Laptop for everyday use

[Ryuk]

Hi guys,

I am currently looking for a laptop to replace my old HP dv6 7000.

I am a heavy user. I like to keep it on almost nonstop, so ventilation is one of the most important things I am looking for. My old dv6 did a crappy job even with a cooling pad. I also prefer aluminium bodies, but high quality plastic would be ok. I don't care much for the keyboard or the trackpad since I will be mostly using an external mouse and keyboard.

The minimum screen size would be 14" but preferably 15.6", 17" is too large. Would really, really like it to be anti-glare, but I can always buy a anti-glare screen protector that should do the trick. I don't think touch screens are handy for laptops so preferably no touch screen.

The graphics card should handle light gaming at 60+ fps, like League of Legends, CS:GO, etc. I barely have time for gaming now since I started working a lot and would like to really enjoy gaming when I actually do it.

Would like the laptop to look more or less professional since I often have meetings.

I prefer traditional color schemes, trying to avoid the overused black-red colors, pretty tired of them.

I don't really have a budget but I don't want to pay too much. I can spend up to $3000 but only if it is worth it(not sure there are such expensive laptops out there lol). I will be buying from Amazon most likely.

Laptops I've considered:
ASUS N550JK - Main candidate right now. Good specs, decent(not the best) quality, definitely good bang for the buck. The touchscreen will be useless and that ugly silver keyboard ... no idea why they made that decision, it makes no sense at all. A black keyboard cover should do the trick until I can find a black replacement keyboard.

ASUS G550JK - Pretty much perfect except for that red accent. Also, that RoG logo doesn't look very neat. Love the fact that it has an anti-glare screen and it doesn't have the useless touchscreen.

Asus Zenbook ux303ln - I currently have an old zenbook (ux31a) and use it for work. It is an amazing machine, very thin, does the job, feels very high-end. The screen is too small, I can't enjoy movies on this or play games. No numpad is a pretty big drawback for me since I deal with a lot of numbers and a numpad helps a lot.

MacBook Pro - Has the quality and looks but the specs and price are ridiculous. I mean, paying $2.5k for a laptop with a 750M graphics card is simply unreasonable.

Razer Blade - Nice design, good specs(except the non-upgradable RAM). The price is a little too high and the screen resolution doesn't make sense to me. Also, paying that much for this device doesn't make much sense to me either.

Lenovo Y40/Y50 - too much glossy plastic, I don't mind the nice red keyboard but the red mesh looks horrible. And again, that glossy plastic, I find no reason for that ... Gloss looks so cheap, I hope manufacturers will understand that some day... If there only was a way to get rid of that gloss ...

Alienwares are too bulky and seem very cheaply made, I generally don't like Dell. The MSI laptops are too ugly, but damn so sexy-thin.

What else is there for me? Or maybe some comments on the above-mentioned laptops? I might just screw it and build a mini tower PC and but a portable screen while waiting for my perfect laptop to come out ... some day ...

Any input is highly appreciated.

[Jerakl]

I'm buying the G550jk tomorrow, for school and light use. I can tell you about it if you want once I get it.

[Syntaxvgm]

Hi guys,

I am currently looking for a laptop to replace my old HP dv6 7000.

I am a heavy user. I like to keep it on almost nonstop, so ventilation is one of the most important things I am looking for. My old dv6 did a crappy job even with a cooling pad. I also prefer aluminium bodies, but high quality plastic would be ok. I don't care much for the keyboard or the trackpad since I will be mostly using an external mouse and keyboard.

The minimum screen size would be 14" but preferably 15.6", 17" is too large. Would really, really like it to be anti-glare, but I can always buy a anti-glare screen protector that should do the trick. I don't think touch screens are handy for laptops so preferably no touch screen.

The graphics card should handle light gaming at 60+ fps, like League of Legends, CS:GO, etc. I barely have time for gaming now since I started working a lot and would like to really enjoy gaming when I actually do it.

Would like the laptop to look more or less professional since I often have meetings.

I prefer traditional color schemes, trying to avoid the overused black-red colors, pretty tired of them.

I don't really have a budget but I don't want to pay too much. I can spend up to $3000 but only if it is worth it(not sure there are such expensive laptops out there lol). I will be buying from Amazon most likely.

Laptops I've considered:

ASUS N550JK - Main candidate right now. Good specs, decent(not the best) quality, definitely good bang for the buck. The touchscreen will be useless and that ugly silver keyboard ... no idea why they made that decision, it makes no sense at all. A black keyboard cover should do the trick until I can find a black replacement keyboard.

ASUS G550JK - Pretty much perfect except for that red accent. Also, that RoG logo doesn't look very neat. Love the fact that it has an anti-glare screen and it doesn't have the useless touchscreen.

