Gaming on a laptop
Gaming on a laptop
I saw Wam's thread and instead of asking my own questions about what I want in a laptop in his thread I decided to start my own.
The wife has been interested in getting a laptop for quite some time but would like to do more things than just watch a few videos. She has back issues and would like something she can sit on her lap instead of having to sit at the desktop. She mainly would like to use it for gaming. She's mostly into games like Minecraft that don't seem to be too graphic heavy. Instead of finding one that would run something like that easily, I'd rather look into something that gives her options when she expands her gaming interests.
When you're not into computers it's very hard to decipher most of the specs you read about in each one when looking them up online. I'm worried that we will either overpay for something that we could have gotten a better deal on at a different site or paying more for a name brand when some off brand does everything it will do or even better for less money. I also want to make sure that we do put down some more money if it makes a big difference. I'd hate to spend x amount of dollars for something only to find out that we could have spent a little more and gotten a much better machine that would do a lot more for us.
So I guess I'm looking for what everyone wants, a product that combines everything I want it to do at the best price possible. I don't know how feasible it is to get a laptop that can play all manner of games or what compromise we might have to make by understanding that it will play basic or midlevel grahic games but not others or what. Maybe there are other options like paying less for the machine and investing in a graphics card? We've never had a laptop so I don't know how easy things like that are like they are for a desktop. Maybe playing games on a laptop is not a reasonable thing to do that costs way too much money for the convenience?
Any input would be appreciated, we are definitely laptop nubs.
If you have seen a few ideas post them up and should be able to say good or bad ect.
Other than that are you USA based?
There are SO many options and a lot of this depends on your price range. Just sorting through the "Top 10" laptops on TigerDirect there are a few options but again it depends on what you want to pay. For example you can get a really decent Asus gaming notebook for $1150, or pay almost half that much for a well-equipped HP. Both will play Minecraft, and the biggest difference is longevity - the Asus will be better equipped to play games that haven't yet been released.
I'm still rocking a 2009 HP notebook with similar specs as the HP above, and it can still play most everything if I'm willing to tweak the graphics settings a bit.
A $399 laptop with a separate GPU / CPU will run Minecraft and other casual games just fine and do everything else non-gaming you want. If you want to step up from casual games though you'll need to get something i5 based with a separate Nvidia or ATI GPU built in. If you step up to a 'gaming' class laptop though the price, weight and runtime will all be affected.
Here's a good place to start, top 10 gaming laptops of 2013
http://computers.toptenreviews.com/gaming-laptops/
Basically you want to look at for:
For cost expectations, a gaming laptop is going to run somewhere between $1k and $2k.
EDIT:
The Samsung Series7 Gaming Laptop gives quite a bit of bang for the buck, might want to look at it and use it for a baseline:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/09/19/series-7-gamer-laptop-review
Thanks for all the great info. I'll have to go through your list and the other one posted to get some ideas of what I want. It will be much easier for me since you broke it down what to look for, I really appreciate it.
I'm also looking into gaming laptops for myself too, I gave the Alienware stuff another look last night. The m17x is a big 9 pounder but it has one of the best video cards you can find in a laptop, plus a lot of other pretty sweet stuff including an HDMI input to use the screen as a monitor for whatever, like if you travel with your xbox and can't plug it into a TV, goes for about 1700.
Also the m14x is just under a grand, the specs are a little bit of a downgrade from the m17x but it's smaller and lighter as well, comes with a dual core i5 (whcih most games can't use quad core anyway), 6gigs of ram and bluray just like the m17x but the screen is 14inch/720p and the GPU is an nvidia 650m . There are lots of custom build options for this laptop too making it range from 999 to 1400.
Here's a complete look at their lineup
http://www.alienware.com/Landings/laptops.aspx
Another option, one that's caught my eye is the Lenovo y400 gaming laptop. It's small, thin, relatively light and portable, packs a quad core i7 and nvidia G650 GPU into a $750 package. The screen is the only downer being only basically 720p. But one really cool thing is the DVD bay is a smart bay , you can plug different things into it including a second G650M GPU for SLI ... Great for upgrading without needing to buy a whole new laptop down the line.
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/c...
Just thought i'd let you know, i jumped on the Lenovo y400. Seemed to offer the best mix of what I wanted, fast 7200rpm drive, small/light/portable, HDMI port, 5.1 surround , i7 proc and a kick ass dedicated GPU that can overclock all for ..... 750 bucks O_o ! the GPU can in fact be SLI'd, and that expansion card takes the place of the optical drive. It's not cheap, the card is just coming out and is 230 bucks plus you need to buy a new power adapter for the laptop. BUT it does give you a cheaper option besides going out and buying a whole new laptop sometime down the line if the games you play go beyond the capabilities. I also like that on the bottom of the laptop is a mess section for increased airflow which i'll be able to put that on a Coolermaster stand and line up the fans along that area and blow extra air thru it while gaming. I dont' think there's a better deal on a gaming laptop out there to be had.
I've read in the forums that there is an mSATA port inside as well so i'll explore that for adding an OS level SSD for super fast boots but that'll allow me to keep the 500gb 7200rpm drive for slower access stuff.
Let me know what you think of it once you take it for a spin. Sounds like a pretty good deal and I assume you'll be pushing it harder than we would be, so if it works well for you it should work great for us.
Hey, that isn't too bad!