Laptop Computers

Ignatius

#thePewPewLife
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Amazon's returns are super easy. I also prefer MacOS to Windows for everything except gaming.
 
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BrotherWu

MAGA
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Got some side business going so I am in the market for laptop (instead of using my day job laptop). I'm using this as a justification to purchase a gaming laptop. So, I just spent 45 minutes at Best Buy evaluating what they had, reading reviews, comparing prices, trying the keyboards, etc. I narrowed it down to an HP Omen that is a bleh GTX 1050ti graphics card but the price is good at $1199. We join the conversation in progress:

"I'll take it."
"Not in stock, LOL, but we can ship it to you in 3 days."
"Fuck that, Amazon has it for $50 cheaper."
"Well, we will see what we can do. Let me talk to a manager..."
<15 minutes pass>
"Sir, would you like to buy an Asus?"
"God damn it, no, I don't want an Asus."
"Just give me this Alienware with the 1070 for $1600."
"Not in stock, LOL, but Geek Squad can clean that for you and we'll give you a discount. Only 3 days!"

I don't spend a lot of time researching this shit. Here are the must haves:
- 17" monitor.
- Backlit keyboard.
- 1TB HDD. 128MB+ SSD.
- Quad Core i7

Beyond that, I just want a reliable laptop with decent gaming specs. Where is the best place to buy these days? And, yes, I know a desktop is better in many ways but, as I said, this is also for work and travel so a desktop is not an option right now.
 

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
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14,508
Mistake 1. DONT BUY FROM BESTBUY

Mistake 2. DONT BUY HP GARBAGE

Solution: High Performance 17 Inch Gaming Laptop | Sager Notebook

MSI/Gaming Laptops - Newegg.com

Also don't buy Asus. I had a million problems with mine: touchpad not grounded, required disassembly and repair. Touchpad still occasionally didn't work, required disassembly and repair. DC Jack failed over time THREE TIMES, required disassembly and re-soldering new jack. All these repairs done by me on my Asus G73-JH gaming laptop. Lack of BIOS support for future Windows, etc. Shit support from Asus.
 

Threelions

Victory Through Harmony
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Best Buy is notorious for having entry level everything. The surface pro tablets they have are all barebones and didn't carry anything beyond the basic model.
 

BrotherWu

MAGA
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Mistake 2. DONT BUY HP GARBAGE

Also don't buy Asus.

The HP Omens have decent reviews, both amateur and industry. Asus I have never heard anything good about and just looking at their display models you could tell they were crap.

MSI doesn't have great reviews on Newegg. Also what's with the Sager and MSI both having rainbow backlights. Can you change that shit?

EDIT: Sager's website says you can. I don't have any experience with Sager but this seems like decent specs and price. Hard to sell the wife on top tier when I'm just getting going on the side business but I'll eventually own a legit battlestation.

A Trusted Brand for Gaming Laptops | Sager Notebooks
 
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Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
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To me, HP Laptops feel cheap when you use them.

When my Asus worked it was fine, but there was another issue. The keyboard's buffer was shitty so if you tried to type a full paragraph you'd drop like 10-20 keypresses. It's a lot more annoying than it sounds, having to constantly fix words and shit.

The one thing I'll say is it was durable as anything, it lasted my entire undergrad career and also I still used it for a couple years after.

Sager are very good for the price (lol). I'd read external reviews on MSI laptops. I find newegg reviews generally are incredibly shitty.
 

Flipmode

EQOA Refugee
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To me, HP Laptops feel cheap when you use them.

When my Asus worked it was fine, but there was another issue. The keyboard's buffer was shitty so if you tried to type a full paragraph you'd drop like 10-20 keypresses. It's a lot more annoying than it sounds, having to constantly fix words and shit.

The one thing I'll say is it was durable as anything, it lasted my entire undergrad career and also I still used it for a couple years after.

Sager are very good for the price (lol). I'd read external reviews on MSI laptops. I find newegg reviews generally are incredibly shitty.

Maybe the cheaper hp gaming laptops, but the new 13 inch hp spectre x360 2 in 1 is a VERY well built machine. All aluminum frame, lightweight, NVME ssd. Nice laptop. Aside from a loud fan every now and again, it's pretty baller.
 

