hey bargain hunters im looking for a gaming laptop 15" / 17" with backlit keys second hand as im looking to pay $600 i want 3rd gen i7 i like the xps 17 it goes for $700 on ebay fits me perfect though im worried to throw that kinda cash at something out of warranty what other kind of laptops should i be looking at? once again looking for something in these specs
Thanks guys.
i7 is overkill. CPU is not your bottleneck on laptop performance. You need to look around for user reviews in forums etc, not just websites because gaming laptops because there are heating issues that pop up often months after use. Also, 8GB RAM is no biggie since it's the easiest add-on you can do on a laptop. Just pop off the panel and stick them in. OEM RAM upgrades are typically more expensive than sourcing it yourself.
Something that has a full stop key…
i have looked at that toshiba but not sure it kind of sucks small hard drive, graphics card sucks? no backlit keys no blue ray rw, 15" with the features that toshiba has theres a huge market i actually was going to get the alienware i7 mx14 $650 with warnty still but screen to small im actually thinking dell xps 15. alienware mx18 is my dream lol
small hard drive
No cheap laptop comes with a good drive, better off replacing it with an SSD from here, still cheaper in total.
graphics card sucks?
Looks up some tests. The graphics card is only just below the 650m in the xps 17. I'm not saying It is good, I'm saying the xps sucks too.
What you are saying is you want a laptop for half of the available price. What I'm offered is a reasonable option for how much money you have.
Where was the mx14 at that price?
that samsung has 15" and no backlit keyboard right? im looking at the asus G73SW now it goes around $600-$700 and it eats the samsung for breakfast lunch and tea so i might just get that.
I purchased a Toshiba from here about a year ago, was by far the cheapest lappy I could find for the specs I was after. They are refurbs but mine only had a dead pixel in the top left (don't even notice unless you search for it), runs games great, I've got a hefty steam account and run most everything on max.
Plus I drag my Qosimo to different mine sites all the time with very little padding in my laptop bag and it hasn't skipped a beat at all. Really surprised how great it's been to be honest.
Something like this is good
http://www.lapyking.com.au/onlineshop/laptops/refurbished/re…
i7 CPU
16 gig DDR3 1600mhz (It's in 4 x 4G config so may even still be upgradeable)
3Gb GTX670m graphics with 3D
The storage is strange on it, hybrid 750g 7200rpm w/ 8gb SSD for OS plus a 1TB 5400rpm. I'd possibly look at removing the 750gb drive and put a good sized SSD in
The downside is the battery life isn't great, even on complete power saver I rarely get any longer than about 1h 40m of video on a flight, and they are heavy, close to 4kg, also more expensive than you were hoping to budget too.
I'm actually in a similar boat, I've been getting by with an older asus g51 vx and the machine is really getting on now.
Really what Im after is anything that's just not a downgrade, to be honest this things still plays many of the games that are out there quite well.
Do you realistically need a laptop for gaming? Or can you afford to go with a small desktop (Mini ATX) and plumb the thing into a cheap monitor for now (even use a small TV if you have to, just be careful of screen burn-in).
The suggestions above are all great with strong backup to them. I just have a strange idea of what a laptop is used for, mobility. People I work with wanted a gaming PC and started talking about laptops. I asked them if they were intending on using it as a mobile unit, taking it to peoples' places and/or use it as a business PC on the side… often the answer is "I just need a new computer to play games and saw this advertised"… I recommend getting a smaller PC, run an i5 max (even go for an AMD if money is a factor), spend a little on a graphics card that will get you there (HD6850's are cheap as, run games fine, just not HD ULTRA), 6-8Gb RAM, 120Gb SSD. Should be set. Plug it into existing Keyboard, mouse, monitor, you'd be set.
Long-winded yes, realistic view reminder, most definitely.
edit
One example of this is from Centrecom.
http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/gamerschoice-gamers-choi…
Note that a third gen i7 won't really help at all for games on this level of system, and i5 will be fine and even an i3 won't make a lot of difference. Having said that it is hard to find laptops with a good GPU without paying for an i7. I hope you aren't expecting a lot out of the 650m anyway.
This will come close to the XPS 17 for gaming:
http://www.mytoshiba.com.au/products/computers/satellite/l85…
At a fraction of the price ($800 RRP, can find it a lot less, I got the old version of this for $550).
Edit: Also note that even on a 64 bit OS all games currently being released are still capped at 4GB memory use, so more that this is just so that you can do other things in the background and more than 8 is not very useful at all. You can easily add more if you need to.