What is the best laptop I can get, for a Game Design student, that's around $1,500?

best laptops for college students and gamers image

Toryzombie

I just got accepted into college for a degree in Game Design & I'm wondering what's the best laptop I should invest in that will last me a while and allow my programs and gaming capabilities to run smoothly.

Answer
Consider ASUS Republic of Gamers G74SX-AH71 17.3-Inch Gaming Laptop
Intel Core i7 2630QM Processor 2.2GHz
16GB DIMM RAM
750GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
17.3-Inch Screen, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M

What kind of computer should I get?

Helen

I will be attending my first semester of college in the fall, and although my university doesn't require that the students have laptops, I would prefer to have one. I am going to be a chemical engineering major, so I would need a computer that is good with programming and is efficient in terms of speed and the kinds of programs that would be available for me to take notes. I'll also need it for personal purposes such as syncing pictures from my phone (iphone 4s), downloading music, watching videos, and video skyping. A long battery life would be nice too.
If you can come up with a specific type/brand of laptop, rather than just saying mac or pc, that would be a lot more helpful for me. In summary, I really just need a good laptop that would be best for an engineering college student.

Answer
ASUS laptop.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230987
Core i5 3230M(2.60GHz) 15.6" 6GB Memory DDR3 1600 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce Dedicated 2GB GT 610M 1 Year Accidental Damage/30-Day Zero Bright Dot

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230416
Core i5 3210M(2.50GHz) 14.1" 8GB Memory 750GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce Dedicated 1GB GT 620M

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230597
Core i7 3630QM(2.40GHz) 15.6" 8GB Memory 1TB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce Dedicated 2GB GT 635M 1 Year Accidental Damage/30-Day Zero Bright Dot

Two HP that can be customized to what you need, Bump the APU up to A8 or A10

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/B5Y73AV;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ000046kL18cI;sid=9zDf3cQuLykz6ZWxCIeGSR0hwywaiPAyMmXy0Rex_etSdk9VLxt6fHwh?HP-ENVY-dv6z-7200-Notebook-PC $530

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-Pavilion/B6C46AV;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-Pavilion-g6z-2200-Notebook-PC $460 Your choice of 5 colors

These are not customizable

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C2K91UA;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-ENVY-Sleekbook-6-1110us
HP SleekBook AMD Quad-Core A8-4555M APU AMD Radeon HD 7600G 4 GB DDR3 500 GB SATA (5400 rpm) $700

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C2N66UA;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-ENVY-dv7-7230us-Notebook-PC
17" DV7-7230US laptop AMD Quad-Core A8-4500M APU AMD Radeon HD 7640G 6 GB DDR3 750 GB SATA (5400 rpm) $750

Buying advice

Apple makes a good quality laptop. The problem comes when it requires service or minor upgrades. It is near impossible to do anything with them. They even glue the battery and hard drive down so you can not change it. They solder the ram to the logic board so you can not increase it. They lock up most of the software so your stuck with what they approve.

Lenovo has serious stand behind their product problems. They bought IBM PC division and proceeded to drive the quality of the system into the ground. Their customer service is well below par. They even makes Dell customer service look good. The last and final thing to remember about them is they are a Chinese Government own company. It is up to you if you want to trust them.

Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony should be avoided because of their heavy modification of Windows and the drivers. If you remove some of the bloat they install, you can cripple the system.

Acer, Gateway, and eMachines should be avoided period. Low end system that are driving the race to the bottom.

Dell once made a good system and fell from grace. They are now struggling to regain their place in the market. Customer service is one of many problems with this company.

Alienware are glorified Dells and are more name then product. Priced extremely high for what you get. They do perform but you can get the same for less by looking around, just not packaged to be eye candy to the gamers.

Samsung has a history of using cheap parts in critical areas. Capacitors has been one area Samsung has a known history of going cheap, causing units to fail early. For that reason I would avoid them.

ASUS and HP do not modify Windows as bad as the other manufacturers. They have excellent build quality. They might add a lot of bloat but they also makes it easy to get rid of it.

Ultrabooks are the higher end of Wintel laptops but they have some of the same concerns as Apple. They make it next to impossible to change any hardware in them. Service of them will have to be done by the manufacturers. With most of them, you can not change your own battery or hard drive. They are designed to catch your eye but they are not any more special then other laptops except for the fact that they are slim or thin. Your paying for it being thin and slim. For the money your going to spend on it you can buy a much better laptop with more power.

Hybrids are the worse of the worse. The flip or detachable touch screens are just a disaster waiting to happen.

Never buy an All In One. They are far worst then laptops of any kind to service and they have a higher failure rate. My experience with them are limited because the few I worked on made me think they were designed in such a way as it would take a blow torch and a jack hammer just to disassemble them.

You get what you pay for. Systems with high end parts with low prices are to viewed with suspicion. They have to cut corners somewhere to get the price down.

Choose wisely.

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