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Question

What's the best $700 creation station?

Aug 20, 2018 12:45PM PDT

I am selling my gaming pc to buy a laptop because I mostly just watch youtube and make music. I do some light gaming with friends still but I'd much rather have a portable option for school and to make music with an environment other than my desk. I also do some visual work like photo editing and graphic design from time to time. I already have someone buying it for $700 and I'm looking around for a used or refurbished laptop within that budget. (I also have a monitor and keyboard I can sell to stretch my budget a little more if necessary)

Here's what I'm looking for:

-high quality build and design (something that looks sleek and doesnt feel cheap)

-qhd or better screen

-solid reliable trackpad

-good enough performance for music production and light gaming (overwatch and minecraft at 1080p pretty much)

-something that will last me a while (I graduate this year and will most likely won't upgrade for college)

-decent battery life

-15 inches

-usb-c



That's a lot to ask for I know. Basically my ideal laptop would be a macbook pro 15 inch but that's nowhere near viable. Keep in mind that I'm more of an artist than a gamer and while I do value performance, its not my top priority. I want the best overall experience I can get including visual aesthetics and material choice. I know I will have to make sacrifices but I've found some good options so far

-dell xps 13 9343 i can find for around $600 used on ebay. this is with qhd touchscreen option and good specs. this is basically the 13 " version of what im looking for, i'm just not sure if ill be happy with 13" I much perfer having a larger screen plus no option for 16gb of ram (also the design fits perfectly with my headphones so thats nice)

-dell xps 15 9530 also around $600. seems like a great choice on paper, but I'm worried about it lasting as it was released in 2013. also I'm not really a fan of the design and the user experience is probably not as good as the xps 13

-2016 blade stealth closer to $700 and lesser specs so theres definitely a razer tax, but i feel like this might be more dependable

-some other options are a newer xps 15 with a 1080p screen or a dell inspiron gaming laptop or a chinese brand like huawei although these dont really have any support outside of china



Any and all input or recommendations are appreciated. This is going to impact my life in so many ways and I want to make sure I make the best decision I can.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
QHD?
Aug 20, 2018 1:02PM PDT

For now my findings is to drive QHD takes a little better GPU so that should have us choosing the 1060 or better GPU.

If you drop back to 1080p displays, you can game most of the time on medium settings with the 1050 Ti. Which you can find in quite a few laptops.

But the LCD may not be all that great.

-> It appears you are shopping used models so I can't do much for you except to note where I'd like to note what GPUs to aim for.

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Qhd is important
Aug 20, 2018 1:11PM PDT

I can always lower graphics settings. Like I said I'm not much of a gamer anymore, so having to drop to 1080p low isn't really a huge issue to me and I'm completely fine with just not playing demanding titles. I can't afford any laptop with a 1050ti and especially not a 1060 and I'm completely fine with that. Most of what I do is use music software and it would be nice to have a higher fidelity experience. I don't want a gaming laptop I just want something that I can run Minecraft and overwatch on, which aren't super demanding.

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I disagree.
Aug 20, 2018 1:25PM PDT

To run Minecraft and Overwatch you want a gaming laptop. Sure, you can find "Workstation" laptops with capable GPUs and more but the fact remains that for your budget you won't be buying a new workstation laptop.

Why don't you want the usual gaming laptop that delivers the performance you want and might hit the price you want?

Let's see what 1440p (QHD) laptops run on Newegg.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100006740%20600477201%204814

The cheapest QHD model is 968 or hundreds over your budget.

-> Can you tell me where you find QHD laptops that run Minecraft and Overwatch for your 700 bucks?

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Did you read my original post?
Aug 20, 2018 8:42PM PDT

I don't want a gaming machine. This laptop is for music production mainly. Gaming is not something in focused on, just an added bit of fun for me. Lowest settings at a lower resolution are completely fine with me. This is a low priority compared to a high quality build and experience.
Also this whole post is referring to used or refurbished laptops, and I list options that I have found to suit my needs for the second half of this post. Those are where I am finding what I want for the money I have.
Just to restate, I'm not buying a laptop to play games at 1440p. I'm buying a laptop to make music on. This means that having to turn the graphics to low and the resolution to 1080p and only getting 40 fps isn't a big deal to me. If you're only going to tell me what I'm looking for is wrong then just don't give me advice in the first place.

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You may not want it to be a gaming laptop
Aug 21, 2018 8:37AM PDT

But what you asked for is what is in gaming and workstation laptops.

As to the 1440p you can't change resolution like we did in CRT days. So the GPU still must produce 1440p output even if you drop the game output to 1080p.

Besides all that, I did not find any new 1440p laptop for under 968 dollars.

You may be hunting unicorns.