Help me find a good laptop

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+14%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+8GB+Memory+-+750GB+Hard+Drive+-+Black/7674066.p?id=1218858193065&skuId=7674066#tab=overview

Best Laptop at that price in best buy.

If you do not like the asus 14" laptop here is a very nice Dell for just $10 over your budget at $859.99.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Dell+-+Inspiron+17.3%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+8GB+Memory+-+1TB+Hard+Drive+-+Stealth+Black/7850052.p?id=1218861156197&skuId=7850052#tab=overview

The graphics are 650m instead of 660m but its not a huge difference. Instead it has a big 17.3" screen 1080p
good luck since good gaming laptop really do not start until about 1k but these two will do you good.

First of all Its an GTX 660m VS GT650m, difference its like 20-30ish fps in every single game.

Now, i know its an 14 inch screen but its the best gaming laptop at the moment at that price in that store, now, when you have a dedicated card, you think everything its gonna be fine, well no...
First of all Asus Gaming series Laptops are made of a material that isolates heat, got one of the best cooling systems and this will prolong the life of the laptop.
The Dell laptop Its an aluminion laptop, that spreads the heat over all the keyboard, were your hand will be placed, burning it, and its cooling system its on the left side... were your hand will be.

Do not think a cooling pad, will fix the dell problem, because it wont. The asus is made for gaming with a dedicated card, the Dell its made for selling you another one in 1 year. Pick your poison.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96xOS0bvGec

Video of linus tech about the asus laptop, look what you are buying, Good Luck , and remember to mark the threat as solved when you have no further questions.

Not at that price point im afraid.

I too was in the exact same position looking for a laptop and before I decided on building a desktop I planned on getting that very computer (ASUS G46VW), from the research I did on it it seemed like an excellent laptop, especially for the price, and the few faults I found were mostly small/user issues instead of any major problems. They even have it on display in the store if you want to try it out (at least at the store by me.

On the good side from what I heard it has great cooling and I think the graphics card will be enough to play "nothing crazy". It felt fairly solid, the only parts that had any flex at all were areas where it probably would not be as much of an issue. There are more pros, but you can do a bit of research to find that one out.

In terms of cons/comments/things you should be aware of:
You mentioned you wanted an i7, Best Buy sells it with an i5. Do you do anything that specifically needs the i7, like video editing or something? Because i think the i5 is fine for games.
the hard drive best buy sells with it is a 5400 RPM HDD, which many consider slow, although i would argue its more personal preference, the laptop should still run fine
the screen is, i believe, 1366x768 instead of 1600x900. A lot of people were annoyed with that, personally I didnt really care.
the laptop has an msata slot (which may or may not interest you) but it is not designed to fit full sized msata drives without resorting to some creative solutions (from what ive heard)

which leads me to my next point (dont read if you dont plan to ever upgrade/change parts):

if you dont like what's in the laptop (like the hard drive) and want to upgrade it, it's a pain to do so. You apparently have to take the whole keyboard off just to get in at the parts (aside from ram, which has a much easier spot at the back). You can get Best Buy to do this either with you Geek Squad warranty, or by paying them $50 to do it (im not sure if cheaper places would void any warranty you have as they arent best buy). Keep in mind that the entire system will be warrantied, but THAT PART will not be covered by the 1 year warranty that comes with the computer. The best option I found if I wanted different specs from Best Buy is to order from a site called HIDevolution, which allows you to do a fair bit of customization. But its pricey and ive heard that it takes a while to get the system and customer service after they get your money is sometimes a bit dodgy


To sum up: It seemed like a great computer as I was researching it. It is last year's model, but definitely seems like a good deal and I would recommend considering it. You can even go see it in Best Buy (if they still have it sitting out). I decided i wanted to try to build a desktop because I thought it would be a better value for me, but if i was going to get a laptop i would probably be getting that one

well a desktop would last you the longest, at least if you treat laptops like i do

I would do more research into how much power/features your programs need (or wait for someone else to post again).
For example: I do use my computers for editing, but I do it like 3 times a year for short little things using Premiere Elements (version 7 or 10, I can't remember). I dont plan to do anything major like super long Final Cut Pro videos would all sorts of fancy special effects and rendering, so i feel fine with an i5. It still works fine for my needs its just that the i7 has some features that could make it go faster. Personally im fine with my 13" laptop screen, it works just fine for games, but i understand some like bigger. Consider the possibility that your laptop can hook up to a larger screen (i used to do this, but i tend to game in some inconvenient positions for the wires so i was always afraid of knocking down the screen and so stopped using it for games).

well it was in best buy when i looked at it a few weeks ago (although i cant say for sure if its in your store, would have to go check)

again, im not the best to ask because anything bigger than an ipod screen is usually close to what i like. however, i dont think 14" would feel that much smaller. if you wanted a big screen an external might be the best for that

*my first laptop was a 15", and going down to 13" wasnt really much of an adjustment to me..biggest annoyance was probably the keyboard if anything

do you know what applications you will be using, and what games? like, you wont have to worry as much about graphics playing something like KOTOR 1 (10 year old star wars game), but something like skyrim would definitely be hardware hungry (although from what ive heard the g46vw cuts right through)

last i checked, i remember because i made "plays skyrim" for my minimal criteria of what i wanted. Runescape almost certainly (although its been like a decade since ive wandered around there, maybe the graphics got better)
i think the screen had a thicker(wider? might be the word) than average screen bezel which some didnt like, but i didnt have problems with it. personal preference i guess

and i know you said you were looking for a laptop..but would a desktop suit your needs? i dont think you ever mentioned if there was some particular reason you needed a laptop (although i could probably guess it would be for mobility reasons). for the same price you could likely pack in a lot more power into a desktop..or at the very least keep what you have running cooler

Have a look at this, Awesome laptop. I'm buying this tomorrow http://www.snapdeal.com/product/asus-k55vmsx086v-laptop-3rd-gen/297443