Laptop Computers

Well, the Chrome OS does have apps, just nothing that compares to the number of apps available for Android.

Thanks for the replies. I guess the apps loading was the question i never asked but wanted to. Kind of dumb to not allow loading apps on the Chromebook. That alone will lead me to get a tablet instead. I had an Ipad/Ipad 2 from my last job and enjoyed those, was just curious if a Chromebook was worth having.

edit - i knew it would do stuff like youtube, netflix and other popular apps, but I was thinking it would have access to the whole android market.

The one thing that actually helps laptops in gaming are their general low resolution screens. Most sub-$1000 17" gaming laptops laptops are only going to have a 1600x900 resolution, a decent dedicated graphics card is going to perform decently at that resolution for sure. Now, get a high-end gaming laptop with a 1920x1080 17.3" screen and you're going to need some serious beef to run games smoothly, I can't see anything under 2 grand performing that well.

I still even have doubts that a 1.7ghz i7 and a radeon mibility 5870 are running games like Far Cry 3 on the highest settings, even at 1600x900

All that being said though, thats still a damn nice laptop for $800, you must have found a hell of a sale, they're still $1200+ at most places online.

I guess my overall point was, it seems silly to me to spend 2-3x as much for equivalent gaming power in a laptop as opposed to a desktop. Is anyone doing a significant amount of hardcore gaming on the bus or train or at school? I bet 90% of the time the gaming is done at home. Why not get a $500 PC that is more powerful than that $1200 laptop? Hell, if nothing else, gaming on a laptop screen is kinda crap. I haven't used a monitor as small as 17" in about 15 years.

But, I don't want to argue the merits of a gaming laptop in the laptop thread, I'm sure they have their place and purpose, I just have trouble seeing the advantages of it in all but the most extreme cases like someone who travels constantly with their job.

Like I said, they'r desktop replacements and the G75 will play and run anything out there and it only $1200 and has an I7 that you can turbo boost to 3.3

Pretty much that, only reason I've used my desktop was because the screen went out on my laptop. I cant stand sitting in my damn office

I do the majority of my gaming on my desktop, which is great, but I'm at school a ton and visit friends/family and it's nice being able to run multiplayer shit on my laptop. At this point mine is getting a little long in the tooth for that so am considering upgrading and handing this one down to my wife (it's an HP pavilion 1270 I got 3+ years ago for like $1000). Having not even remotely kept up with the laptop field, this thread is already great, gave me several reasonable laptops to ponder over.

Even though I used my laptop a TON for school this last semester, I plan on getting a Surface pro for homework/work and focusing the laptop on gaming where life takes me.

I bought an MSI laptop last spring. It was $1,450 with a 50 dollar mail in rebate. It has i7-2670QM, Nvidia 570M, 17.3" matte screen and default 1960xWhatever resolution, 12 GB ram. It runs most games on high very well. I love it, especially because I travel a lot for work and it is a full gaming machine I can fit in a backpack.

Haven't looked into laptops in like.. forever, so I don't know what is good now (in terms of processor/gpu).. but can anyone recommend a laptop in the $300 range (maybe up to $350) that could run League of Legends at a good framerate on maybe medium settings? I know it can be done, as I've borrowed my mom's laptop that she got for $300ish a year ago and played it at 30+FPS on low settings, and she doesn't even have a real video card on it.

She's offered to buy me a laptop for christmas and that's what her stated budget is ($300).. but if an extra 40-50 bucks will drastically improve the performance, I'll throw in some money myself.

Other than League, I'll just be doing some ebay/business stuff, which shouldn't be hard for it to handle. I just have shitty internet at home, and have been playing at a friend's house or on wifi at a cafe/bar.

oh, and I'm ok with refurbished computers and such. I did a little research myself, but all the refurbished ones in that range didn't seem to have a dedicated graphics card.

enzie_sl said:

Haven't looked into laptops in like.. forever, so I don't know what is good now (in terms of processor/gpu).. but can anyone recommend a laptop in the $300 range (maybe up to $350) that could run League of Legends at a good framerate on maybe medium settings? I know it can be done, as I've borrowed my mom's laptop that she got for $300ish a year ago and played it at 30+FPS on low settings, and she doesn't even have a real video card on it.

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Look for anything based around an intel i3 or i5 processor with Intel HD3000 integrated graphics. I would recommend the better Intel HD4000 graphics which comes with the newer ivy bridge processors, but I'm not sure you'd be able to find a 4000 and stay close to $300

Basically, the older HD3000 graphics are going to be any Intel i3/i5 2nd gen processor, denoted by the processor type starting with a 2. Like an i3 2350 or i5 2450. The newer 4000 graphics set is on the 3rd gen processors that all start with a 3 in numbering like i3 3110 or i5 3210.

I dont see anything on Newegg with a 4000 graphics chip for under $500, even refurb.

Something refurbished like this would probably do what you are asking in your price range:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834230814

Thats a good price for a laptop with the 4000 series graphics

Yeah that's pretty legit at that pricepoint

Oh, so integrated graphics cards are good enough to run games like League at the performance level I'm talking about? I figured I'd still want a dedicated graphics card, even if I went lower on the processor speed.

Dedicated graphics in a laptop aren't going to be significantly better than the 4000 integrated graphics until you start to get in the $600+ range. You won't find any dedicated graphics that are very good in the $300-$400 range, might as well just use the passable integrated. The Intel HD 4000 is probably somewhere comparable to the old Geforce 8800s from 4-5 years back(except it does support DX11). I played a crapload of WoW and Warcraft III on an 8800 back in the day just fine, and on a processor nowhere near as powerful as an i3/i5. With the reduced resolution of a laptop(you're playing at 1366x768 rather than something like 1920x1080 on a desktop monitor), it'll run most games on medium settings just fine. Just do the usual framerate-saving precautions in graphics settings like turning off shadows, and extras like that, and you'll be good to go.

Oh, awesome, that sounds perfect then. Thanks guys, that's something I would have completely overlooked otherwise.

Anyone know of a high end gaming laptop with a 14 or 15" screen that doesn't have a super high native resolution ( makes it a pain to read small text, and lowering the resolution from native makes everything terrible), in the range of $1300-1500?