Need Laptop for College

ThEcOrUpTeD

Honorable
Jul 6, 2012
2
0
10,510
1. What is your budget?

Anything under 2000 USD

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

Around 15in. Anything less would be too small and anything more too bulky to be portable.

3. What screen resolution do you want?

1900x1080 Preferred.

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

Portable

5. How much battery life do you need?

5+ Hours of basic word/browsing use.

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. Hopefully most games like Civ V, Dota 2, and Skyrim on Medium+

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

Mainly gaming and school work (programming).

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?

I currently have an 90gb SSD which I would like to use as a boot drive. I would like a minimum of 250gb of hard drive space

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

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

Definitely for 4+ years. This will hopefully get me through college.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?

No specific needs.

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.

No specific preferences of brand.

13. What country do you live in?

US

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

Portability is a fairly important factor for me. I have looked at the new MBPs including the retina ones, but I'm still unsure of their support for windows (due to the resolution) and worried about limited SSD storage space.

Thanks! :D
 
Solution
Most of the 'thin and light' variety of notebooks only have a single 2.5" HDD/SSD bay. Without going for a make-shift HDD/SSD in an optical drive bay you'd be looking at one of the slightly beefier & heavier 15" gaming notebooks.

A good example:
Sager NP6165 15" custom gaming notebook $900 base configuration
Includes IVB Core i5-3210M 2.5Ghz CPU, 8GB RAM, 500GB 7200rpm HDD, 15.6" 1920x1080 LCD w/ GT 650M graphics.
When configured with the IVB i7-3510QM 2.3Ghz CPU, the upgraded 1920x1080 LCD screen and Win7 the price is right about $1120.

You'd...
Most of the 'thin and light' variety of notebooks only have a single 2.5" HDD/SSD bay. Without going for a make-shift HDD/SSD in an optical drive bay you'd be looking at one of the slightly beefier & heavier 15" gaming notebooks.

A good example:
Sager NP6165 15" custom gaming notebook $900 base configuration
Includes IVB Core i5-3210M 2.5Ghz CPU, 8GB RAM, 500GB 7200rpm HDD, 15.6" 1920x1080 LCD w/ GT 650M graphics.
When configured with the IVB i7-3510QM 2.3Ghz CPU, the upgraded 1920x1080 LCD screen and Win7 the price is right about $1120.

You'd be looking at a weight about 6.3 lbs vs the 15 MBP @ ~4.5lbs
 
Solution