Lenovo Y50 vs SAGER NP8268 vs ASUS ROG G550JK-DS71 [$1200~]

[Lemonlust]

Hey guys, I'm looking to get a new laptop for college. I want something light and slim but also something powerful enough to play video games. I want something a little quiet but something that doesn't exceed 85C for gaming.

I went ahead and picked out these three laptops because after some research these seem to be the three that people keep suggesting but it's a tough decision to pick between the three.

[Erous]

The Lenovo has a locked bios, meaning you can only swap hardware to manufacturers that Lenovo has allowed. It also doesn't allow you to change advanced bios settings. If this is an issue for you in owning this laptop then that should exclude this one.

[Masark]

A few other suggestions :

The NP8258 - Same core specs as the 8268, but you get a second hard drive bay for future upgrading*. Though it's just about half a pound heavier and the base config is $40 more.

The NP7358 - Similar specs (the 860M is the newer Maxwell core version rather than the older Kepler in the 8258 and 8268, so it's about 10% faster, same CPU and screen), but the lower base price allows you to fit an SSD under your budget. It also has a second hard drive bay. However, compared to the 8268 and 8258, you lose the ability to swap out the GPU**, as well as a RAM slot. It's almost a pound lighter than the 8268.

the NP7338 - 13.3" (still 1920x1080) and more than 2lbs lighter than the 8268. Same core hardware as the 7358 (incl. non-upgradable Maxwell 860M). Sacrifices another RAM slot (leaving you with 2) and has only the one drive bay. But if weight is a major concern***, this looks like a top choice.

*I would (and did) personally go with this capacity. 1TB really isn't all that much space anymore. I filled up one of the 1TB drives in my laptop (an NP8278-S with a 250GB SSD, a pair of 1TB hard drives, and 16GB RAM) before I finished redownloading my Steam library.

**The 8258 and 8268 (and my 8278) have their graphics packaged as 3.0B Mobile PCI Express Modules (aka MXM 3.0B). Rather than being soldered to the motherboard like most laptop graphics, these are a removable module that can be replaced in the future with newer and better graphics.

However, MXM modules are expensive. At present, an 870M MXM will run you about $700. An 880M one is $970. The next generation of graphics will probably cost about the same. Thus the value of this upgrade capability is debatable, as the upgrade components would cost nearly as much as an all-new machine.

***I would personally just get a good backpack (or if you have many textbooks, a rolling case. I used one though college myself.) to shoulder the load rather than sacrificing to strip a few pounds. I personally bought a Everki Beacon to go with my new laptop, which is an excellent backpack and allows the easy handling of my 9lbs of laptop, among other things, on my daily bus commute.