Need help on laptop specs

[umboma]

Hello guys,

I'm after a laptop but really starting to get myself confused with specs I want a laptop thats going to be good for gaming for the next 2/3years

the specs so far I have come up with are:

For £787 I can get

Chassis & Display
Enigma II: 15.6" Full HD LED Backlit Widescreen (1920x1080) Super Clear Glossy
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Mobile Processor i5-540M (2.53GHz) 3MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 - 1GB GDDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk
500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BEKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200

Or the same spec just with 1366x768 screen for £670.00, what is a good rez for 15" laptops would you really notice the full HD 1920x1080, Also is the rest of the specs ok for a few years?.

 

[umboma]

or I can get for £800


PROCESSOR : INTEL I7 720QM(1.60GHZ, 6MB)
DISPLAY : 15.6IN WIDE HD+ (1600 X 900) W
MEMORY : 4096MB (2X2048) 1333MHZ DDR3 DU
HARD DRIVE : 320GB SERIAL ATA
GRAPHICS : 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 260M

 

[olivier renault]

For gaming, a i5 right now is enough, however a quadcore will be superior (it turbo boosts to 2.8GHz), who knows what the future will bring. 8 gigs is a bit OTT.

The GTX260M has also more raw power than the HD5650, but it is not DX11. Both cards are kinda middle of the park. They are not awesome for gaming, just good for medium-high graphics settings. It's not exactly future-proof.

1080p vs 768p can be a dilemma. You get a lot more screen real estate (same resolution as desktops), but the text will be tiny, and hard to see from distance. 768p will have more readable screen, but your internet browsing will be more 'cramped'. The pixel density of a 15.6'' @ 1080p is quite high, to the point of feeling uncomfortable.

If you do a lot of work where you need a lot of screen space (photoshop, Visual Studio, ect...), 768p is an hindrance, and a 1080p usually are higher quality with better viewing angles and colour reproduction. But, you can always plug an external HD monitor through HDMI.

The video card will cope with 768p a lot better for gaming though.

If you want a serious gaming laptop, you'll need something much better than a HD5650 / GTX 260M. I suggest you look at the MSI's, or get a desktop. And tbh, I wouldn't go with custom laptops, not at this price point. You could probably get a Vaio E for that.