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Question

What Laptop to buy?

Aug 30, 2015 8:09AM PDT

Hello. I’m new to the forum, and mostly made this account to ask for advice on buying a new laptop. I’m hoping you could help me make a decision on what would be a good Laptop. I want to keep it to a reasonable price, but I’ll be willing to spend a bit more if the laptop truly is worth the money.

I’ll mostly be using it for 3 purposes. Gaming (Nothing too crazy I guess.), School, and some simple video and photo editing (Again, nothing crazy). Therefore I need something that is powerful enough to handle games at a reasonable frame rate and settings, and can handle photo and video editing easily, while still being portable enough to carry to classes and use in them. Longer battery life and a modest exterior would be preferable.

Specifications I have are that I want a 15” laptop to keep it portable, and I’d prefer a SSD. Unfortunately I’ve seen that those tend to have smaller storage and are more expensive, so a HDD and SSD combination would be fine as well, as long as it is at least 512GB total storage. I was also wondering if a 4K/UHD display would be worth it, because from what I’ve seen and heard, many laptops aren’t able to take full advantage of UHD displays due to limits on their CPU and GPU.

I’ll list some of the laptops I am looking at here, and what I’ve heard about them:

1. Asus ROG G501 – Specs seem great, but the laptop isn’t able to fully take advantage of them for some reason. Also comes packaged with a lot of extra fluff to drive up the price and make it seem better, so it is slightly more expensive than comparable laptops. Overall build quality is also lacking a little.

2. Lenovo Y50-70 – Sounds decent, and seems like it is in a good price range. Option for a 512GB SSD is nice. Keyboard is lacking a little, and the CPU and GPU can struggle at times. CPU can’t handle turbo for very long, if at all.

3. Acer Aspire V Nitro – Solid specs again, but build quality is worse than some comparable brands. Keyboard and mouse pad also have some problems, and do not always work too well. Some aspects are a little bit too high priced.

4. MSI GS60 2QE Ghost Pro – Higher price than others, but better specs. Overall a solid laptop, with some problems such as getting hot during extended intense gaming, and fans being louder than many others, but that is to be expected.

5. The New Razer Blade – Smaller than the others I looked at, and the most expensive, but has awesome specs and looks pretty nice. Touch pad may have some problems, but outside of that it looks great.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
All nice items but 4K?
Aug 30, 2015 5:19PM PDT

Here's an example of the power to go 4K.
http://www.cnet.com/news/hands-on-with-nvidias-new-titan-x-graphics-cards/

There is no 4K gaming laptop today. Remove those now.

OK, back to 1080. Your comment about on turbo for long is concerning. I have the prior gen y510 and while I keep it on a cooling pad, I have yet to see that happen.

All touchpads are compromise devices. All the gamers I see use a mouse or other thing.

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Thanks for your input!
Aug 30, 2015 6:00PM PDT

I kind of guessed that about the 4K, I was just curious to see if anything outside of gaming would be able to use/need the 4K but it sounds as if it will not.
How has your Y510 been so far? The Y50-70 is definitely one of my top choices, and if what you say is true and the turbo doesn't actually cut out or anything then it might be one of my best choices. And this laptop wouldn't only be for gaming, so I wouldn't always bring a mouse along with me everywhere I went if the laptop had a decent touchpad, which is why I mentioned that. But for gaming I would definitely use a mouse.

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Watch the gamers.
Aug 30, 2015 6:16PM PDT

They carry a mouse unless we are talking card games? I've been around since before the 8088 IBM powered PC. Not one touchpad so far is something I use except in a pinch.

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Answer
Slim with good performance
Sep 10, 2015 12:11AM PDT

Compare others slim laptop I thought MSI GS60 temperature is not really high,of cause fan is a bit loud,but that's because the temperature must adjust to lower when playing games ,so that GS60 can always keep good performance.

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Thanks!
Sep 10, 2015 5:57PM PDT

Good to know! It is definitely high up on my list, but the price is just a little bit too much IMO.

Also worth mentioning is that with the release of the new Intel 6th Generation processors, I'm also looking at the newer version, the GS60 6QE Ghost Pro. I'll wait and see about the price and build quality and everything, but the specification sound awesome.

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Answer
Here is a new line of gaming machines from Acer
Sep 10, 2015 4:28AM PDT
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Looks really nice!
Sep 10, 2015 5:55PM PDT

The specifications of that laptop are amazing, and from what I saw online the price looks very reasonable, too. My only problem is that it looks a little bit bulkier and heavier than most (Will be a bit of a concern if I'm carrying it around all day), and overall has a little bit of an unappealing look to me. Too flashy for my style (I don't like to stand out).

Also, this post was made before the new intel processors came out though, so I'm holding off for at least another month until I see what else comes to the market with this update. Notably the MSI GS60 6QE Ghost Pro looks amazing, although I have yet to see a price for that. It'll probably be something ridiculous. Also waiting to see what Asus ROG puts out for 15 inch 6th generation intel processor laptops. Hopefully something high quality.

We'll have to see how everything plays out with prices and when we see how the laptops hold up in the long run once they've been out for a while! I might even still buy an older processor laptop because the price will drop significantly. Who knows.