[US] Considering buying a 15.6" hybrid drive gaming-lite laptop for upcoming job trav

[coldbear]

Any suggestions?

Places I should definitely go to check for deals/steals?

15.6" or 15" for video/youtube/netflix

Hybrid drive for not having to wait much for boot-up and re-awake from sleep.

Anything else I should really be concerned with? I plan on educating myself and using freeware/os anti-virus for an eventual first-build PC. This will be my first PC computer after 6 increasingly frustrating years with my bought-for-WoW iMac (bought solely for purposes of recording without UI showing).

Thank you.

[Tehterokkar]

What's your budget?

[coldbear]

~$700 or so, unless it was some crazy deal in which case I could go higher.

[Tehterokkar]

I don't believe there are any Hybrid-drive laptops for 15.6''. They are either HDD or SSD, or a very small SSD which is ~24GB, not really fit for putting OS on it.

However, here are a few laptops that can fill your purposes:
Gaming 15.6'': Acer Aspire V3-571G-9686$759.91
Media 15.6''(HDD+24GB SSD): Lenovo U510$753.76
Media 15.6''(128GB SSD): VIZIO Thin and Light CT15-A1$769.49

For gaming purposes, I would absolutely take the Acer Aspire, 640M is a really good GPU for laptops. For Media watching at home etc. The VIZIO laptop with the SSD would be the choice, if you ever needed more storage, you could get an external HDD to store that away.

[n0cturnal]

For gaming purposes, I would absolutely take the Acer Aspire, 640M is a really good GPU for laptops. For Media watching at home etc. The VIZIO laptop with the SSD would be the choice, if you ever needed more storage, you could get an external HDD to store that away.

The GT640M is ranked as a mid tier GPU for laptops, far from being really good.
It is ranked 85 on this list of laptop GPUs http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-...ist.844.0.html

[Deleted]

I dont think you will find laptops with a cache ssd/hybrid drive and a decent gpu in that price range.

I think, I did find a decent laptop. Resolution of the screen is quite low tho.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834216035

[Tehterokkar]

The GT640M is ranked as a mid tier GPU for laptops, far from being really good.
It is ranked 85 on this list of laptop GPUs http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-...ist.844.0.html

It is the best for his price range and the screen size category. 640M is strong enough to play GPU intensive games at +40 FPS.

[coldbear]

Thanks guys, I'm off to http://www.microcenter.com/ in VA to check for deals. Looks like they and Newegg have open-box and refurb deals that may be what I'm looking for.

The gaming I'll be doing will be lite, so it's not that terribly important. XCOMEU, indie, XCOM original, Chaos Gate, Fallout (old), Jagged Alliance etc.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16834230599R case in point.

ASUS S56CA-WH31 15.6" Ultrabook

OPEN BOX

Be the first to review this product...
In stock. Limit 5 per customer.

Intel Core i3-3217U 1.8GHz
4GB DDR3, 520GB HDD + 24GB SSD
1366 x 768, Intel HD Graphics 4000

[carson11]

Acer Aspire V3-571G-9686