Laptop for £1200

fkinthecoffee · 28 Jan 2013 at 21:03

Hi, in the next month I am planning to buy a laptop for use at the last few months at college and for when I start university later this year.
I will be playing games on it so I want something that should be able to play the latest games for next few years.

My budget: £1200
Screen res: 1080p
Screen size: 17 inches
Hard drive size: More than 600gb
Battery Life: Needs to be at least 3 hours when not playing games
Would like a blu ray drive however better gaming and battery life performance is more important.

I am willing to increase to £1500 for both better gaming performance and battery life.

Any help would be greatly be appreciated, thanks

sansnom · 30 Jan 2013 at 05:35

The Clevo barebone option is quite good. I'm certainly pleased with mine. At least I got to spec everything exactly the way I wanted it.

Build quality could be a bit better, even the upgraded steelseries keyboard feels cheap but overall the performance is spectacular. Screen is stunning as well.

I would also consider the samsung gamer series.

Personally, would avoid Asus/Acer/MSI gaming laptops. They look and feel like cheap 10 pound toys. If you don't mind that, then they have good options as well.

Gibbo3771 · 31 Jan 2013 at 14:36

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-007-OE

Have a look a this, you can get 8gb ram, quad core 3740qm with a 256gb SSD. 1 TB SATA and Blu-ray drive and 7970 2GB.

Oh and its 17", 1080p etc etc

for 1300 give or take, well worth a look at.

Really in terms of gaming laptop it's actually not bad, considering you can take it out in finance, has good warrenty and a great community to ask for advice

Snubber · 31 Jan 2013 at 17:42

Gibbo3771 said:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-007-OE

Have a look a this, you can get 8gb ram, quad core 3740qm with a 256gb SSD. 1 TB SATA and Blu-ray drive and 7970 2GB.

Oh and its 17", 1080p etc etc

for 1300 give or take, well worth a look at.

Really in terms of gaming laptop it's actually not bad, considering you can take it out in finance, has good warrenty and a great community to ask for advice

err...I make it more like £1500 with those additions.

jemyclarke · 2 Feb 2013 at 04:26

If you are come across for best laptop under $1500, then according to me MSI GT60 is an awesome laptop which has really amazing features and It is very best for gaming laptops compare to other laptop. This laptop's price is very affordable.

Hawk Tuah · 2 Feb 2013 at 17:33

I have one of the 16.4in Sony Vaio's for doing design work. The big benefit is that they fit in a 15in laptop bag.

I've had it about a year and its been a real workhorse.

fkinthecoffee · 14 Feb 2013 at 18:59

I'm going to pick laptop up next week but still have have not decided on what to get.
I would like a laptop that can emulate gamecube, Wii, PS1, PSP and PS2 but I don't if I could get that with my budget of £1200

roughavoc · 14 Feb 2013 at 20:49

fkinthecoffee said:
I'm going to pick laptop up next week but still have have not decided on what to get.
I would like a laptop that can emulate gamecube, Wii, PS1, PSP and PS2 but I don't if I could get that with my budget of £1200

Lemme help you out here

P170EM ( Vortex III ) - i7-3630QM - 8GB - 7970M - 750GB WD Black - Blu-Ray - Windows 7 = £1,195.00 or less if you get cheaper wifi

Jerec · 14 Feb 2013 at 22:42

I'd steer away from the 7970m, the Enduro is a major pain in the butt, I found it worked half the time and the drivers were hit and miss.

I'm gonna go Nvidia next time.

vegarda · 15 Feb 2013 at 10:45

Jerec said:
I'd steer away from the 7970m, the Enduro is a major pain in the butt, I found it worked half the time and the drivers were hit and miss.

I'm gonna go Nvidia next time.

The Enduro worked perfectly fine for me as soon as I set the Switchboard settings to High performance for my games in order to always run the 7970m for these.

Jerec · 15 Feb 2013 at 15:56

vegarda said:
The Enduro worked perfectly fine for me as soon as I set the Switchboard settings to High performance for my games in order to always run the 7970m for these.

I did too, but as mentioned, it only used the graphics card half time, even when it was set to High Performance.

Thats one reason it was returned.

Not here to argue, just putting in my 2 pence.

fkinthecoffee · 17 Feb 2013 at 16:39

Is there an easy fix for Enduro problem?
Also is a Matt or AUO Matt screen better?

Bloodshot · 18 Feb 2013 at 22:02

fkinthecoffee said:
Is there an easy fix for Enduro problem?
Also is a Matt or AUO Matt screen better?

From what I've read the latest Enduro drivers have fixed all the issues and improved performance significantly.

fkinthecoffee · 19 Feb 2013 at 09:54

Is the P170EM upgradeable?
Also will the battery life be the same between P170EM and Vortex III?

Armageus · 19 Feb 2013 at 10:28

fkinthecoffee said:
Hi, in the next month I am planning to buy a laptop for use at the last few months at college and for when I start university later this year.
I will be playing games on it so I want something that should be able to play the latest games for next few years.

My budget: £1200
Screen res: 1080p
Screen size: 17 inches
Hard drive size: More than 600gb
Battery Life: Needs to be at least 3 hours when not playing games
Would like a blu ray drive however better gaming and battery life performance is more important.

I am willing to increase to £1500 for both better gaming performance and battery life.

Any help would be greatly be appreciated, thanks

Do you *actually* need the laptop to play games - i.e. are you actually going to be gaming at college/uni - since carrying around a 17" desktop replacement gaming laptop gets uncomfortable very quickly....

Desktop replacement laptops (or at least the last couple of generations), make too many compromises to make them nice to use as day-to-day machines with regard to weight, heat, battery life, ergonomics.

For a £1200 or £1500 budget you could get a ~£500 portable laptop e.g. 12"-15" screen, and spend the rest on a decent gaming PC.

fkinthecoffee · 19 Feb 2013 at 11:33

Armageus said:
Do you *actually* need the laptop to play games - i.e. are you actually going to be gaming at college/uni - since carrying around a 17" desktop replacement gaming laptop gets uncomfortable very quickly....

Desktop replacement laptops (or at least the last couple of generations), make too many compromises to make them nice to use as day-to-day machines with regard to weight, heat, battery life, ergonomics.

For a £1200 or £1500 budget you could get a ~£500 portable laptop e.g. 12"-15" screen, and spend the rest on a decent gaming PC.

I'v have got a lot of spare time at college where I would like to play games, so I am after some thing that can play games such as Batman:AC, Resident Evil 6 and DmC to name a few.

Pukk@pie · 19 Feb 2013 at 13:03

fkinthecoffee said:
Is there an easy fix for Enduro problem?
Also is a Matt or AUO Matt screen better?

After extensive researching I opted for the Nvidia 680M (enduro issues put me off the 7970m) and the AUO Matt screen. Personally I didnt want to spent £1200/£1300 and worry if I could play games without performance issues, so for peace of mind I spent the extra on the Nvidia 680M and very glad i did. I ended up paying £1500.

fkinthecoffee · 22 Feb 2013 at 11:51

Would an Alienware M17x with 7970M, Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM , 1080p screen, 500gb hard drive and 8GB of ram be worth £1 236.20?
or should I get a Vortex III instead?