Choosing a Gaming Capable College Laptop for my Sister

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ufo_warviper

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My sister just got a scholarship for her upper division classes, and as part of the package she gets to choose any laptop she wants, and it appears the sky is the limit for the budget. SHE HAS TO SUBMIT THE INVOICE BY TUESDAY.
She wants me to get the best specs possible, but practical considerations (battery life, and weight) will definitely constrain how nuts she can go on the specs. For reference, she feels her current 6 pound laptop is a bit on the heavy side. After extensive comparison of different models, I feel I have come up with a near-perfect choice for her set of constraints.

My favorite pick so far is the Gigabyte Aero 15. It has a Quad Core Intel i7 CPU and 16 GB of RAM and a GTX 1060 card, a 15.6 inch 1080p screen and a 94 Watt-Hour battery. Lab test show this thing running 4k video and web browsing on batter power for about 7 hours!! It's weight is 4.6 pounds! She would have plenty of time to get TONS of work done without being inconveniently forced to search for a nearby outlet out of desperation.

She has 2 qualms with the laptop
1) It's "too inexpensive"
S]he can get any laptop she wants, but she repeatedly keeps telling me that people can "get a MacBook Pro" with the budget. I took a peak at the MacBook Pro 15, and I honestly feel it falls short of the Aero 15 in a number of important areas, but especially the graphics.
2) "It's too masculine"
I found this to be frustrating. She didn't give me this as one of my parameters, but honestly, I have never seen a laptop and thought "Oh, this is SOOO MANLY" take any laptop, and then color it pink, then it would definitely seem feminine to me regardless of its shape.

So, I am at a loss. Would you folks be able to help!?
 
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jaslion

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Does she game on it?
 
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ufo_warviper

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She may game on it during school on rare occasions when her workload is low, but mostly during vacations. Still, it must be mobile, because she moves around visiting place to place.

Also, I texted her about this post, she said that I may have put too much weight on her comment about the masculinity of the laptop, and too not let that way TOO heavily on the recommendations. She also just brought to my attention that one feature she would value heavily is a touch screen so that she has the option to take electronically written notes with a stylus. She also says a "sleek" look is a nice-to-have, but definitely not a must-have.
 
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Daniel Barnett

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Your sister is being unreasonable with her requirements. No gaming laptop is going to have a touch screen / stylus compatible screen, except the razer blade pro, which is plagued by thermal issues, weight and battery life. Just tell her to get a macbook pro, she wants it more than everything else. I've been in college for 4 years now and i can accurately say that 95% of women buy a macbook because of how they fit in. I have no qualms with macbooks except the price, and the crappy hardware for the price. Sure the graphics blow ass, but they have a long battery life, are decently good at everything except gaming, low weight, amazing touchpad, and are gender neutral.
The "I could just get a macbook pro with this money" means she just wants an overpriced silver rectangle.

I don't know your sister, but if she is actually going to game or if she is just pulling your leg to make you feel better, get the Aero.
If she wants a laptop that will probably last her a long time, is easy to use, has an amazing screen and touchpad, and has the aesthetic she wants, get the macbook.

 
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jaslion

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Daniel pretty much said it. Or you could recommend her a dell xps 13 2in1 if she want a touchscreen thingy that is really good and a direct competitor/ improvement of the macbook market.
 
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ufo_warviper

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My sister is really a sweetheart. She apologized this morning, for not knowing what she wanted from the get-go when she requested that I help her with this task. I'm finding out that many of things that she would LIKE to have on the laptop, are not strictly must-haves. Originally, first and foremost she wanted me to get her the best specs possible, while keeping the weight bearable for her. She wants hardware that will stand the test of time and age gracefully. The request for a touchscreen capability was a later request from her.

I've been looking into user opinions on the touchscreen thing a little bit, and it looks like opinions are sharply divided on them. There are some users that swear by them and can't imagine mobile computing without them; others find them awkward to reach across the keyboard, awkward viewing angles, and horribly impractical on an actual laptop, not to mention increasing the weight and reducing battery life. She probably likes the CONCEPT of being able to have that option, but I don't think she's dead-set on it. From a class-work standpoint, will a touchscreen be of ACTUAL major benefit to a student?
 
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jaslion

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Ok so I have a full on windows tablet that I had to use for 3 weeks in college because my actuall laptop broke.
When taking notes I did it on paper since it's faster when you need to do special signs and whatnot. If it was just a generic art history class or film history class I could take notes on my laptop and not have a problem. I tried taking notes on the tablet for a week and hated it. It works but you need to write bigger so you end up with a bunch of large not well structured notes and it's just not worth the time then to redo it again on the tablet when you have time and spend way longer than when you would've just done it by hand.

Also it has been proven that writing down notes makes you remeber stuff longer (typing is not amongst this) so just a piece of paper and a pen is the best way to go (get a 4 color pen). You can do so much more with a piece of paper and pen when taking notes (draw quick figures to points something out, ...). Btw taking pictures of a schoolboard without permission can get you in deep deep trouble since it's under copyright and stuff from the teacher and this can be considered intellectual theft so thats also not an option.

Now for the touchscreen. Unless you can put the laptop's screen flat on the table (flip it over,detach,...) it absoluty pointless since you can't use the touchscreen for almost anything when it's in a standard laptop config because of the distance and wobble of the screen. There is currently no good device thats a 2in1 (being able to flip the screen over) and has gaming capapble specs that doesn't suck.

This is a list I use quite often to look up new laptops with a certain gpu and find the perfect one. You can look into it with her togheter and maybe find one she likes more than the aero.

https://www.ultrabookreview.com/11702-laptops-nvidia-1060/

 
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ufo_warviper

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After having my sister look at comments, reviews, and comparisons of Aero 15 to MacBook Pro 15, she is convinced she does not want a MacBook, and has been playing around with mock-orders of Aero 15 from custom sites. Just to give her another option, I am attempting to find a laptop with a GTX 1050 or 1050 Ti that's about the same weight or smaller than Aero 15, that also packs in similar hardware and display specs and a strong battery like the mighty 94 Watt-Hour batter that's on the Aero 15. However, all the offerings that I can find, have a reduced Energy capacity (probably because they can get away with it on a lower end graphics chipset). Reducing the GPU specs along with significantly cutting down the energy capacity of the battery, just results in roughly breaking even on battery life in comparison to the Aero 15. Otherwise, if she could get virtually the same laptop with a 1050 or 1050 Ti instead, she could probably gain 2 to 4 hours on battery life, if she chooses to forgo some on the graphics.
 
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jaslion

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http://laptopmedia.com/highlights/list-of-all-geforce-gtx-1050-1050-ti-laptops-release-dates-specs-prices-updated-june-2017/

Also when on battery laptops usually switch to the igpu to save a lot of power (unless a task is open that uses the dedicated gpu).
 
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