Having started college recently, i'm finding the apparent convenience of a laptop computer (both for gaming, and internet surfing/school work) seems to be far outweighing the cost of getting a decent laptop. Supposedly, my budge should be around $1000 USD. I'm currently located in Florida.

The two I was looking between (though i'm more than happy to look at other places/offers, but microcenter was a place I had already bookmarked a laptop on) are

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0339346

• AMD Phenom™ II Quad-Core Mobile Processor N930
• 4GB DDR3 RAM
• 640GB 5,400RPM Hard Drive
• LightScribe SuperMulti 8x DVD±RW Drive with Double Layer Support
• 5-in-1 Digital Media Reader
• ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5650
• 10/100/1000 Network
• 802.11b/g/n Wireless
• Bluetooth
• 15.6" High-Definition BrightView LED Display
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
• Silver

And

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0339346

• Intel® Core™ i3 - 350M
• 4GB DDR3-1066 RAM
• 500GB 5,400RPM Hard Drive
• Blu-ray Disc Drive with CD/DVD Support
• Multimedia Card Reader
• ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5145
• 10/100/1000 Network
• 802.11b/g/n Wireless
• Stereo A2DP (2.1+EDR)
• 14" Widescreen LED-backlight Display
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
• Black

Both of which are within my budget, though I haven't been able to discern whether or not they have a built in wireless card. Forgive my ignorance, please.

 

Same link for both? You might want to look into buying from somewhere else if you're in NJ so you can avoid some Sales Tax.

Edit: Oops -.- Didn't read the top of the post carefully enough.
Edit2: Sony Vaio tends to be overpriced. Asus has some nice gaming laptops.

 

Agreed, Typing on my Asus G51 right now. Damn good gaming laptop for it's price.

Anyway, You only posted one link by the way, but I'll compare stats.

The first one is definitely better. Here's a breakdown.

the quad CPU slightly outperforms the i3:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Phenom-II-X4-N930-Notebook-Processor.31536.0.html

The 5650 way outperforms the 5145
http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5650.23697.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5145.24581.0.html

As well as a bigger screen, it's not really a debate anymore. If you must, get the first.


However, I'd suggest skipping those and checking out this:

http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Game...-Gaming/dp/B00361G0ZO/ref=dp_cp_ob_pc_title_0

I'm an Asus Fanboi, so you may want to take what I say with a grain of salt. However my G51 has served my faithfully for over a year now. You get more bang for your buck with the G51JX, as well as definite quality.

 

I have this laptop and aside from what appears to be a graphics card problem (which I'll be sending in to be fixed as soon as I remember to call Asus...>.>) I love it.

If you can afford it, I would suggest an upgrade to Core i5 or Core i7, and maybe 6-8 GB of DDR3 memory. (Read: probably double the power the one linked above has. I can play Starcraft 2 on lowish settings just fine, but I wasn't able to get TF2 running for some reason or another.)

 

Bah, unless you find a very specific deal, avoid Bestbuy like the plague. The pricing at BB will almost always be significantly more than from a retailer like Amazon or Newegg.

 

The K42 is all around nice, but the 310m is really limiting. It might serve current games at medium settings, but future proof it ain't.

Same with the Sony vaio CW

The Acer is a mixed bag. The i7 in a laptop for that price is a real find. It far outclasses most processors you'll find in portables these days. The 330m likewise isn't really a bad card. It's not futureproof (nothing is, but in so much as good for several years). It may play newer games on low and medium settings for the next year or two, but after that you'll need to replace it.

Also, just for laughs, I checked out neweggs estimated battery life. 3.5 hours. HA! On a 6 cell battery, with a laptop that has a quad core and a 330m graphics card, an hour is pushing it. I'd best more like 20 minutes at the most if you actually game on battery life.

That's really not significant, because you'll always get that problem with gaming laptops. Gaming on battery life isn't possible, and probably won't be for quite a while.

EDIT: It should be said that when buying a gaming laptop, you're also looking at other factors. You're going to need a good cooling pad, otherwise you will significantly reduce the life of the internal components with heat. Even "good" gaming laptops have this problem, heat dispersal just isn't that good when companies have to shove so many components into such a small package.