Asus Zenbook ux303ln - I currently have an old zenbook (ux31a) and use it for work. It is an amazing machine, very thin, does the job, feels very high-end. The screen is too small, I can't enjoy movies on this or play games. No numpad is a pretty big drawback for me since I deal with a lot of numbers and a numpad helps a lot.

MacBook Pro - Has the quality and looks but the specs and price are ridiculous. I mean, paying $2.5k for a laptop with a 750M graphics card is simply unreasonable.

Razer Blade - Nice design, good specs(except the non-upgradable RAM). The price is a little too high and the screen resolution doesn't make sense to me. Also, paying that much for this device doesn't make much sense to me either.

Lenovo Y40/Y50 - too much glossy plastic, I don't mind the nice red keyboard but the red mesh looks horrible. And again, that glossy plastic, I find no reason for that ... Gloss looks so cheap, I hope manufacturers will understand that some day... If there only was a way to get rid of that gloss ...

Alienwares are too bulky and seem very cheaply made, I generally don't like Dell. The MSI laptops are too ugly, but damn so sexy-thin.

What else is there for me? Or maybe some comments on the above-mentioned laptops? I might just screw it and build a mini tower PC and but a portable screen while waiting for my perfect laptop to come out ... some day ...

Any input is highly appreciated.

Alienware- from my experience they are well built and ventilated, and are all around good machines with a few good exclusive features like hdmi input. The price is more than enough reason to avoid though. Plus dell support is terrible. but a lot of dell products are really good. Pretty sure my latitude could work while on fire. My alienware m18x is running a stable and cool 2920 xm 4.4 GHz OC (stock 2.5). I never would have bought it new though.

 

 ASUS N550JK- not a bad idea. 

I suggest to check out what you can find from clevo/sager.  

Xotic PC is worth mentioning because they carry Sagers (rebrand of clevo) and they offer custom paint jobs/vinyls for most laptops. Seems like aesthetics are a thing for you. I definitely getting my next laptop painted.

If you don't want a paint job and want a clevo, check out lpc digital. They have one guy handling customer support named larry, and he's a fucking beast. Nothing but love on the webs for him.

If you go for a clevo and have questions about it, thenotebookreview has a lot of owners you an ask.

May I suggest this clevo?

http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np6658-clevo-w650sj-p-6994.html

They have plenty of clevos, even one for under 1000$ that is 13.3 inches with an 860m.

[Ryuk]

I'm buying the G550jk tomorrow, for school and light use. I can tell you about it if you want once I get it.

Are you buying it from a store? I wish I could actually touch one of the above mentioned laptops ... I currently live in Nantucket, MA and there are no stores here

Whenever you get it, I will ask you how you feel about the red accents By the way, getting an SSD is a must for this laptop in my opinion. The stock one will slow it down. I suggest replacing it with an SSD, get a caddy, place it where the CD-Rom is and put the stock HDD there for your media. (Do not put the SSD in the CD-Rom's place, it will decrease its performance). SSDs are pretty cheap now and it will give you a nice sexy boost in overall performance. Also, Windows 8 is crap

 

Alienware- from my experience they are well built and ventilated, and are all around good machines with a few good exclusive features like hdmi input. The price is more than enough reason to avoid though. Plus dell support is terrible. but a lot of dell products are really good. Pretty sure my latitude could work while on fire. My alienware m18x is running a stable and cool 2920 xm 4.4 GHz OC (stock 2.5). I never would have bought it new though.

 

 ASUS N550JK- not a bad idea. 

I suggest to check out what you can find from clevo/sager.  

Xotic PC is worth mentioning because they carry Sagers (rebrand of clevo) and they offer custom paint jobs/vinyls for most laptops. Seems like aesthetics are a thing for you. I definitely getting my next laptop painted.

If you don't want a paint job and want a clevo, check out lpc digital. They have one guy handling customer support named larry, and he's a fucking beast. Nothing but love on the webs for him.

If you go for a clevo and have questions about it, thenotebookreview has a lot of owners you an ask.

May I suggest this clevo?

http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np6658-clevo-w650sj-p-6994.html

They have plenty of clevos, even one for under 1000$ that is 13.3 inches with an 860m.

You are right, looks do matter to me a bit. Sagers seem nice but they don't look that good. I also try to avoid those types of hinges(I don't like how they look).

Price doesn't really matter to me, I just don't want the laptop to be too thick.

Another 30 minutes of research brought up 2 laptops:

ASUS B551LG - pretty classy look, not the best video card but it should be able to handle basic gaming. Not the best cooling but meh. Only 128GB SSD - bummer, but at least it's upgradeable. A little more expensive than it should be IMO.

