Looking for a New Laptop! Need some advice.

[Derivatives]

Hey everyone!

As stated in the title, I'm looking to buy a new laptop. I would appreciate some suggestions as to what to buy. I don't really like the Asus standard gaming model with the huge vents in the back, because it is too bulky (I don't mind vents being in the back, they're just too large). Screen size doesn't matter to me. It will be primarily for gaming, but I would also like to use it for school (so 2+ hours of battery life). I primarily play Blizzard games, but I also play steam games such as Borderlands 2, Civilizations V, Metro 2033, Company of Heroes, and Saint's Row.

I prefer:
A quad core
GeForce Video Card (GTX)
8+gigs of RAM
A backlit keyboard

What I don't want:
Toshiba (Bad customer support experiences)
Big and bulky
Heavy
Ugly (though this one is subjective)

Here is the top one that I've found on my own:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834231320
What are your thoughts on this one?

This is the current laptop that I'm using:
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Qosmio.../dp/B006GTCXG8

I'd appreciate any help!

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Bump. I'm still looking for advice.

[apluscarp]

That would be a good gaming laptop, but I wouldn't expect much more than 2 hours battery life.

[DrStiglit]

That would be a good gaming laptop, but I wouldn't expect much more than 2 hours battery life.

This is something to consider based on your habits. How often do you game on the go? Or if you are gaming do you pretty much stay plugged in.

Does it have the option to switch to the intel gpu when you aren't gaming for better battery performance?

[Fluorescent0]

Gaming laptop that isn't big and bulky... The only one I know of is the Razer Blade, and that's pretty overpriced for the hardware it sports. Gaming laptops are bulky for a reason, they need to have enough space to dissipate heat sufficiently well. Even then, a 760M is more or less equivalent to a downclocked 650 ti (non boost) so you might not really get the performance you expect out of it.

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On that budget (50$ more actually) you can get this notebook which is pretty heavier (1.7 lbs more), a little bigger (not a lot but still noticeable), but comes with a 675MX which is about equivalent to a desktop 660. (although it uses an ivy bridge CPU which performs ~5% less than its Haswell counterpart)

Ultimately it really comes down to what quality you want to play the games on and to what is the main focus: portability or performance.

[Derivatives]

@apluscarp: Yeah. I wouldn't expect too much (battery-wise) from the one that I linked.
@DrStiglit: For the most part, I'll have access to a charger, but there will be some semesters that has back-to-back classes in which I probably will not have access to a charger for ~3 hours tops. I'm trying to decide how much I like the switch function. I had a bad experience with it, but I know it's improved drastically since I last used it.
@Fluorescent0: Thank you! I love the design on that one. The blue backlit keyboard is really pretty. I don't know much about that the Force series. I do like that you can customize it. I'm want the focus to be preformance, but I would also like a tiny bit in the way of portability, as you linked (15.6in screen size is good with ~6 pounds is nice too). My current one is somewhere between 7-11 pounds with the battery :|


Does anyone have any other suggestions? I'm pooling all the laptops together and doing a comparison before I purchase.

Edit: My budget is 1650$ or less

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Also, what are people's thought about Razor Blade Laptops? Are they a complete waste of money? Also, what about the company "Gigabyte"?

[Fluorescent0]

The Razer Blade aren't -exactly- a waste of money. If you need that much portability they're pretty much your only option. The thing is that the hardware they have can be found in laptops costing ~500$ less, so unless you really need something that thin they indeed aren't a good deal at all.
Gigabyte is pretty reputable as a GPU brand but I honestly never heard about their laptops.

[Derivatives]

Thank you for the advice! That's good to know.