Looking in to Gaming Laptops to buy <$1500, sometime within 6 months

Cutout · November 2, 2019

I've just started the search for a new laptop. I've had my current laptop, a MSI Ge72 Apache Pro-242 with a GTX 970M, 16gb of RAM, intel core i7-5700HQ (2.7, boost 3.5, 4 real cores, 8 with hyperthreading), 17.3 inch 1080p screen, 1 TB HDD with a 256 GB NVME SSD I added myself. It's been great for me over the years, but I've had some issues. The monitor is broken, mic and mini displayport don't work, and battery life has always been pretty low. Thermals used to be very high as well, but after repasting it's been ok as long as I blow out the dust with compressed air every once in a while. It's also pretty big with a 17.3 inch screen, which is nice but it also makes it tough to take around. Given that I got it used on eBay in 2016 for a pretty good deal, I've been happy with it, but next year I'll be going to university and I'll need a laptop that is more portable with better battery life and actually has a functional monitor (currently I basically use it as a desktop).

I'm limiting my budget for the new PC to around $1.5k, but if something really stood out as a great buy I might consider going over that. I haven't done a crazy amount of research yet, but so far this Asus laptop (or perhaps the RTX 2070 version) stands out as looking pretty good within the price range. Of course, the battery life still isn't great, but I can't expect much given the other specs I'm interested in. Given that I mostly just play League of Legends I could probably settle for a slightly less powerful system if it meant a much longer batter life and other useful features. Any thoughts or recommendations? Thanks