Need Help Finding A Sweet Gaming Laptop

[Beartato]

I travel a lot and my old MSI X460DX is on its last legs, so I'm looking to upgrade.

I'm a little behind on PC gaming, having not upgraded my home PC or my laptop since 2012, so I'm curious for input. I've been looking at various gaming laptops for the last hour or so and have come to the conclusion that the selection's gotten better in the last 5 years but with touch screens and other gimmicks the price seems all over the place.

My budget is $1500. I don't need anything crazy fast, but I'd like something that can run newer games (Forza Horizon 3, Fallout 4, Doom, Just Cause 3, Far Cry 4, GTA5, stuff like that comes to mind). I'd like it also to have the screen something smaller than 15" and a nice conservative design. I don't want a touch screen as I'd never use it and it just bumps up the price.

The best I've found (coincidentally) is another MSI, an MSI GS43VR Phantom Pro.

Any other ideas? I've look at the gaming laptop offerings of Dell, Acer, Lenovo, ASUS, MSI, Razer, who am I missing?

Any inputs appreciated. Thank you.

[///M Kidding]

Don't buy Razer blade, their after service is shitty.

[Beartato]

Originally Posted by ///M Kidding

Don't buy Razer blade, their after service is shitty.

None of their products seemed all that special, and the ones in my budget weren't worth the price.

[///M Kidding]

Originally Posted by Beartato

None of their products seemed all that special, and the ones in my budget weren't worth the price.

To be fair, their mouse are decent.. I used to be a fan of that brand until I bought the razer blade, one USB port broke after a while and 2 keys on the keyboard stopped working lol

I contacted their customer service asking to purchase an replacement keyboard, they had to verify a lot of number such as serial numbers, production numbers etc. and then told me to ship the laptop to them to do a analysis first, then they will try to fix it with additional cost. Also, I was told the turn around time is like 2 weeks lol that's just sad.

[Beartato]

Originally Posted by ///M Kidding

To be fair, their mouse are decent.. I used to be a fan of that brand until I bought the razer blade, one USB port broke after a while and 2 keys on the keyboard stopped working lol

I contacted their customer service asking to purchase an replacement keyboard, they had to verify a lot of number such as serial numbers, production numbers etc. and then told me to ship the laptop to them to do a analysis first, then they will try to fix it with additional cost. Also, I was told the turn around time is like 2 weeks lol that's just sad.

Sounds fun. I have one of their keyboards, it works pretty good. Someone showed me their laptops at work so I figured I'd look at them. The sub-$1500 ones seem built around having you buy their external video card bay thingy. No thanks.

[R3dliner]

I have a MSI dominator laptop and this thing kills everything I throw at it.
With the GTX 1060 you wont be able to play things on ultra with 60+ fps but you can manage. I would invest a little more and try to get the gtx 1070 atleast.

[TMatt]

If you're willing to step it up to 15 inches EVGA just announced the SC15 at CES. Looks like it will be around 1500 bucks and they are going to be putting 1060s and 1070s in them.

Also ASUS makes a pretty nice 15" ROG Laptop with a 1070 for 1600 bucks. https://www.amazon.com/GL502VS-DB71-...STRAPJB3J&th=1

[Noir]

That little laptop actually makes me wonder about moving away from console... Dammit, Tmatt.

[Beartato]

Originally Posted by R3dliner

I have a MSI dominator laptop and this thing kills everything I throw at it.
With the GTX 1060 you wont be able to play things on ultra with 60+ fps but you can manage. I would invest a little more and try to get the gtx 1070 atleast.

I was just talking to someone about getting something with a 1070 in it instead. ASUS makes one in my budget, I just really hate the case design, especially the read WASD keys.

Originally Posted by TMatt

If you're willing to step it up to 15 inches EVGA just announced the SC15 at CES. Looks like it will be around 1500 bucks and they are going to be putting 1060s and 1070s in them.

Looks dank. I bet the one with the 1070 would bust my budget.

[TMatt]

Originally Posted by Noir

That little laptop actually makes me wonder about moving away from console... Dammit, Tmatt.

If I didn't just spend 2 grand on a desktop build I would be very tempted as well.

[TMatt]

Originally Posted by Beartato

I was just talking to someone about getting something with a 1070 in it instead. ASUS makes one in my budget, I just really hate the case design, especially the read WASD keys.

Looks dank. I bet the one with the 1070 would bust my budget.

Probably... haha might be worth it though

[Beartato]

Originally Posted by TMatt

Probably... haha might be worth it though

Probably.