Aorus X7v2 - improvement over the last version, still high price and why the heck would it have 3x128 SSD+1TB hdd .. come on

Edit: do you think I could get a paintjob for the G550JK? Would like to get rid of the red accents and the RoG logo.

[Syntaxvgm]

Are you buying it from a store? I wish I could actually touch one of the above mentioned laptops ... I currently live in Nantucket, MA and there are no stores here

Whenever you get it, I will ask you how you feel about the red accents By the way, getting an SSD is a must for this laptop in my opinion. The stock one will slow it down. I suggest replacing it with an SSD, get a caddy, place it where the CD-Rom is and put the stock HDD there for your media. (Do not put the SSD in the CD-Rom's place, it will decrease its performance). SSDs are pretty cheap now and it will give you a nice sexy boost in overall performance. Also, Windows 8 is crap

 

You are right, looks do matter to me a bit. Sagers seem nice but they don't look that good. I also try to avoid those types of hinges(I don't like how they look).

Price doesn't really matter to me, I just don't want the laptop to be too thick.

Another 30 minutes of research brought up 2 laptops:

ASUS B551LG - pretty classy look, not the best video card but it should be able to handle basic gaming. Not the best cooling but meh. Only 128GB SSD - bummer, but at least it's upgradeable. A little more expensive than it should be IMO.

Aorus X7v2 - improvement over the last version, still high price and why the heck would it have 3x128 SSD+1TB hdd .. come on

Edit: do you think I could get a paintjob for the G550JK? Would like to get rid of the red accents and the RoG logo.

well it seems they only offer a vinyl wrap for the back of the screen panel for that one, as well as laser etching. They do a complete warp bay taking the panel off, not those sloppy stickers though.

I wanted to get a paint job or something like this myself

[Ryuk]

well it seems they only offer a vinyl wrap for the back of the screen panel for that one, as well as laser etching. They do a complete warp bay taking the panel off, not those sloppy stickers though.

Well vinyl wrapping is no different from stickers for me really. It will add a couple of grams of weight in addition to the already heavy(in my opinion) laptop

I wonder if there's anything I can do about the red accent though... That red all around looks pretty bad in my opinion, otherwise - amazing machine. Not only it's red, it looks like they used some cheap paint, or maybe it just looks like that on videos.

[Syntaxvgm]

Well vinyl wrapping is no different from stickers for me really. It will add a couple of grams of weight in addition to the already heavy(in my opinion) laptop

I wonder if there's anything I can do about the red accent though... That red all around looks pretty bad in my opinion, otherwise - amazing machine. Not only it's red, it looks like they used some cheap paint, or maybe it just looks like that on videos.

nope they don't offer paint for that laptop. You COULD paint it yourself if you think you can do it. 

[Ryuk]

nope they don't offer paint for that laptop. You COULD paint it yourself if you think you can do it. 

and ruin the laptop

ASUS has a new G551 coming out soon .. I don't like the highlighted WASD buttons though. The screen is overkill too and the top seems way too glossy

[Syntaxvgm]

and ruin the laptop

ASUS has a new G551 coming out soon .. I don't like the highlighted WASD buttons though. The screen is overkill too and the top seems way too glossy

Yah I'm a laptop repair expert and I'm even not sure I would do that on my own.

[Ryuk]

Yah I'm a laptop repair expert and I'm even not sure I would do that on my own.

 

Oh that's nice, is there a way to replace the backlight of a ips screen? all those layers of glass and filters and what not?

[Syntaxvgm]

Oh that's nice, is there a way to replace the backlight of a ips screen? all those layers of glass and filters and what not?

backlight, no. Whole screen, yes. With LCD there is an inverter you can replace if it burns out. And it all depends how it some apart but normally yes but with glue it can be complicated.

Painting voids your warrenty anyway, that's why I'd probably avoid it.

[Feveredbike]

You should be fine with the base 15" MacBook Pro for light gaming. You'll be paying a bit more up front but the laptop will last you a long time. I got a 15" non retina Pro in June 2012 and it has yet to slow down and the battery lasts longer than when I got it. 

[Ryuk]

So after reading reviews about the asus n550jk, I'm pretty disappointed. It's silver keyboard is pretty stupid as well so I will stay away from this.

Anyone has anything to say about g550jk? and wow, on amazon it went from 1050 to 1350 this morning and it's 1587 right now, 50% increase in price in 1 day.

And I don't think the entry level macbook pro will handle games well with its integrated graphics. The 750M will do the job more or less but paying 2500 for this doesn't make much sense to me. Plus, the fact that they didn't include a numpad on the 15 inch version is pretty disappointing and it makes the laptop look ugly in my opinion.