Looking for a solid laptop for gaming/programming.

[RehanFlames]

Hey,

I need the laptop for university where I'm doing Software Eng, and would like to game on the side as well. I'm not sure about the price but prob around 2000CAD, but the cheaper the better. Preferably thin and light since I'll be moving around the campus a lot and travelling around every 4 months.

Currenty looking at Asus Zephyrus GA502D from the back to school laptops on linus tech tips. Razer Blade is my dream laptop but do you think its worth the price? Idk if I can convince parents. Maybe base version?

I play a wide variety of games inc. LoL, Rocket League, For Honor, Control etc.

 

Help much appreciated.

[5x5]

Do NOT buy the Blade. Its extremely unreliable, has a wide range of issues from the cheap PCB with garbage caps and fets, overheating, to battery swelling and death, to broken displays and audio subsystems, to melting power adapters because they made them too thin so they overheat and melt. Just don't waste your money on a Blade. They usually fail after a year and you'll regret spending so much money on such a low quality and failure prone device.

 

The GA502 is decent for an entry level thin gaming laptop. It's also got a relatively large battery and good screen. If you want the best, though,.the ThinkPad X1 Extreme is the best ultra portable gaming-xapablw laptop. With an undervolt, it's cool, quiet, powerful, extremely durable and reliable, water resistant, dirt/sand resistant, shock and drop resistant and has a solid 8-9 hour battery life

[RehanFlames]

5 hours ago, 5x5 said:

Do NOT buy the Blade. Its extremely unreliable, has a wide range of issues from the cheap PCB with garbage caps and fets, overheating, to battery swelling and death, to broken displays and audio subsystems, to melting power adapters because they made them too thin so they overheat and melt. Just don't waste your money on a Blade. They usually fail after a year and you'll regret spending so much money on such a low quality and failure prone device.

 

The GA502 is decent for an entry level thin gaming laptop. It's also got a relatively large battery and good screen. If you want the best, though,.the ThinkPad X1 Extreme is the best ultra portable gaming-xapablw laptop. With an undervolt, it's cool, quiet, powerful, extremely durable and reliable, water resistant, dirt/sand resistant, shock and drop resistant and has a solid 8-9 hour battery life

Thanks for the reply. I checked it out. So there's a gen 1 and 2. Which one should I be looking at? Doesn't look like it can game but who cares about lookes XD. Although the zephyrus still have a better graphics and 120 Hz. So still a bit confused. What do you think? any other laptop recommendations? Also why did recommend the blade then? and why not the thinkpad?

[5x5]

Just now, RehanFlames said:

Thanks for the reply. I checked it out. So there's a gen 1 and 2. Which one should I be looking at? Doesn't look like it can game but who cares about lookes XD. Although the zephyrus still have a better graphics and 120 Hz. So still a bit confused. What do you think? any other laptop recommendations? Also why did recommend the blade then? and why not the thinkpad?

The 1650 is fine for most games. If you want to game heavily at the expense of water and shock resistance, get the Zephyrus.

 

I was pretty detailed about the Blade. It's among the worst laptops on the market. It just doesn't last and tends to fail very rapidly. Most die after 1 year. Very few blades make it to 2 years of use. Unless you want to buy a new laptop every 12-14 months, avoid the blades.

[RehanFlames]

1 hour ago, 5x5 said:

The 1650 is fine for most games. If you want to game heavily at the expense of water and shock resistance, get the Zephyrus.

 

I was pretty detailed about the Blade. It's among the worst laptops on the market. It just doesn't last and tends to fail very rapidly. Most die after 1 year. Very few blades make it to 2 years of use. Unless you want to buy a new laptop every 12-14 months, avoid the blades.

cool thnx a bunch. Any other laptops I should consider?

[panzersharkcat]

It not looking like a gaming laptop is why I want to get one. You can actually mod it to have a 144 Hz display. Here's the guide on r/ThinkPad if you want to do that later.

 

I don't know if it will work with shipping to Canada but there's an affinity site for corporate buyers inside Lenovo's site that gives very steep discounts. Just don't do custom orders because they'll take four to six weeks to actually get it to you. Link. Password is TXTATWORK.

[RehanFlames]

52 minutes ago, panzersharkcat said:

It not looking like a gaming laptop is why I want to get one. You can actually mod it to have a 144 Hz display. Here's the guide on r/ThinkPad if you want to do that later.

 

I don't know if it will work with shipping to Canada but there's an affinity site for corporate buyers inside Lenovo's site that gives very steep discounts. Just don't do custom orders because they'll take four to six weeks to actually get it to you. Link. Password is TXTATWORK.

Theres no way im modding it XD. The only real problem I have with it is idk how good the gaming performance is. It looks boring imo, no backlit keyboard either but I can put that aside. So the more options i have the better.

[5x5]

1 hour ago, RehanFlames said:

Theres no way im modding it XD. The only real problem I have with it is idk how good the gaming performance is. It looks boring imo, no backlit keyboard either but I can put that aside. So the more options i have the better.

The keyboard is backlit.  Most ThinkPads aside from the entry level E series models have white backlight by default.

 

As for gamimg, just look at 1650 performance and decide if that is enough for you or you need a 1660Ti MQ

[panzersharkcat]

7 hours ago, RehanFlames said:

Theres no way im modding it XD. The only real problem I have with it is idk how good the gaming performance is. It looks boring imo, no backlit keyboard either but I can put that aside. So the more options i have the better.

You call it boring. I call it classic. YMMV, I guess. You decide if it's powerful enough. Performance in various games. If it's not, there's the option of the 1660 Ti version of the MSI GS65. The issue is the motherboard is upside down so if you want to do any upgrades or repaste, you have to remove the motherboard to do it. It's a solid performer, though, and a lot of the build quality issues were fixed. I don't know if the fan rattling was, however.

[RehanFlames]

Cool. Thank you guys som uch for the help.

[RehanFlames]

What do you guys think about lenovo y740?

 

[5x5]

17 hours ago, RehanFlames said:

What do you guys think about lenovo y740?

 

It's fine. Not as good as an EliteBook or ThinkPad, not as bad as an Acer Nitro