i thought it might be better to ask people here, as i've noticed some seem to know this technology stuff...
i need a new laptop (because i can drag around a stationary anywhere i go), will very soon have enough money for one, but have no idea what i should buy. it should last for at least three years, i'll want to play feed the beast, korean mmo's, skyrim, and other things, and use photoshop once in a while. i won't be using it for gaming every day though.
would be nice if anyone could tell me what i want, or at least what i don't want.

Hi, won't go into too much detail, but the real thing you need to consider is that you need to balance out the specs.  Have a look online for what the standard is for the price range you are interested in.  However the use of the computer will determine what you exactly want to get.

If you want portability and battery life, the performance will be sacrificed.  I have a ultra book, and it does everything I want... movies/music work and very rarely games (but it struggles on the games).  For the same price as my ultrabook, you can by a much more powerful laptop, but they are larger, heavier and have poorer battery life.

So for games, consider these points...

• You REALLY NEED a dedicated Graphics card opposed to integrated graphics The higher the memory the better (This is essential especially for Skyrim)
• Ram, you want more then 4gb you have to have 64bit system, for photo editing too (nice but 4gb will scrape by)
• Processor, quad core is better especially for multi tasking (again duel core will scrape by)
• Also ensure the casing provides high enough ventilation, my last laptop had a habit of overheating, especially if I tried to play games with it (important or you computer shuts down to prevent damage)
• Hard drive, depends how much junk you want to carry with you.... although with USB3 ports (high speed)on modern computers make the external hard drives ideal for carrying the media.

Errmmm I could go into more details but if you can be a little more specific, it would help.

If you want cheap, an A10 based laptop does a decent job with skyrim, I had trouble with some of the mods though.... Now you could get an A10 or I7 with a decent graphics card but that changes the price dramatically though increases performance dramatically.

My pick if I wanted the best price/performance would be an MSI gx70. Which can run basically any game at decent settings for about $1200. The A10 and Radeon 8970m is a pretty good combo since it can use the A10 graphics when you don't need the Radeon's power.

I run an older Asus G75vw that originally cost like $1400 with an i7 3610qm and GeForce 660m. There is nothing wrong with an intel/GeForce combo even if I prefer AMD. The only caveat is that the I7 is kinda overkill for most games (or most applications) but you still pay for that overkill. The A10 is good enough, so is the I5 but you never find the I5 with a decent video card on a laptop.

if you want a budget, it would be up to $1500 (but preferably less). more than that would be overkill for me, as i won't play all that much. i just need something that will run smoothly when i do play. portability isn't too important, i'll be dragging it along in a suitcase more often than i carry it. hard drive doesn't need to be very big, external drives are good if i somehow manage to use up all that storage.

i'm mostly asking about graphics card, processor, ram, and this fairly new ssd thingy. my brother says that because of ssd, his laptop doesn't even use the graphics card unless he plays some heavier games. or whatever it was, i might not have understood what he said at all. boy speaks in tongues no matter what it is he's talking about.

anyway, think about how i want this thing to still work in three years. will 4gb ram be enough then? and such.

Please do not buy anything HP related cause their Pavillion series is really... bugged. I have heard a lot of bad reviews (in person) how their hardware just screws up and especially after Your warranty has expired. Also, my ex had Pavillion and during the warranty time, it saw service twice - both times for the same reason, which still pops up for their newer models - video card goes puff and Your laptop wont start ever. And cause it is intergrated , You need to change motherboard as well, which results into amount for which You can buy Yourself a new laptop.
I used to have Toshiba Satellite (dont remeber the series number), but it was very good and sturdy brand, and still is. I currently own 13.3" Samsung Ultrabook - mostly because I carry it around during business trips and at home and now I prefer something ligher. Skyrim is not very enjoyable on it but I dont really enjoy Skyrim anymore either . I believe that having less powerful hardward is is a sacrifice You have to make if You want something which is light enough to carry around constantly.
My ex has Dell Inspiron and it appears so heavy in comparison, but I can only the best about their Inspiron series though I dont know much about newest models (hers is about 1.5 years old = outdated). What is the screen size You are looking for, btw? 15" or something bigger?

i got my gaming laptop from ibuypower love it to pieces, how ever it sucks battery like no tomorrow :l

I don't think that they make the exact model anymore, but my laptop cost me about $1200 after self modifications. You can't go too much lower if you want any sort of dedicated GPU.
I've the ASUS N550jv-db71, comes with an i7-4700HQ, Intel 4600 integrated card, GT750M dedicated cad, DVD-RW drive, 1TB 5400RPM HDD, single band wireless, 8GB RAM, and pretty cruddy battery life. I replaced the hard drive with a 128GB SSD (should have gone 256GB,) the disc drive with a BD-RE drive (I ordered BD-R but was sent -RE,) and the wireless card with one to dual band ac/a/b/g/n standard. The base rig was around $1000, cost about $200 for the add ons. It's been great for me so far. Expect a lot of slow gameplay if you expect to do that unplugged, it was clearly not meant for that.
The only things I don't like about it is it has both HDMI and DisplayPort, I'd rather have just the former since the latter is nearly exclusive to Apple devices, and an extra USB port in its stead. I like to have one free, especially the fast charge port, and 3 USB ports isn't great for that, when you have a cooling fan, external HD, and controller plugged in.