Sager makes a pretty dank laptop with some good specs, I've just never heard of Sager and there doesn't seem to be any reviews I can push a little for a 1070.

https://www.sagernotebook.com/Notebook-NP8157.html

[ecf34]

Originally Posted by Beartato

Probably.

Sager makes a pretty dank laptop with some good specs, I've just never heard of Sager and there doesn't seem to be any reviews I can push a little for a 1070.

https://www.sagernotebook.com/Notebook-NP8157.html

Just ordered a Razer Blade yesterday as a replacement for my MBP 13 Retina. I had considered the MSI GS43VR, Alienware 13, as well as the new MBP 13.

I was looking for a portable (<14") laptop with good build quality and performance. After doing extensive research here are my thoughts:

MSI: Excellent value, lightest of the PCs. Build quality is mediocre and the aesthetics are very gamer oriented. The non-SSD hard drive isn't ideal but if you have a tight budget this is worth looking into.

Alienware: Lots of ports, OLED display, and lighting customization are nice. At >5lbs it is much heavier than the others, and the hinge design looks bad IMO.

MBP: My dad just purchased this for himself. Best build quality of the bunch, Apple ecosystem integration, good battery life and great customer service. Spec-wise it is not comparable to the others as it's more an ultrabook. Touch Bar is gimmicky IMO.

Razer: Good build quality and design. I like the 'Mac' design and it really flies under the radar as far as gaming laptops are concerned. Performance is better than MBP and comparable to the other PCs. Not the best performance per dollar but arguably the best performance per inch.

Regarding Razer customer support, I would not buy directly from them as their after sales support is terrible. I used Best Buy but Amazon and Microsoft Store are both good alternatives.

Hope this helps!

[overcoil]

[Beartato]

Originally Posted by ecf34

Just ordered a Razer Blade yesterday as a replacement for my MBP 13 Retina. I had considered the MSI GS43VR, Alienware 13, as well as the new MBP 13.

I was looking for a portable (<14") laptop with good build quality and performance. After doing extensive research here are my thoughts:

MSI: Excellent value, lightest of the PCs. Build quality is mediocre and the aesthetics are very gamer oriented. The non-SSD hard drive isn't ideal but if you have a tight budget this is worth looking into.

Alienware: Lots of ports, OLED display, and lighting customization are nice. At >5lbs it is much heavier than the others, and the hinge design looks bad IMO.

MBP: My dad just purchased this for himself. Best build quality of the bunch, Apple ecosystem integration, good battery life and great customer service. Spec-wise it is not comparable to the others as it's more an ultrabook. Touch Bar is gimmicky IMO.

Razer: Good build quality and design. I like the 'Mac' design and it really flies under the radar as far as gaming laptops are concerned. Performance is better than MBP and comparable to the other PCs. Not the best performance per dollar but arguably the best performance per inch.

Regarding Razer customer support, I would not buy directly from them as their after sales support is terrible. I used Best Buy but Amazon and Microsoft Store are both good alternatives.

Hope this helps!

Dank reply.

Built quality is why I hesitated on another MSI laptop. The one I have has lasted all these years, but even new it was kind of lacking in rigidity. Now the screen frame facade thing is coming off, a few keys keep falling off, the track pad left click can be unresponsive among other issues. Seems to be the trend with their laptops. My desktop on the other hand is mostly MSI internals and I've never had an issue.

My secondary laptop is a 13" Macbook Pro from 2009. It's pretty much been in continuous use since I bought it and even now it looks new. I've upgraded the RAM and HDD and it runs good, it's just lacking in processing power for any newer software.

I'd love the built quality and size of that Macbook but with the specs of a modern gaming laptop, the problem is it's one of those "build quality/specs/value, choose two" scenarios.

The Razers look nice but they're way expensive.

Originally Posted by ScottSinger

Dank video. Didn't realize the GTX 10 series was such a jump. She's right about the screen quality in laptops, that and the build quality thing I talked about earlier is why I haven't bought the Sager one.

Really thinking hard about the Sager one though. Specs are good, price is right, though build quality is a gamble I'm sure it's not bad.

[mightyaa]

Malibal, Sager....
I think they are still based on the Clevo machines. Had several of them, overclocked, modded, swapped gpu's, and so forth and they run like troopers.

Alienware = overpriced
Asus = last generation (not very current)

[Beartato]

Originally Posted by mightyaa

Malibal, Sager....
I think they are still based on the Clevo machines. Had several of them, overclocked, modded, swapped gpu's, and so forth and they run like troopers.

Alienware = overpriced
Asus = last generation (not very current)

Sager still uses a Clevo chassis.

The Malibal LX 650RS seems to be the same thing as the Sager NP8157, just for slightly cheaper. I'm ok with this.

Thanks for the additional brand to look at.