Raign

Golden Squire
627
86
Just going to chime in to plug Aorus laptops again since most people have never even heard of them. I have tried a number of high-end laptops for gaming, and none of them have compared to the Aorus. Like Sager though, they are on the high side $$ wise.

Product | [GIGABYTE AORUS]

I got both of mine through XoticPC, which I never regretted for a second either if you are interested
 

Crone

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
9,708
3,210
Just going to chime in to plug Aorus laptops again since most people have never even heard of them. I have tried a number of high-end laptops for gaming, and none of them have compared to the Aorus. Like Sager though, they are on the high side $$ wise.

Product | [GIGABYTE AORUS]

I got both of mine through XoticPC, which I never regretted for a second either if you are interested
Thumbs up for XoticPC. Got a Sager laptop from them a couple years ago and it's been great!
 

uncognito

Trakanon Raider
1,181
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I am looking to get a shitty new laptop. Looking to spend no more than $200(150 would be ideal).

Will be used for school and interneting mostly. but also low quality gaming like League of Legends and Bloodbowl, bonus If it can run Dawn of War 1 without exploding.

Any advice? or are all 150$ laptops created equal?
 

BrotherWu

MAGA
<Silver Donator>
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As I mentioned earlier, I did buy this:

A Trusted Brand for Gaming Laptops | Sager Notebooks

It arrived today and I am happy with how it looks and how the keys feel. Speakers are not as good as on a Lenovo I bought for my kid recently but not a big deal.

The pisser, though, is that as soon as I started running a game, the fan came on at the back left and it sounds like I have an F18 parked about 10 feet from me. The Lenovo measures about 40 dB at the back left and the Sager is in the 60s. It's especially annoying that it is on one side. The Lenovo is actually louder in the back but you don't notice because it is shielded by the screen. Tried plugging in some speakers to mask it but it is still super annoying. Probably going to send it back.

EDIT: Took my my life proof case off to measure at at the noisy point and I'm getting 70-80dB.
 
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mkopec

<Gold Donor>
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Mind me asking, why laptop? I mean, i understand the portability and all, but for the price you paid for that thing you could be rocking out a monster pc. And way more quiet.
 

BrotherWu

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Mind me asking, why laptop? I mean, i understand the portability and all, but for the price you paid for that thing you could be rocking out a monster pc. And way more quiet.

A couple of reasons-

1) The primary one being that I needed to get a new laptop for some coding I am doing for a side job, which will involve some travel and in-field interface to the devices I am writing code for. I didn't want there to be any sort of ethical issues with using the laptop from my day job and, if I decide to go full-time with the new gig, it's one less thing to deal with down the road. So long as I am buying it to do some work, I decided to pay a little extra for something with some gaming capability.

2) It's nice to have a gaming laptop for travel occasions such as Spring Break, which is coming up. Rainy day? No problem. Have a LAN party.

I'm setting up a home office for the side work with plenty of desk space so I'll probably invest in a desktop battle station within a year and the laptop will be work only. I played around on it some more last night and i think I've decided to just deal with it. I got more used to it as the night went on.
 

Threelions

Victory Through Harmony
<Gold Donor>
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Just as an update from the last page on my MacBook. Apple never contacted me to return the original slightly damaged one. Never heard of them allowing someone to keep them, but basically ended up with 2 $2300 MacBooks for the price of one. Fantastic business.
 
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Kithani

Blackwing Lair Raider
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As I mentioned earlier, I did buy this:

A Trusted Brand for Gaming Laptops | Sager Notebooks

It arrived today and I am happy with how it looks and how the keys feel. Speakers are not as good as on a Lenovo I bought for my kid recently but not a big deal.

The pisser, though, is that as soon as I started running a game, the fan came on at the back left and it sounds like I have an F18 parked about 10 feet from me. The Lenovo measures about 40 dB at the back left and the Sager is in the 60s. It's especially annoying that it is on one side. The Lenovo is actually louder in the back but you don't notice because it is shielded by the screen. Tried plugging in some speakers to mask it but it is still super annoying. Probably going to send it back.

EDIT: Took my my life proof case off to measure at at the noisy point and I'm getting 70-80dB.

I had a Sager back around ~2009 and had the exact same complaint with it. I hadn't mentioned it in this thread since I figured it was a more isolated issue. I ended up replacing it with an upgraded Asus notebook and never looked back.