(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Looking to buy a new laptop this summer/fall for university. I am taking computer programming, and so I would like it to run smoothly for tasks such as coding, running programs/games, and pretty much anything I throw at it. I would like to play games on it occasionally (meaning I don't want to just make them, if that's what I'm doing).

Basically, I want to have an awesome laptop - media, sporadic gaming, everyday use. But here's the catch: I want to spend the least amount of money on it as possible. I know that's probably pretty obvious, but I don't have a huge budget for it. Tops is around $2000, preferred is around $1500, and less is magnificent, but only if it meets requirements.

These are my requirements for now (they are flexible):
- quad-core (or more! Though I doubt the possibility, at least in my price range...)
- processor reaching near or (preferably) beyond 3.0GHz
- backlit keyboard (night-time work is probable)
- preferred 15" or greater screen size (flexible, and not priority)
- USB 3.0
- ram 8gb or greater
- 802.11n (and maybe one with those fancy new 802.11ac models... not necessary though)
- disc-drive
- HDMI-out port
- good battery life
- good graphics card (I don't know much about graphics cards, so help there is appreciated)

Desired, but not required:
- bluetooth
- slot load disc-drive as compared to tray-load
- blu-ray reader/writer
- Full HD 1080p screen (I'll go out on a limb and say "3D!". I wonder, does touch-screen 3D work?)
- Full HD webcam - whatever that means. Can't imagine it going beyond 2-4 MP
- 0.2 pounds in weight. Yes, I'm joking


I am not sure whether to go SSD or HDD. I know that solid-state is faster (by a lot), but I also know that they are more expensive, have less read/write cycles, and have lower capacities. A nice compromise would be both: SSD for the OS (as I have heard is done), and HDD for the other files, or documents, or whatever. Capacity doesn't matter too much, except for maybe the SSD if I get one, as I would want it to hold the OS and commonly used files well. I can just get an external hard-drive if necessary.

So, there you have it. I have a lot of holes in my purchase criteria, and seek help filling them. After they are all filled in, I still need to know where to get it, and hope it's somewhere that I can actually purchase from. I would like something a little more professionally made; I don't want to purchase from some company that neither I nor my best friend has ever heard of. As I've said before, my criteria is pretty flexible, so long as it at least meets a certain standard I have. Oh, and let me know if there's anything I've missed that needs to be addressed.

Any help?

If you're willing to spend that much just go to Sony's website and choose the parts you want and have them put it in a laptop for you. You can't go wrong because they don't let you choose things that would not be compatible. I spent £1249 ($1892) on my laptop in the end. current specs are:



I didn't bother with an SSD because I wanted more space not faster access times. Also this is a Sony Vaio S series, if you go for the Z (Sony's best of the best) you end up paying at least 1.5 times more just for the "Z" I think it also comes with an SSD and a HDD but for and extra £400 it wasn't worth it when the CPU, GPU and motherboard are still all the same as you get in the S series.

Also this laptop plays games like Fallout 3/NV on max settings without lag. I don't game much but it's nice to have that functionality.

To summarise your points in comparison to my laptop:

- quad-core (or more! Though I doubt the possibility, at least in my price range...)

Mines' Dual core 4 threads, so shows up in task manager like a quad core would

- processor reaching near or (preferably) beyond 3.0GHz

2.5GHz here

- backlit keyboard (night-time work is probable)

Check comes standard I believe, don't think I paid extra

- preferred 15" or greater screen size (flexible, and not priority)

I think my screen is 15" certainly greater than 13 though

- USB 3.0

2 usb 3.0 ports 1 usb 2.0

- ram 8gb or greater

I paid for 8 you can get up to 16GB if you want but I don't really see the point.
..
- 802.11n (and maybe one with those fancy new 802.11ac models... not necessary though)

Laptop comes with Wireless LAN support, you can also pay extra for WLAN

- disc-drive

Yes, which also doubles as a bluray drive if you pay extra. I did, there's no point buying DVD's anymore.

