Been looking at getting myself a new laptop in time for Christmas (or post-Christmas), and have been told by friends that Alienware & Razers are the best to get. Both look incredibly expensive. Looking at Alienware which led me to Dell, I wound up looking at this:

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/deals#!clearance-deals
http://www.dell.com/uk/p/deals#!performance-deals

Do any of these laptops seem like they're up to snuff. And by snuff, I mean up to playing games like the Arkham series, Rage, Dishonored, Paradox Games, Mass Effect, TellTale Games, Saints Row series, etc...

And ignoring those, does anyone know of a good laptop series around or under 600 pounds that could play those games?

 

Alienware is very expensive. Your best bet would probably be to find some little-heard of independent store and get something unbranded from them.

 

Xoticpc.com
Powernotebooks.com

 

I've very unsavvy though in that regards Taure, any advice?

@VoD: Xotic seems to have a lot of (comparatively) cheaper yet high producing laptops. They seem to also deliver to the UK (with a 200 dollar charge for shipping). I might just have to take a better look at their cheapest model...

 

My only advice, don't buy a Dell. I have used Dell for the last 5-6 years and they make awful gaming laptops because they have an unfortunate tendency to overheat. I agree with Taure about Alienware though. You'd be paying for the brand as much as for the hardware.

 

@theronin: I'm thinking of getting this one:
http://www.xoticpc.com/msi-gp60-2od052us-p-6358.html

Should I be going for a better cooling system for that one?

 

No idea to be honest. I just know that the 3-4 Dell's I've used over the last 6 years or so all had cooling issues. You'll probably be fine if you buy anything specifically targeted at gamers though.

 

Lenovo has some good laptops. I got the Y580 2 years back. I think their newest one is Y510?

 

I don't know about MSI, but Sager is pretty good. I've been using my uncle's Sager NP6652, seeing as he never uses the thing, and other than some initial WLAN driver issues, everything's been great. He got it for about $1100/670 pounds without the OS pre-installed. So far, I've played Skyrim on Ultra without any performance drops or hiccups. I haven't installed any mods yet, but I'm going to try to use as many compatible mods as possible to see how the laptop handles it. I'm also gona borrow a friends copy of Crysis 3 to see how well it runs.

You can get sager laptops at lpc-digital.com. They also give a small student discount.

 

www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/lenovo-g500-15-6-laptop-21707559-pdt.html

Thoughts?

 

For gaming? Definitely not- poor resolution and a lack of a proper GPU make that a no-go. Also, not sure about those two links posted earlier, I checked on them and amazon gives better prices than either on the laptops I looked at.

Speaking of which, what kind of price range do you have, Hash, and how well do you want things to run?

 

~ 600 pounds (if I need to pay all now), or ~1000 pounds (if I can pay over 6 months), and I need it for games like the Arkham series, the Bioshock series, Company of Heroes series, FEAR 2 & 3, Red Faction, Grand Theft Auto Vice to 4, Metro 2033 series, Paradox games, Saints Row 2 & 3, Alpha Protocol, Darksiders, Dishonored, Lord of the Rings: War in the North, Mass Effect, Rage, Wolf Among Us, Dawn of War series and finally Witcher 1 & 2.

That'd be all the games I've got on Steam that I can't currently play on my laptop. :facepalm

--
Edit: Been looking at used laptops in Bristol:
http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/aleinware-m14x/1038712659
http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/alienware-m14x-r2-gaming-laptop-warranty-mint/1040726535
http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/alienware-m14x-gaming-laptop/1039736321
Plus some more online stuff:
http://www.johnlewis.com/lenovo-z71...b-ssd-17-3-metallic/p839157#tabinfo-spcl-offr
http://www.johnlewis.com/asus-vivob...6-touch-screen-grey/p611611#tabinfo-spcl-offr

 

Lol, I hear that. I just got myself a new laptop for much the same reason-can't say yet how much I'd recommend it as it arrived today, but I got an Acer Aspire V3 for $999-a bit less than your 600 pound budget. Sadly, that was a Cyber Week deal and this particular version is not currently available. If you aren't fussed about missing the SSD and a very slightly worse GPU, this version is up for $899 right now (in my locale), and the specs on it are more than adequate for your purposes, though YMMV as far as reliability issues going by the reviews. Note that these are 17.3" laptops, meaning they are very large, not sure about your prefs on that front. I will say that a slightly smaller 15.6" laptop with equivalent hardware specs will be more expensive in general from what I've seen.

 

I don't really mind size in regards to a laptop (weight as well, since I only intend to use it for games and keep my current one for university). No clue how good an SSD/GPU needs for the games I mentione above though.

azrael, those three used ones I put up are all Alienware laptops for 575 to 650 pounds. Thing I should jump on one of those?

 

Not too sure honestly-I'm hardly any sort of expert on these things, despite the bit of research I did into buying for myself. But, for being used, and the type of hardware they claim to have, I'd say they're probably overpriced (a problem they are likely passing onto you from the original purchase). I'd probably avoid it, but any other opinions are certainly welcome because I don't want to steer you wrong.

 

Honestly, you could get a new Sager/Lenovo with better specs at around the same price as those used laptops.

 

You have to remember he's ordering from U.K where everything is like 20% more expensive :S

 

And ordering from the USA results in a 200 pound shipping fee. :facepalm

But if you can find anything UK-side that's better and cheaper, feel free to let me know.