Quote from: ♡ Emily ♡ on June 26, 2014, 04:26:10 AM
Please do not buy anything HP related cause their Pavillion series is really... bugged. I have heard a lot of bad reviews (in person) how their hardware just screws up and especially after Your warranty has expired. Also, my ex had Pavillion and during the warranty time, it saw service twice - both times for the same reason, which still pops up for their newer models - video card goes puff and Your laptop wont start ever. And cause it is intergrated , You need to change motherboard as well, which results into amount for which You can buy Yourself a new laptop.
I used to have Toshiba Satellite (dont remeber the series number), but it was very good and sturdy brand, and still is. I currently own 13.3" Samsung Ultrabook - mostly because I carry it around during business trips and at home and now I prefer something ligher. Skyrim is not very enjoyable on it but I dont really enjoy Skyrim anymore either . I believe that having less powerful hardward is is a sacrifice You have to make if You want something which is light enough to carry around constantly.
My ex has Dell Inspiron and it appears so heavy in comparison, but I can only the best about their Inspiron series though I dont know much about newest models (hers is about 1.5 years old = outdated). What is the screen size You are looking for, btw? 15" or something bigger?

Emily-

I have owned a number of HP Pavillion models over the years and they have all been rock solid. I sill have my old one and it still works as does the one I bought for my wife. The one I am using now to write this post is about 4 years old and has experienced hundreds of business trips going through airports and being shoved under the seats of 737s and it has generally been banged around a lot - and it's still working fine. Maybe HP changed the design on the newer ones?

The Dells are the ones I had trouble with. The last Dell I bought for my daughter for a Christmas present was an Inspiron. That thing literally fell apart after two years.  The power supply went and I found out that you must buy a power supply from Dell because they put some kind of chip in it that is recognized by the laptop - If the power supply does not have the chip it will not charge. That's very, very irritating to have to pay $70 for a Dell power supply instead of paying $12 for a generic one on eBay; the generic eBay power supply I bought for one of my HP's powers it perfectly. Earlier I had a Latitude that could not go more than a year without needing a new motherboard. I finally scrapped it when it needed motherboard #4.

I have seen lots of manufacturers follow the path from from good to horrible over the years. Dell used to be the go to brand for speed, quality, and value - as was Gateway and Toshiba. Gateway is now gone, Toshiba changed to making junk, and Dell has outsourced pretty much every part of their operation overseas and the quality is suffering. HP was good for many years but then I read what you wrote about them. Maybe HP is following the same path as the other companies I mentioned.

The last I heard Lenovo was pretty good.

i never even considered hp or dell in the first place. asus seems decent though.
i got some good pointers to which direction i should try taking. thanks to all who tried to be a little specific about technicalities, even though i can't be too specific about what it really is i want. all i know is that i want smooth graphics. i also want a usable wireless connection. i won't have any cable to use for maybe an entire year.

I have a HP Envy m6 laptop and it plays games at highest settings without lag. even on battery power it destroys CoD MW3 at ultra settings with no problem it's geeat. The best part is that it has illuminated keyboard super clear screen, hdmi,  beats audio, alot more super stuff and it o la cost me 300 dollars.

that's interesting.
how long has it lasted?

i already bought a laptop btw. it seems to lag only when the internet connection is bad.

Di run two HP pavilions and recently a MacPro.  I also have. dell. After a life time on PCs easily the best by eons is the Mac.

i've stopped liking mac after quality started to go down. i'm quite sure it's intentional, they make sure i'll have to buy a new laptop every 3-4 years if i want something that runs smoothly.

i ended up buying a multicom build. the slightly cheaper one that doesn't have as good ventilation, but enough for me since i'm never going to play the heaviest games for hours upon hours and week after week. my brother has the more expensive build with better ventilation, it hasn't deteriorated at all after over a year of at times heavy gaming.

that company has managed to put all the best that msi or alienware can offer into a much lighter and cheaper case. a tiny norwegian company that's popular with gamers and architects and has excellent customer service.

Quote from: evlive on October 23, 2014, 06:23:56 PM
I have a HP Envy m6 laptop and it plays games at highest settings without lag. even on battery power it destroys CoD MW3 at ultra settings with no problem it's geeat. The best part is that it has illuminated keyboard super clear screen, hdmi,  beats audio, alot more super stuff and it o la cost me 300 dollars.

Lag is caused by internet connection not hardware. Also, battery power and mains power is exactly the same as far as the components are concerned, unless you meddle with the power settings.