ASUS laptop, which one?

[skullwarrior]

ok i have decide to go with asus because they are suppose to be very well made and reliable. i have been looking at some models at microcenter and this model seems excellent for the price. ill be using my laptop for school and world of warcraft only, no other games. this seems like a good model and comes with a i7 with a decent GPU.

asus R500VM-MS71
http/www.microcenter.com/product/388092/R500VM-MS71_156_Laptop_Computer_-_Mocha

seems like the best bang for the buck. any feedback would help greatly. thank you in advance!



1. What is your budget?
850.00 (less if possible but i understand gaming laptops require higher specs)

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
I don't mind a small size because my old xps m1210 was like 12"

3. What screen resolution do you want?
don't care

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

5. How much battery life do you need?
don't care because it will always be plugged in

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 will be playing games. the game i will be playing is world of warcraft. i DON'T need to run the game on ultra high settings. medium is fine since i prefer performance over quality so i don't lag at critical moments.

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

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
my old laptop had a 100GB drive and i managed with that so anything higher than that would be a upgrade lol, but to answer the question 320-500gb i guess.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
i would like to buy the laptop locally.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
till the motherboard dies.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
just a basic dvd drive. i think dvd burners are standard now.

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.
i don't care about brand only hardware. all companies make good products and bad products. the only thing that is a must is the CPU must be Intel and the GPU i would prefer to be ATI. my old laptop had a faulty nvidia GPU and previous experiences with nvidia have all been bad.

13. What country do you live in?
USA, GA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Intel CPU with a ATI (AMD) GPU would be ideal. in the end if i cant find anything i guess ill just buy an alienware but would really like to save money if possible. although i plan on using the laptop for gaming the only game i will ever run on it will be WoW. i don't intend to play the game on the highest settings so i don't need the latest and greatest GPU on the market.

i was looking at bare bones and "custom" laptops but couldn't find much information on that. if that's a cheaper alternative i would go that route.

in the end if nothing works i guess ill just get an alienware.....

thank you in advance

 

[hp555]

That is a bit expensive, considering it only has the gt630m (http/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-630M.63761.0.html). While it is more than sufficient for what you would be doing, I suggest looking for a cheaper i5 or even an amd apu.
What is your price range, is battery life and mobility important, what screen size do you want, is refurbished an option if a warranty is included, and is microcenter the only store you want to buy at?

If newegg is an option, this is a good deal, only issue is it is open box. The i5 isnt as powerful as the i7 but unless you are editing video with 30 tabs open you probably wont need it. Also, the gt540m essentially the gt630m
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230509R

This one from amazon might be out of your price zone but it has a full hd screen and a 7200rpm hard drive
http/www.amazon.com/N56VM-AB71-Full-HD-15-6-Inch-1080P-Laptop/dp/B008HDOEG8

If neither of these work just look around the Asus website, unfortunately they do not list prices
http/usa.asus.com/Notebooks/

 

[AHMED_92]

you should also have look at this notebook.....specs are the same with a relatively faster hard drive..price is a $ 50 more but is worth it

http/www.amazon.com/dp/B0082PZ0VE/ref=cm_sw_su_dp

 

[XXStavrosXX]

If reliability is what you are looking for, then I have to suggest looking also in HP laptops. I have one HP too and has never let me down, no matter how much I tortured it

A perfect candidate whould be the HP Pavilion dv6-6c01 ev

Unfortunately I cannot find a link other than a greek one, so I will copy paste the specs in case you cannot find them:

http/www.skroutz.gr/s/427347/HP-Pavilion-dv6-6c01-ev.html?keyphrase=dv6-6c01+ev

Intel Core i5 2450M 2,5 GHz

LED LCD 15,6 1366x768

6 GB DDR 3 1.333MHz

Radeon HD 7690M XT 2048 MB (this is the best part!)

750GB HDD 5400RPM

EDIT: If u insist on i7 and 8 GB DDR3 solutions (I find them unnesessary) then make sure that the GPU is at least a nVIDIA GT640M / Radeon HD 7690M or higher so you wont get bottlenecked in games by the GPU.

 

[Tibbs01]

While I am glad you had a good experience with your HP, they are among the worst in the industry in terms of durability/reliability as a whole.

OP, I know you expressed an Asus preference, but if you wanted to consider Lenovo (not as high, but up there with Asus for reliability) you might consider this machine as well: http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246494

The machine you listed in your post would be good for all of your stated uses and would be a fine machine (possibly a bit overpriced).

 

[skullwarrior]

Thank you everyone for your feedback. When i get home I will go into more detail about my future laptop purchase.

 

[skullwarrior]

hello everyone my dell xps m1210 just died so now i need a new laptop. i have been doing some research but cant find much on budget gaming laptops. before i go buy an alienware i would like to see other options.

1. What is your budget?
850.00 (less if possible but i understand gaming laptops require higher specs)

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
I don't mind a small size because my old xps m1210 was like 12"

3. What screen resolution do you want?
don't care

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

5. How much battery life do you need?
don't care because it will always be plugged in

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 will be playing games. the game i will be playing is world of warcraft. i DON'T need to run the game on ultra high settings. medium is fine since i prefer performance over quality so i don't lag at critical moments.

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

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
my old laptop had a 100GB drive and i managed with that so anything higher than that would be a upgrade lol, but to answer the question 320-500gb i guess.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
i would like to buy the laptop locally.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
till the motherboard dies.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
just a basic dvd drive. i think dvd burners are standard now.

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.
i don't care about brand only hardware. all companies make good products and bad products. the only thing that is a must is the CPU must be Intel and the GPU i would prefer to be ATI. my old laptop had a faulty nvidia GPU and previous experiences with nvidia have all been bad.

13. What country do you live in?
USA, GA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Intel CPU with a ATI (AMD) GPU would be ideal. in the end if i cant find anything i guess ill just buy an alienware but would really like to save money if possible. although i plan on using the laptop for gaming the only game i will ever run on it will be WoW. i don't intend to play the game on the highest settings so i don't need the latest and greatest GPU on the market.

i was looking at bare bones and "custom" laptops but couldn't find much information on that. if that's a cheaper alternative i would go that route.

in the end if nothing works i guess ill just get an alienware.....

thank you in advance

*This is what I originally posted when I first started looking for a laptop but then I picked the asus model above. if it helps you help me I think I should put it up again =)*

 

[skullwarrior]

Best answer selected by skullwarrior.