19 replies to this topic

[Coors]

Any laptop that is good enough for gaming is going to have terrible battery life. If it's primary use is for school then you want to get something with at least 5 hours minimum battery life. Preferrably more. Any decent gaming laptop will have 2 hours max...an hour if you actually game on it unplugged. And if it's got a top of the line graphics card it will need to be plugged in to fully use it. If mine isn't plugged in the card isn't getting enough juice for gaming.

You know those responses where people list 3 things and you can choose two? For laptops it's more like:


Good battery life
Good gaming performance

You can choose one.

[IVIYTH0S]

Any laptop that is good enough for gaming is going to have terrible battery life. If it's primary use is for school then you want to get something with at least 5 hours minimum battery life. Preferrably more. Any decent gaming laptop will have 2 hours max...an hour if you actually game on it unplugged. And if it's got a top of the line graphics card it will need to be plugged in to fully use it. If mine isn't plugged in the card isn't getting enough juice for gaming.

You know those responses where people list 3 things and you can choose two? For laptops it's more like:


Good battery life
Good gaming performance

You can choose one.

Mine is decent, 3+ hour battery life.
Cyberpower Sandybridge Core i5, 15.6" 1080p screen, 8GB battery life, 2GB 540M graphics (overclocked to 550M speeds....making it a 550M since they're the same chip.), came with a 750GB drive but swapped to 240GB SSD, DVD drive, 2USB3.0+2USB2.0, HDMI, Wifi N.

With new cards able to shut off the dedicated graphics portion on battery nowadays, it isn't really as much of a factor, though battery life will always be a preference over gaming performance, I just could not find a cheaper 1080P laptop. $750 shipped to my door

Edited by IVIYTH0S, 05 December 2012 - 08:14 PM.

[Fogel]

ASUS Republic of Gamers G75VW-AS71

17.3" FHD (1920*1080) / Intel Core i7-3610QM (2.3GHz) / 16GB DDR3 / Nvidia GTX 660M 2G GDDR5 / 750GB 7200RPM / DL DVD±RW/CD-RW / W7 Home Premium (64bit) / 802.11BGN / 2.0M Pixel / Bluetooth 4.0 / 8 Cell Battery / HDMI / Instant On / 1YR Global/1YR Accidental Damage/30-Day Zero Bright Dot/2-way FREE shipping/24-7 tech support

$1365
So over your budget by $65 and some cents ...well there is a $15 rebate so maybe only $50 over.

[Waco]

Just an alternative, $400-$500 for a lighter laptop that he can actually carry to school and use in class with a reasonable amount of battery life. Then spend $800-$900 on a nice desktop for him to play his games on. This way his experience at school will be better (no being permanently attached to a wall socket, less heavy of a laptop), and his experience with games will be better (bigger screen, better graphics, ability to upgrade). There's also the benefit of keeping the fun out of the classroom.

The problem with a $1300 gaming laptop is that when he 17, he's going to have a laptop that's too old to game on, and too heavy to use as a laptop. Just some ideas.

This.

A 14 year old with a $1300 "gaming laptop" spells bad performance in a few years, crappy battery life, and a LOT of weight...coupled with him probably breaking it anyway.


Is there anything he really needs to do that a simple netbook can't do? Mine was under $300, lasts 12 hours (plus) on battery, and is small and light enough to carry around without worry.

[Stonerboy779]

Any laptop that is good enough for gaming is going to have terrible battery life. If it's primary use is for school then you want to get something with at least 5 hours minimum battery life. Preferrably more. Any decent gaming laptop will have 2 hours max...an hour if you actually game on it unplugged. And if it's got a top of the line graphics card it will need to be plugged in to fully use it. If mine isn't plugged in the card isn't getting enough juice for gaming.

You know those responses where people list 3 things and you can choose two? For laptops it's more like:


Good battery life
Good gaming performance

You can choose one.

I have both and why can't you have both?

Switchable graphics.....

My HP lappy with switchable graphics can push up towards 8-9hours battery life on the HD3000 Intel graphics but I can still plug it in later on and game with my amd radeon HD6770m with reasonable to high graphics.

Adding an extended battery and giving it an SSD bumped it from the 5-6hours to the 8-9hours for general work and web and I must say I font know why people still say you can't have both.

[Coors]

I have switchable graphics. And it still gets no more than 2 hours battery life just idling. You can increase the battery life but you're going to be making compromises on specs/performance.

[acpowell]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152372&Tpk=MSI%20GT%20Series%20GX60

Too bad it is out of stock. I like that laptop.

[Onion]

I have switchable graphics. And it still gets no more than 2 hours battery life just idling. You can increase the battery life but you're going to be making compromises on specs/performance.

I get 6 hours on the battery on power saver mode... GTX 650m, i7 3610, 1080 screen, 8 gb ram, etc.