Large display laptop for terrible eyesight

[steinarey]

Hi everyone!

 

Due to poor eyesight I've always had to have the larger 17" display on my laptops (the day fold-able 24" OLED becomes a thing on laptops will be a great day). That has been fine by me since those computers are often powerhouses so I can game and more on them.

However, I'm going for my postgrad in computer science (AI and ML) in September and need to upgrade my laptop and this times I need a change. I'll probably be moving around a bit and not always with a convenient plug nearby. The laptops I've usually had have the battery life of a horror movie flashlight and the weight of Mjölnir.

So my question to you guys is this:

 

Which laptop offers the best balance between power, battery life and weight?

 

The LG Gram 17 has caught my eyes and might be *the one* but there might be something better that I'm not aware of. It even has a thunderbolt connection so I could connect an external GPU if needed.

 

Requirements/non-requirements:

Budget: Max $2500ish

Needs: 17" display, backlit keyboard

Doesn't need: Dedicated graphics card (I'll have access to those at the Uni. for my ML work and I'll probably don't have much time for gaming :/ )

 

Any suggestions would be helpful, thanks!

 

[Origami Cactus]

Yeah i would recommend the newest LG Gram 17, it looked good.

[steinarey]

4 hours ago, starcoaster said:

I have an asus FX705GM. It's pretty light, fairly thin, has a nice big display (thin bezels so the size of the lid is near enough the whole display), 1080p resolution. It does have discrete graphics as a 6GB 1060 but that's pretty useful if you want to do some on-the-go rendering. CPU is a 8750H - 6c12t.

On the whole, it's a good laptop, the keyboard is nice to type on, thermal performance is good, accoustic performance is good. It's a solid mid-range laptop.

Battery life i'm getting is about 3-3.5 hours doing general browsing/coursework tasks, laptop charges pretty quickly. Currently sitting at 97% discharging with 3h20 left.

I had one of the older ROG laptops previously, the beast kind. This one would definitively be a better option than that. I would like a bit longer battery life, but the specs are nice on the ASUS machines.

[Super Spartan]

I recommend the GS75 as it has a 17 inch 144hz display and is also thin and light to be moved around easily.

 

Check out these 2 models, one is with the 8th gen CPU and the 2nd one although a bit more expensive but still within your budget is with the 9th gen CPU which I recommend you to go with if you're planning to keep this laptop for a while. Also they have an FHD display so it'll be much easier on the eyes to view things especially if you do like a 125% DPI Scaling in Windows so stuff appears bigger.

 

Custom Built MSI GS75 8SE Stealth-204 - 17.3" FHD 144Hz - i7-8750H - RTX 2060

Custom Built MSI GS75 9SE Stealth-249 - 17.3" FHD 144Hz - i7-9750H - RTX 2060

 

 

[steinarey]

2 hours ago, Ultra Male said:

I recommend the GS75 as it has a 17 inch 144hz display and is also thin and light to be moved around easily.

 

Check out these 2 models, one is with the 8th gen CPU and the 2nd one although a bit more expensive but still within your budget is with the 9th gen CPU which I recommend you to go with if you're planning to keep this laptop for a while. Also they have an FHD display so it'll be much easier on the eyes to view things especially if you do like a 125% DPI Scaling in Windows so stuff appears bigger.

 

Custom Built MSI GS75 8SE Stealth-204 - 17.3" FHD 144Hz - i7-8750H - RTX 2060

Custom Built MSI GS75 9SE Stealth-249 - 17.3" FHD 144Hz - i7-9750H - RTX 2060

 

 

Hadn't looked at the MSI computers, they look good. The 8 hr battery (realistically maybe 5?) is also a plus!

 

Any specific reason you mention the custom built ones instead of just the stock ones?

[Super Spartan]

29 minutes ago, steinarey said:

Hadn't looked at the MSI computers, they look good. The 8 hr battery (realistically maybe 5?) is also a plus!

 

Any specific reason you mention the custom built ones instead of just the stock ones?

