New to Laptops

[medz]

Ive always used a desktop - and always will, so I must admit I know next to nothing about laptops. The problem I have is my son is at Uni, and he's just finished his 1st year, and out of halls - and is now needing a more mobile set up than the current desktop he has. I'm going to give the desktop to my daughter but now have to get him a laptop that will last him the next 2 years at least.

The main criteria is that he needs it for uni work [which isn't too extensive - small bit of graphics work etc] but he does do the bit of light gaming [MMO's if I remember - wow, star wars and he plays Football Manager] as well as watch films, listen to music and the general browsing. He has a console for the more upto date games.

The budget is around £700 - 800. Any help would be great, as I said - ive always used desktops myself, so even with a lot of reading up, im still not overly sure what to get him.

 

[MatTheCat]

Ive always used a desktop - and always will, so I must admit I know next to nothing about laptops. The problem I have is my son is at Uni, and he's just finished his 1st year, and out of halls - and is now needing a more mobile set up than the current desktop he has. I'm going to give the desktop to my daughter but now have to get him a laptop that will last him the next 2 years at least.

The main criteria is that he needs it for uni work [which isn't too extensive - small bit of graphics work etc] but he does do the bit of light gaming [MMO's if I remember - wow, star wars and he plays Football Manager] as well as watch films, listen to music and the general browsing. He has a console for the more upto date games.

The budget is around £700 - 800. Any help would be great, as I said - ive always used desktops myself, so even with a lot of reading up, im still not overly sure what to get him.

If you haven't already figured it out, wait for Haswell!

With the new round of Intel powered laptops, the CPU power will be slightly increased over the present gen Ivy Bridge CPUs, but the integrated graphics that come with Haswell, will offer at least double the performance of the Ivy Bridge HD4000 integrated GPUs. This will be enough for light gaming and 5-10 year old MMORPGs, and run other 3D apps. Haswell is also much less power hungry than its predecessor which helps to reduce battery drain by half (reportedly).

As for brands, I am a gamer so I am looking at the high end MSI, Alienware, Clevo options as only these vendors are offering most powerful gfx cards. If I was getting a laptop for more office and home entertainment use, then I think I would be looking closely at what either Asus or Samsung have on offer. They look slick and I have only ever read good things about the. That is just my opinion however, I have no experience with either Samsung or Asus laptops.

When Haswell hits, you will definitely be able to get a laptop with a decent Haswell CPU and iGPU in it for the sort of money you have to spend. With the odd notable exceptions, laptops only start getting really expensive when they are containing high end dedictated GPUs or come with the 'extreme' versions of processor cores.