- HDMI-out port

Yes

- good battery life

Depends, I payed extra for the attachable sheet battery which takes the battery life up to like 8 hours without that you'll get 2 hours as best

- good graphics card (I don't know much about graphics cards, so help there is appreciated)

You have 2 GPU's to choose from I went for the more up market one

Desired, but not required:
- bluetooth

I'm pretty sure this has bluetooth though I don't use it

- slot load disc-drive as compared to tray-load

Yes that's default

- blu-ray reader/writer

Optinal, see disk drive

- Full HD 1080p screen (I'll go out on a limb and say "3D!". I wonder, does touch-screen 3D work?)

Yes, also has some kind of 3D function I believe but I'm not sure what the fuck it is

- Full HD webcam - whatever that means. Can't imagine it going beyond 2-4 MP

No idea what quality the webcame is, I don't think it's HD though. Personally I would have chose not to have a webcam if I could

- 0.2 pounds in weight. Yes, I'm joking

The laptop is incredibly light without the sheet battery, with... not so much

Just a few quick notes:

CPU: So that you get a CPU better suited for your needs - Gigahertz isn't a measurement that necessarily measures how powerful something is, in the sense that right now for example an Intel Ivy Bridge core clocked at 4.0GHz would be more effective than an AMD FX core clocked at the same speed. The best way to measure performance is via benchmarks which can be easily found through any search engine.

Screen: Size is important but so is resolution among a host of other things. For reference, '1080p' is 1920x1080. Touch screens are exhausting after long use - they're highly impractical and very expensive. Most people just want them because they see them in the movies.

Optical drive: "Disc drive" isn't very specific. CD, DVD, Blu-ray? R/RW? Speeds?

Memory/RAM: Don't forget that there's more to memory than just the size. Ensure it's DDR3 somewhere above 1333MHz, preferably 1600MHz. If you end up with an AMD APU, having higher frequency memory is crucial. There's also CAS latency to consider.

Video/graphics card: Don't settle for under 2GB video memory on your video card. Like with the CPU, view benchmarks to see how it will perform. Don't mix up laptop cards with desktop cards - for example a 7660 does not equal a 7660D.

Storage: SSDs should last around a decade providing you're not writing to them more than about 25GB/day. Basically, normal usage is fine, but don't write to it with programs like Fraps or Dxtory that take up gigabytes of space/writes within seconds. Yes, you can install the OS on an SSD and everything else on a hard drive. Works fine. And, like with the other stuff, benchmarks!

In reply to Madison Taylor...

Your laptop looks pretty good specs-wise. My only question is about the dual-core 4 thread, which I don't quite understand: you said that it shows up in task manager like a quad-core does, but does it behave like a quad-core? But I think currently the Sony laptops are having special offers on Intel Core i7-3632M upgrades (at least until March 30), and all the 15.5" ones with the i7 are quad-core, so I suppose my question isn't necessary. This processor starts at 2.20GHz and goes to 3.20GHz, do you think this would be acceptable in terms of gaming? I don't game much, but as you said, I would like that functionality. I understand that benchmarks are important from Clutch Hunterr (thanks for the info), but I do not know what to compare benchmarks to.

Going on Sony's website, I customized a laptop to a total of $1879.97, which is around the same price as yours. I pretty much maxed out the options, so it's a pretty good laptop. The only problem is that it doesn't say anything about wifi, which is pretty much a must.

Thanks for the help! Much appreciated! I'll keep looking for the specifics, probably up until I make my purchase. Try to find the best deal and such. Thanks again!

---------- Post added at 03:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:22 PM ----------

In response to Clutch Hunterr...

Thanks for the tip about the benchmarks. I'm not surprised that the GHz isn't the only thing that matters, but I didn't know that before, so I greatly appreciate the new information.

Touch screen: I agree, they're not used very much on anything but tablets, or smart phones, or other small things. Yet, with Windows 8 it looks like touch might be somewhat handy occasionally. But I really don't need it, anyway.