Yes, because every off the shelf laptop that I bought went back for a refund. Two Alienwares had severe back-light bleeding which I literally had to fight with the store manager at the mall to have it replaced. 2 ASUS ROG laptops that I bought in the past were overheating out of the box. It was due to the crappy thermal paste job that OEMs do but with ASUS if I were to open the laptop myself and re paste it with better thermal paste, my warranty would be void, and the list goes on.

 

That's when I started buying from reputed online boutique shops, 1) to get the quality control and have a unit that works perfectly out of the box because I have no patience to repackage a laptop and go through the hassle of returning it and wait for a refund and 2) for the ability to tailor suite the laptop to my needs with regards to SSD and RAM configurations and most of all 3) to get a better thermal paste job and thermal upgrades like the ones HIDevolution offers. See in the laptop configurator, you will find "Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut + Fujipoly Extreme Thermal pads on heat sensitive surfaces" I highly suggest you tick that box as it lowers temps by around 15c! and 4) Better customer service and support. I once had an issue with my MSI GT73VR Titan Pro where there was no GSYNC option in the nVIDIA Control Panel despite every one else on the forum confirming that laptop does have GSYNC and so did the reviews I read online. When I contacted MSI Tech support, they denied it having GSYNC and told me "where do you see us mentioning on the website that it has GSYNC" and the support agent was right so I almost gave up but then when I contacted HIDevolution's tech support, they contacted the seniors at MSI and they sent me a new BIOS/.VBIOS which once I installed immediately gave me the GSNYC option. Point is, better customer service and support.

[steinarey]

2 hours ago, Ultra Male said:

Yes, because every off the shelf laptop that I bought went back for a refund. Two Alienwares had severe back-light bleeding which I literally had to fight with the store manager at the mall to have it replaced. 2 ASUS ROG laptops that I bought in the past were overheating out of the box. It was due to the crappy thermal paste job that OEMs do but with ASUS if I were to open the laptop myself and re paste it with better thermal paste, my warranty would be void, and the list goes on.

 

That's when I started buying from reputed online boutique shops, 1) to get the quality control and have a unit that works perfectly out of the box because I have no patience to repackage a laptop and go through the hassle of returning it and wait for a refund and 2) for the ability to tailor suite the laptop to my needs with regards to SSD and RAM configurations and most of all 3) to get a better thermal paste job and thermal upgrades like the ones HIDevolution offers. See in the laptop configurator, you will find "Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut + Fujipoly Extreme Thermal pads on heat sensitive surfaces" I highly suggest you tick that box as it lowers temps by around 15c! and 4) Better customer service and support. I once had an issue with my MSI GT73VR Titan Pro where there was no GSYNC option in the nVIDIA Control Panel despite every one else on the forum confirming that laptop does have GSYNC and so did the reviews I read online. When I contacted MSI Tech support, they denied it having GSYNC and told me "where do you see us mentioning on the website that it has GSYNC" and the support agent was right so I almost gave up but then when I contacted HIDevolution's tech support, they contacted the seniors at MSI and they sent me a new BIOS/.VBIOS which once I installed immediately gave me the GSNYC option. Point is, better customer service and support.

Fair enough. I will definitively be looking into those. Especially after the LTT video they made about boutique shops vs. retailers. However I live in acountry where there are none so I'd have to get them when I arrive at the university. This will be a fun logistical puzzle to solve!

Thanks for the tip.

[Super Spartan]

14 minutes ago, steinarey said:

Fair enough. I will definitively be looking into those. Especially after the LTT video they made about boutique shops vs. retailers. However I live in acountry where there are none so I'd have to get them when I arrive at the university. This will be a fun logistical puzzle to solve!

Thanks for the tip.

well that's an option. They do however ship internationally and they have a global warranty upgrade option which covers shipping costs both ways if anything goes wrong with your laptop. That's the most compelling reason for me to go with them because I live in Dubai and want that extra peace of mind.