Okay, so...

Got that new job, so I'm in the market for a new laptop. What I'm looking for is something with a professional-looking case, but still comes to play, and by "play" I mean "can run most games at a decent resolution/framerate." I haven't even searched for laptops in years, so hopefully you all have some sites I can check out and do some pricing. I want something powerful but that I can still whip out at a client site and not have everyone in the room say, "what the hell is that thing?!"

What are your favorite sites to shop around on? What do you use now? Is my ideal computer an impossible dream? Is Apple in or out of the picture? Should I find a case I like and build my own? I'm open to all suggestions.

Apple is out of the picture, lets just get that out there first. You would be overpaying for an under-performing machine, which is what happened to my dad when he purchased his a few months ago. At that point they had not switched to using sandy bridge processors.

Second, why do you want a laptop? Specifically, can you buy a cheaper, smaller and ultimately more portable laptop to suit your office program and internet needs?

It is way cheaper to buy a basic laptop and build your own gaming desktop, or at least purchase one from Dell or the like. Its safer too since you will have a space to backup any data, since laptops are notorious for breaking down.

I've been building computers for a long time now and the only argument I've seen so far for buying a laptop with gaming capability is if you travel a lot and will not be around enough to use your desktop.

This is fantastic advice. I'm helping my buddy build a comp before he starts grad school. I talked him out of the "gaming laptop" and into a stronger desktop with a cheap laptop. All you really need in a laptop is browsing, word processing, etc.

i agree with Love is Dead, better get yourself a kickass desktop (which im pretty sure most people here will help you with getting)

that said, if you still want a laptop, ASUS or MSI. both have some great gaming rigs ASUS G series, MSI GT series. which with enough searching can be gotten REALLY cheap. (ie warehouse sale near my office had an AMAZING 17.1" powerhouse ASUS g73 for 730$, i paid 1,300 a year ago for the same thing but 15.1". why ASUS and MSI, these are motherboard and components manufacturersm your not paying for the added name on the laptop, your paying more or less for the parts + some extra on top for building it.

I am going to echo everyone by agreeing w/ Love.

Additionally I will partially agree with djlenny with his recommendation of Asus. They make fantastic products. If however, money is no object, Alienware makes some of the best, top of the line gaming laptops on the market.

But you will be overspending for something with a limited ability to upgrade down the line if you go with a laptop. Gaming desktop is the way to go imo.

If you are going for a laptop you should pretty much exclusively look at MSI or Asus imo. Those are the only ones with decent cooling

This.

So this looks pretty sweet:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230142

Thoughts?

that is my laptop except 1 gen newer and larger screen.

be aware of the following: its fucking BIG! with the trim it actually needs a bag that will fit a 18.5" laptop, the 15.1" I have needs a 17" size bag to carry it. It is also heavy, but as a guy i dont think it will make a difference for you. I recommend that you make the most of it and make sure it us using both of the internal HDD bays. (my other summer project is install one on my own, i called asus and they told me that opening it will not void my warranty [they have great customer service]) also there are 2 screen option 1080P or 720P + 3D. go for the 1080, a guy in my office got the 3D, the quality is ok on screen, if you have a 3D TV you can still plug in the HDMI out to that tv with the 1080P configuration and still get 3D. also best case battery life is a measly 2 hours.

On a side note, PerfectAverage i would respectfully disagree with the alienware, since they were purchased by Dell they have dropped in value substantially. dollar for dollar the same configuration will cost 200-600 dollars less with an Asus or MSI. also their lifespan is not as long (as bearhug said it is because of the cooling)

if you want one now get the Asus, if you ware willing to wait there is a new MSI coming out that is a hot mess (http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/05/msi-gt780-gx-rumored-specs-appear-online/ yes 4.16 GHz)
also check this current MSI http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/23/msi-gt70-gaming-laptop-review/

regardless the Asus gets my DjLenny stamp of approval (which compared to the amount of computers i have built/repaired hopefully means something)

Obviously Love is Dead is right and you should heed his advice. I'm going to go ahead and argue with Ragequit Commando however: Stay as far away from Alienware as humanly possible.

I would recommend Asus or Sager. These are generally very well made and somewhat underpriced. I've had really good experiences with Asus service.

In general, I buy from Tigerdirect or Newegg. I purchased my previous (Asus) laptop from http://www.gentechpc.com. They sometimes have very good deals and have great customer service.

IMO, get a 13" or so and get a solid state drive. If you actually have to move it a lot, you'll appreciate not having a large/heavy laptop. Solid State Drives are amazing and they're finally at the price point where you can get a reasonable capacity at a reasonable cost. (~130 GB for ~$200) You know what's lame? Waiting for someone's laptop to start up at the beginning of a meeting. You know what looks pro? When your laptop boots in less than 20 seconds, comes out of sleep in less than 5, and hardly makes any noise. Get a SSD.


I have this Acer now and I'm really happy with it as a work and travel-gaming laptop.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Acer-Aspire-3830TG-Subnotebook.54641.0.html

If you can deal with its little quirks, it's a good buy. For work stuff it's perfect and the price is right. It will max Dota 2 out at 1080p and you can probably find one for less than $700. With the money you save over a really high performance laptop, you can mostly build a gaming desktop or at least get a nice monitor.

Pros -
Size, weight, looks (professional but not flashy)
Nice keyboard
The Nvidia 540M is pretty impressive. You can play almost anything at 1080p (with no anti-aliasing). I played a bunch of Space Marine and L4D2.
Long (6+ hours) battery life... but not that long if you're gaming.
Impressive cooling when not gaming. The fan doesn't run (or isn't audible) unless you're playing a game.

Cons -
The display is kind of dull. Fine for office work, not that great for movies or games or media work. It's decent but there are a lot of laptops with nicer displays.
No built-in CD drive (a lot of ultrabooks don't have them).
You might need a cooling pad ($25) for extended gaming. The 540M apparently generates a lot of heat.
You pretty much have to run Throttlestop when gaming because of some of the idiosyncrasies of this machine- it throttles the CPU when it doesn't need to but you can override it.
You have to set up custom Nvidia profiles for most games since the "optimus" thing isn't always smart enough to tell when you're running a game - it sometimes tries to game on the Intel GPU which is obviously not effective and sometimes will not allow the game to launch. Again, you just have to set up a profile in the Nvidia control panel. This is a common problem with Nvidia Optimus. But if you don't like tinkering then don't get this laptop.

I would really wait for the new ivy bridge generation of gaming laptops coming out in a few weeks

That is a pretty sweet laptop though. Dota2 on the go!

I would get this http://www.webhallen.com/hardvara/152978-asus_g75vw-t1031v-i7-3610qm-8gb-750gb-17.3-gtx670m_3gb-bt-win_7_hp if i were in the market for a laptop, im sure you can find it on a US site aswell