Old laptop died at the beginning of this year. Now that I have a bank balance not in danger of depletion, will need a new machine.

15" to 17" size range. Unlikely to play something more computationally intensive than SC2 on it. Need it within the next 12 days.

 

What's your price range? New HP Envys are tops for the cost. HP Omen is even nicer, but will wreck your wallet at 1500.

 

1500 is stretching it, but is still within the budget.

One thing I find important is cooling. A laptop with a ton of hot hardware crammed into it will fail sooner rather than later.

EDIT:

Also, my last HP buy was infested with HP bloatware. I'd like a machine with a clean installation.

 

I would still recommend an ENVY. I have one at home. Unlike the old HP pavillions, they almost always run cool. The only problems I've had with it are on a few graphics intensive games, and it still doesn't really get hot to the touch.

That said, there are a lot of extraneous media suite programs that you simply don't need, but they can be uninstalled within minutes.

 

How tech-savvy are you?

Hell, even if you are, I'd suggest looking at Costco for a laptop if you can find one that fits your needs and budget. Their return policy on electronics makes it almost impossible to beat. Of course, you're also limited to what they have in stock or online.

Although Dell has taken a nosedive in the last decade, you can still find good deals in their outlet. Just be ready to wipe the hard drive.

Outside of those two places, I usually trust Asus, but that's because I like their MOBOs more than anything else. I have a two-in-one from them that works pretty well. It's an atom processor so not terribly fast, but for what it is, I'm satisfied.

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I usually just reformat if I want something clean. That way I know I'm getting everything.

 

Have you heard of the repeated scandals involving Lenovo?

Like, modifying the BIOS to pave the way for more Lenovo spyware?

I will never buy a Lenovo machine.

If the Omen is barely in my price range, a glance at the Sager's indicates that they are definitely not.

SENDING TRAFFIC TO ANOTHER FORUM??? EXTRA HERETICAL!

All jokes aside, I thank you for the link.

I will admit the HP machines have a certain style to them. Especially the Omen; it's case alone is tempting as hell.

I built two of my own main rigs. My current rig is a repurposed BTC mining machine. I was in robotics clubs in HS and the team in Uni. Was trained as an engineering student.

Six of my buddies bought Dell in the last five years. None of them plan on ever buying one again.

I do like ASUS as well. My current rig has a $240 ASUS motherboard.

Reformats don't clear the BIOS.

Plus, I find it unethical to give business to companies that install malware on their user's machines. Lenovo has definitely crossed the line there.

 

A mate of mine got a Acer Nitro7 for gaming purposes. Haven't heard anything bad about it and he was even playing Mad Max on somewhat decent graphics settings.

 

This is a bit more graphics orientated, it can run SC2 and more and is quite a bit under your 1500 budget as well. Standard model doesn't come with an OS, so you can do a clean install yourself.

Link

For something slightly less graphics heavy, I'd go with this:

Link

The GTX 960M is still very good for graphics processing and like the model above, comes without an OS standard.

If you're looking for a cpu heavy laptop, the following has the new Skylake desktop CPU, the i5-6600K as standard, with upgrade option to the i7-6700K. Price is just a little bit outside of your budget though. Also comes with a 970M.

Link

Sager models all have amazing cooling, so there's no concern there. Xotic usually has very good turnaround for orders but you can always pay for rush build if you feel there might be a time crunch. As with all online retailers, there is no sales tax and if you live in California, they will deliberately have the order ship to their Nebraska facility before shipping out to you, to avoid California sales tax.

They do sell other models outside of Sager, the usual big brands of MSI and Asus in particular. I'd personally say Sager is better purely because of the best price to specs ratio but that's up to you.

 

Now that is a great rec, Z.

Price to hardware ratio isn't everything for me; even assuming equal cooling I could value a beautiful chassis at a premium.

 

I'd recommend building your own Tower for gaming esp. if your price range is around 1.3-5k. Gaming laptop sucks and the good ones are over 3-4k USD. But, for utility use, go for a Mac. It's quite good.

 

Scroll up a little. I have a tower.

 

Have you considered Dell's XPS range? Performance-oriented, non-garish designs, decent specs. Decent for the price.

 

Is getting it in the next 12 days a hard requirement or just a strong desire? Black Friday is coming up and they will probably have some great deals on laptops. Also Discover will price match items bought with their credit card that get price reductions up to a month after purchase, so you could just pick something up in four weeks that will go on sale then get the price reduced.

 

Have you thought about upgradable laptops? Something like the MSI GT80 Titan?
Or the Origin EON15-X? Alienware is not too bad either.

HP and Lenovo merely have brand recognition. In the old days that was enough. In the UK we have pcspecialist, a site where you design your own laptop. I'm sure there's something similar in the US, which I presume is where you are from.

 

I actually just snagged an Aorus X3

Here's one with a Decent if not powerful card you should be able to run everything... up to about the Witcher 3 with Medium settings.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834233057

 

Honestly, if you need the mobility and ease of using a laptop, MacBooks are the way to go. But, if you are anti Apple, try using Lenovo Thinkpads or the Dell XPS 15. Both of them are well built and have lasted my reckless family members for 3+ years. Any MacBook holds its worth for at least 4 years and the support you get for them is phenomenal.

Don't fall prey to the Sager/Clevo/Origin/Asus hype unless you really need the power. Those laptops are huge. I had one before and it was annoying to lug around campus and battery lasted around 2 hours on all settings low.