Also, you're going to need a good gaming mouse & keyboard. Gaming with a touchpad is kind of like sex with a cousin, it's still sex, but it just ain't right.

You'll also eventually need a external HDD (or just upgrade the internal), which is probably an extra hundred for 1 TB-1.5 TB, depending on fluctuating prices.

Plus you have to toss in a good pair of headphones or a external sound system, because no matter how pricey, no laptop will ever have a good speaker system


Just things to think about before you go and make the purchase.

 

I completely agree, I was just trying to stress that even if the base cost for the laptop is only a grand, it's going to end up costing much more than that.

I went through something similar (though I kind of went overboard) and bought my G51 for about a grand last summer. I then had to buy a cooling pad $35, a gaming mouse (purchased several throughout the year, total cost was $250 or so), a good keyboard $85, etc etc. In total I hit around $1850 for what was originally a $1000 ticket.

Now my example is a bit extreme obviously, but the point remains. If you're on a budget, you have to look at the whole picture, and not only realize that you went way overboard when you do your taxes.

 

Perhaps I'm just projecting on him I suppose. In the end (for me at least) it comes down to this. If you're going to spend the grand for the hardware capable of running the games, you might as well pick up the accessories needed to really enjoy it.

Then again, I'm also the idiot who way overspent on those accessories, so take it with a pound of salt .

 

Agreed with John here, I have an Acer Aspire 5670 which is old now, but was a nice computer for gaming back when it was new. The additions I've made for it though are almost as costly. $90 keyboard, $70 mouse, $300 extra monitor (hdtv so it works for that as well, not just for my laptop to project over onto). $90 speakers, $30 cooling pad, etc. So if you really do want to do some gaming you're going to need a good keyboard and mouse at least, factor in $100 or so for that. If you have the nice laptop you might as well get some good speakers since they aren't that expensive and laptop sound is awful.

Now you could wait a bit for some of this stuff could be asked for for Christmas etc, but overall price will turn out to be more. I didn't really take that close of a look at the laptops recommended, but I have heard good things about ASUS, and I love my Acer. It's 6 years old I think, and only problems I have had (knock on wood) are my speaker jack broke because someone tripped on a chord, and my hard drive crashed twice (once was a defected hard drive.)

 

-edit- OP, quick question, what time frame are we looking at? Can you hold out till Black friday (november)? I guarantee some awesome deals then.

 

No time frame, i'd rather get it sooner than later, but obviously if I have to wait a few weeks and say $100-200 i'd do that, i'm not made of money.

That being said, i'm not in the habit of posting when I don't have anything intelligent to say. I've been lurking here at DLP for a year or more, and I know when to keep my mouth shut. All of the laptops look excellent, and now that the money is (or should be) here in Florida, there's no rush for me to get it. I've already started classes, and the LAN party that might be hosted by my local gaming club won't be until October, but I'm aware that Black Friday is worth it wait for, especially in regards to objects costing a few hundred $.

I was mainly looking to use it for gaming, with the accessibility to use it for classes as a nice bonus. I have a home PC that had a fairly powerful graphics card, but I don't think the processor is all that strong, and I'm not very tech savvy (nor do I have the interest to be) to start replacing parts within it, so a laptop is perfect as a back up if it can play some recent games, but also let me work on college papers and essays when I'm not home.

 

If you're looking at accessibility, than you have a problem. A gaming laptops battery will last at a maximum to about 2 hours with a 9 cell. Lectures often take more time than that. If you want to be able to take this thing and write on the go, you'll need to haul about a ton of extra batteries.

 

Oh I know. My classes are about an hour twenty though, and I don't even have to take notes in a few of them. Mainly I want to be able to carry it around and plug it into a wall jack and play video games for the next few years. Beyond that, I don't expect to be able to use it for more than an hour or so (in power saver mode) before I have to charge it again. I'm mainly looking to get the best deal possible in regards to its ability to play video games in the near future.