Gaming Laptop Under $600 US

[Frostbite12]

1. What is your budget?

600 US dollars, willing to go a little higher.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

Either 15.6 inches or below (preferably below.)

3. What screen resolution do you want?

Doesn't matter.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?

Portable.

5. How much battery life do you need?

Doesn't matter.

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?

Yes;

GTA IV - Settings don't matter; native resolution
Just Cause 2 - Settings don't matter; native resolution
COD Black Ops - Settings don't matter; native resolution
COD MW2 - Settings don't matter; native resolution
Minecraft

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

Web browsing/schoolwork/Skype

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?

250GB or above.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

Newegg.com
hp.com
dell.com
ebay.com

Any other site is okay, as long as it's legit/has good reviews.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?

A few years.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?

Doesn't matter.

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.

I like:
Dell
HP

13. What country do you live in?

I live in the USA.

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

Used/refurbished laptops are okay, too.
AMD/Intel processor doesn't matter.
Radeon/Nvidia GFX card doesn't matter.

 

[Pyree]

Lenovo IdeaPad Y570 with coupon USPLENOVO1020:

i3-2330M 2.20GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M 1GB
4 GB DDR3
500GB 5400
15.6" 1366x768

$639

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/builder.workflow:Enter?mtm-item=%3A000000F3%3A000049D0%3A

 

[Pyree]

cloudy, the one you recommend has Intel HD 3000 in it. Try to find one with a 6750m or 6770m.

 

[Abyssalx]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158073&Tpk=6135dx

HP with a 6750m and a Quad Core 1.5ghz AMD A-8. And it's only $550.

The 6750m can also Crossfire with the onboard 6620g. This creates the 6755G2, which is about equal to a 555m in most cases.

It's refurbished but I bought the exact same thing, refurbished too, and it's as good as new. Plays any game I've tried on high-very high settings with no problem. The features with it are nice, too. The model itself is discontinued, you can only buy it refurbished, or off ebay or something.

If you're worried about it being refurbished, here are the problems I've had with mine.

The top left of they keyboard pops out every once in a while. It makes no difference at all, you can pop it back in easy but you dont even have to, it doesn't affect typing at all, it just makes my OCD kick in.

It has bluescreened twice since I bought it, that being said, I think it's probably because of some of the overclock/undervolts I've tried.

It has a metric ton of conflicting software and drivers that could have cause the bluescreen, too. I'm still seriously considering doing a fresh install of windows 7 to clean everything up.

The battery wigged out on me once, telling me it was at 0% and I needed to buy a new one. Restarting while plugged in fixed this.

Don't let anyone tell you this processor is slow, either. My Desktop has an AMD Phenom II X4 @ 3.5ghz and it's definitely slower than that but you seriously won't notice the speed, everything is lightning fast.

It has a good overclock too, I get 2.6ghz stable from 1.5ghz, and the max temp hits 75ish degrees.

It also stays super quiet, it never makes much noise. It has a blu-ray drive, and very bright screen, and a fingerprint reader.

The battery life is also around 5 hours with light web browsing, text editors, a couple youtube vids.

I'm guessing people returned it because, before a BIOS and graphics update, the dedicated GPU would not be used for OpenGL games. A simple update fixed this, and it works great.


As a side note - the Lenovo Y570 has a gimp 555m in it, it's a lightly OC'd 550m, which is a little worse than the 6750m, and decently worse than the 6755G2..
If you have any questions about it, just ask, I probably left some stuff out.

 

[AntiZig]

hehe, I was going to suggest to go with llano laptop too

 

[Frostbite12]

Thanks for all the great replies, guys.
abyssalx, thanks for your very helpful reply. That one is now definitely on my list
I also found another laptop that fits my preferred price range, screen size, and needs.
It's the Toshiba Satellite P740D-BT4N22 laptop.
If I customized it with an A8 processor, would it be good for the games I mentioned before?
Also, is Toshiba a good company to buy from? Are their products good/reliable?
Thanks for your replies!

EDIT: removed link

 

[Pyree]

link doesn't work

 

[Abyssalx]

Frostbite, that laptop, while it has a llano processor, doesn't have a dedicated card. It has the 6620g if you use the A8, but that is considerably worse than the 6750m, not to mention the 6755G2 offered in the HP I posted.

But in general, yes. Toshiba is a good laptop manufacturer and I think they're pretty reliable.

 

[Frostbite12]

Thanks for the great reply, abyssalx.
I have another question:
Does it come in the "dark umber" color or the "silver" color?
Thanks again!

 

[Abyssalx]

I'm pretty sure it only comes in Dark Umber. That's what I have and I haven't seen the exact model in silver. Some people say it's brown but you have to look at it under weird light to see very much brown. To me, it's pretty much black.

 

[Frostbite12]

Ok, thanks.
I've decided to go with the HP laptop, suggested by abyssalx.
Thanks for all of your help, guys!

 

[Frostbite12]

Best answer selected by Frostbite12.

 

[Lirwin2]

Would the HP laptop be able to play diablo 3 on medium-high settings, without overclocking?

 

[Maziar]

This topic has been closed by Maziar