Gaming Laptop (Canadian,1000-1500$) Help!

[chanta45]

Hey guys, christmas is coming up and my whole family, (Uncles&Aunts too!) are all pitching in to help me get a laptop for leisure and university.

I'm from Canada (A little away from Toronto) and I really need help picking a semi decent gaming laptop.

My budget isn't that great for alot of the higher ends but I can still get something decent (And that will run SC2 nicely!)

I have up to 1000-1500$ to spend.

Things I need/dont need.

1. Screen: Doesn't have to be a massive 17'er, i'm fine with anything around 15'. If I can save money here then good.

2. Hard Drive: I don't need 500 gigs of crap stored on my computer. If I can save money here then good. Optimally i'm looking for a smaller harddrive with a good RPM. (Quicker loading!)

3. Video Card: A must have, I was looking at laptops with the Nvidia GForce 260M, if you guys have any suggestions that are better then that then please.

4. Ram: At least 4 Gigs of DDR2 with a good bus speed, hopefully 1066mhz. If theres better for my price range please suggest.

5. Proccessor: Another must have, at least a high quality duel core, don't think I quite need a quad core. If a quad can fit in the price range then great.

6. Size/Battery Life: I don't really care if the laptop is big and clunky and needs to be plugged into a wall.

7. OS: Was hoping for W7, i'm pretty sure it's mostly standard.


Please! Help! All suggestions welcome

 

[Nenad]

1) A 15 Saves a lot of money
2) Doesn't matter that much, hard disks are cheap
3) Find something that's good for your money's worth, and something that won't expire in a year (although this is a bit hard to do >.<)
4) DDR2 is cheap, DDR3 isn't as cheap
5) I don't think you need a quad core just yet, and you can't afford it with this kind of money
6) Seriously? If you're gonna keep it plugged in you can buy 2x the computer for the same amount of money.
7) W7 is probably gonna be on your laptop yes ^^

Laptops are not for gaming. Buy a console or a stationary if you wanna game ^^

 

[tom_mai78101]

Better for you to save your $1500 bucks. Trust me, next year, most hi-tech computers will drop their prices down to affordable ranges.

 

[Slapshot136]

i would recommend something like this

quick summary:
$1,405.53 cash
15.4" 1920 x 1200 display
260m graphics
P8700 2.53 ghz cpu
(2x2) gb ddr3 @ 1066
320gb 7200 rpm HD
win7 home premium x64 (you need to choose this)


and isn't it always true that there will be better technology for cheaper later on?

buy what you need when you need it and then don't look at the prices until you need something again - that is what i would recommend

 

[Tru_Power22]

One that's the same but slightly cheaper:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220639

 

[chanta45]

A little bit above my price range, but what do you guys think of this one?|
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=025065&cid=NBK.300.645

 

[Slapshot136]

i don't see the need for the quad core unless audio/video encoding is going to be your main usage, and then i would recommend one of the i7's

the dual HD's in raid 0 will make it faster, but you said you don't need "500 gigs of crap" - so that is also raising the price unnecessarily, and a 80gb SSD from intel will easily outperform those in raid and have a similar price (~200 SSD and 2x~100 320gb 7200 rpm laptop HD)

also the resolution is 16:9, i prefer 16:10, but that's just my preference, 16:9 is more for watching full hd stuff, but it gets to where it's not tall enough to do normal stuff side-by-side (which is what i like to do a lot)

the memory is ddr2-800, slower then the ones posted previously

as for bringing it to college, do you really want something that looks like this?

it's almost asking to be stolen - i would go with a more "normal" or "discrete" looking laptop - what's under the hood can be whatever you want, but then again that's my opinion, if you don't think that would bother you (as in you can keep a good eye on it and don't lose your cellphone/ipod/etc.) then don't worry about it

p.s. one more thing if you want to use it to take notes - make sure the fans aren't too loud, read some reviews, because that can annoy people near you

 

[Nenad]

This one:http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/12134...s-7-Home-Premium-Laptop-Notebook/Product.html

Looks pretty good in your price range ^^

 

[Tru_Power22]

Pretty good. The video card is not as good the the 260m I hear.

 

[chanta45]

I guard my expensive belongings extensively so I don't mind, and hmm, sorry which of the canadian laptops had faster ram? 1066 would be nice but all I see is the 800, and I want at least the 260m, thanks alot guys

 

[Nenad]

Just tell ask if they can put another graphics card for more money, most companies do so. You would spend about 1k then (this is around 800$) to get the 260M, i think it's quite cheap for it's configuration ^^