen resolution do you want?
at least 720, 1080 would be cool but theres not many so I'm not picky

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
something in between? My old laptop had a 7 pound frame a huge battery, and I lugged it around. Slightly lighter would be nice but I'm not going to rule something out base don that.

5. How much battery life do you need?
at least 2 or 3 hours would be nice. I can usually just plug in, though

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)?
yes! I'm a casual gamer aka I'm in college and thus don't have the time to legit game. I do play some though. nothing intensive. I just got Skyrim and would like to be about to play it w/o much lag on low or medium settings. I wouldn't play any games that required more than that on a laptop as I have an xbox.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
I do some video editing, but again, very basic. I use sony vegas but the only tasks I use are to split, overlay music, and occasionally cut back and forth between two videos. My old toshiba satellite i3 core could handle that with a Nvidia 310M card.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
at least 500GB, 750 would be nice but not a must.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Has to be from best buy! www.bestbuy.com and it CANNOT be a marketplace item as I don't think their store credit cards work toward those.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
2-4 years would be great! my father will be paying for blacktie protection for me to deal with potential problems, though. even though they're not the best, geek squad DID take my lemon back and give me a gift card so I can't complain about their service.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD/CD, bluray a plus but not necessary.

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.
dont' like Dell because I've had tooooo many problems with them.
Like Toshiba a lot. Don't prefer HP but don't mind it (they fired my dad soooo hard to give in to that, but would still buy!). Sony is OK. Asus is good.

13. What country do you live in?
US

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Please help me out! I know a decent bit about computer but am just STUCK. Here's some of the ones I'm looking at, but there's little things I don't like about them all!



http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+ENVY+Laptop+with+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i7+Processor+-+Brushed+Aluminum/9556394.p?id=1218123849552&skuId=9556394
--heard it gets really freaking hot and it has an external optical drive, which i'm not sure if I like or not.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i5+Processor+/+15.6%22+Display+/+4GB+Memory+/+750GB+Hard+Drive+-+Black/2043071.p?id=1218306948909&skuId=2043071
--heavy, higher price

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Acer+-+Aspire+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i7+Processor+/+17.3%26%2334%3B+Display+/+6GB+Memory+-+Mesh+Black/3603136.p?id=1218419328515&skuId=3603136
--OUT OF STOCK. :(

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Sony+-+VAIO+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i7+Processor+/+16.4%26%2334%3B+Display+/+4GB+Memory+-+Black/3641453.p?id=1218422892326&skuId=3641453
--not the best graphics card. not sure how i feel about sony's.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Satellite+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i5+Processor+/+15.6%22+Display+/+6GB+Memory+/+750GB+Hard+Drive+-+Platinum/2883068.p?id=1218361268260&skuId=2883068
--price. would love this somehow slightly cheaper, haha. or on sale!

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Satellite+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i5+Processor+/+15.6%22+Display+/+6GB+Memory+/+640GB+Hard+Drive+-+Slate/1854928.p?id=1218297024269&skuId=1854928
PRICE too high

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Pavilion+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i7+Processor+/+15.6%26%2334%3B+Display/3569008.p?id=1218417159524&skuId=3569008
--not sure about this graphics card or HP in general. any comments? couldn't find a good review of this product.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Qosmio+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i5+Processor+/+17.3%26%2334%3B+Display+/+6GB+Memory+-+Red+Horizon/3529339.p?id=1218410281047&skuId=3529339
--REALLY like this one, but again, price.

So yeah. those are what I've been looking at. Let me know what you think is best, if you know of a cheaper comparable product that's maybe is lacking some of the features that I don't need, or any other advice! Thank you!
 
Solution
Well,don't expect to find a gaming laptop that handle Skyrim on medium for less than $1k.
You at least need something like GT 555M/HD 6770M to run Skyrim on medium settings on a resolutions like 1366x768