Optical drive: Yeah, I'm aware that saying just "disc drive" isn't highly informative. I don't know if it's even possible to get a sole CD drive, so I was basically saying either DVD or Blu-Ray. In my list of desired things I listed Blu-Ray as an option, so I was meaning to imply DVD as base, but Blu-Ray is nice if it's not a deal-breaker. I probably should have released more information regarding that, though.

Graphics card: I don't know too much about graphics cards, but this site is helpful, to me, at least (the graphics card the link opens to is the one in the Sony laptop Madison Taylor mentioned): You must login or register to view this content. . Seem good for gaming on occasion?

Thanks a lot for all the pointers you mentioned! I'll try to keep them in mind in future computer searches.

That's NVIDIA's site where their sole purpose is to make their card sound as good as possible i.e. I wouldn't trust it. Note the lack of actual benchmarks and the prominence of meaningless advertising phrases such as "cutting-edge".

That specific card is in actuality quite weak. Here is roughly how it stacks up to other cards (the LE bit will not make a noticeable difference over the regular): You must login or register to view this content.

Basically, it's low-end. Don't expect to be able to play games like Battlefield or Crysis with it.

Hmm, too bad that it's a low end card. I doubt the difference is large, but would it be able to run games like Civilization 5 and Portal 2? Things like that. Not exactly top-end games, but not really low-end, either. I like slower mind games. Puzzles, kinda. Not shooters, and I suppose those take higher-end graphics cards.

So then, if it's not exactly a great card, how would I remedy it? Is it possible (and economic) to straight up upgrade a laptop, or would one be better off buying the laptop with the better card already in place?

Civ V & Portal 2? Sure, they'd play fine. Just the very top end stuff is all that won't run at all.

Honestly I don't know about upgrading laptops, but I doubt it's simple. You'd be better off looking for a laptop with a better card, and if necessary a lower-end CPU. An i7 is unnecessary - an i5 is fine for your purposes.

No matter what if you're looking for a laptop for gaming it wont keep up with the latest games even if u have the 640m LE that thing wont be able to run any next gen games with shadows on high NO laptop GFX card can! I say this because i was a previous alienware owner which was shit, couldn't run shit. Be careful DON'T get mixed up with the "M" series and normal GTX! An example of this would be on a GAME BOX that states compatible with the GTX570 at MIN spec and Max GTX690. But other than that if you really need a laptop just buy a decent one from sony and build it there STAY AWAY FROM ALIENWARE!

---------- Post added at 12:41 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:38 AM ----------

A laptop i5 is equal to probably a desktop i3, so thats why a LAPTOP i7 is important for games, hence why "gaming laptops" stick them in.
its the same for graphics cards, but IMO the laptop oens are all a gimmick. 5x LESS power then the desktop cards!

You're mostly correct, however for the most part all you need on a low-end desktop is an i3. Given that high-end laptops perform like low-end desktops, that's still completely viable. Most games still haven't fully utilized multiple cores anyway.

I recently purchased a new laptop that fits well into your range and your uses, I'm a computer programmer as well, but I needed something with a lot of cores to run a lot of virtual machines simultaneously. After some quick research I came by my new Lenovo Ideapad Y580, there's two models though, one with a 1080p screen and a blu ray drive, another with a 720p screen and a DVD drive, I got the latter.

Specs:
Intel i7 3630QM 2.4~3.4 GHz (It's a quad core CPU with 8 threads, basically read on the system as 8 CPUs)
Nvidia GeForce GTX660M (if you can get the Y500 with the GT650M you might save yourself a couple of hundred dollars, and I read the performance difference isn't that huge)
8GBs DDR3 rams running at 1600MHz
1TB 5400RPM HDD (That is the only thing that is seriously awful about it, but it is easily up-gradable)
Along with some other bells and whistles.

OR, you can go to GentechPC and build your own laptop, they have some outstanding stuff over there.
And some FPS rates that I had recently on native resolution (720p)
Tomb Raider on Ultra was a nice 30 FPS
Far Cry 3 on High was also 30FPS (On ultra I got around 20~24)
Saints Row: The Third on High 30FPS
Dishonored on everything up was 60FPS
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim got 24~40 FPS on ultra