Looking for a Laptop for College

[superfightergod]

Hey folks,

I'm heading into college soon and have decided that an entry level gaming laptop will be my best bet to have something portable around campus that can also game when I'm back in my dorm. I've built a few PCs before, but finding a good laptop is beyond my realm of knowledge, so I'm looking for advice from you all.

Budget: Around $1000, flexible if there's a really good deal.

Requirements: I'd like something that, in low power mode, has a battery life that can get me through a school day. Any size short of those giant old Alienware laptops is fine, I'm ok with some bulk. I'm hoping for a 3050ti or a 3060 for it to be capable, looking for a decent upgrade from my desktop rig at home with an RX 480 and R3 3300X, but if this isn't possible I'm willing to compromise. The screen isn't a big issue, 1080p is fine and I'm not a high refresh rate stickler, but I'd like it to have good brightness for use outside in shade. 16GB RAM hopefully, with at least 512GB storage. Ethernet would be nice.

 

If this laundry list isn't achievable, please let me know where I need to compromise! I've never looked for a laptop before so this is all new to me. 

Thank you so much for any replies!

[Bombastinator]

The SOP suggestion for a college laptop is an m1 air, which is a lousy gaming machine but it does thin client well, so if there is good connectivity (which you WILL have in the US.  I don’t know about other countries) you can stream from something else.

[superfightergod]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

The SOP suggestion for a college laptop is an m1 air, which is a lousy gaming machine but it does thin client well, so if there is good connectivity (which you WILL have in the US.  I don’t know about other countries) you can stream from something else.

They're just so overpriced, and I have nothing in the Apple ecosystem. I'd love to run games on-machine. I really don't care about bulk from the gaming laptops I've seen.

[NunoLava1998]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

The SOP suggestion for a college laptop is an m1 air, which is a lousy gaming machine but it does thin client well, so if there is good connectivity (which you WILL have in the US.  I don’t know about other countries) you can stream from something else.

The M1 Air's GPU is decent enough for light gaming; you probably won't be running something like Cyberpunk on it well, and any Windows-only games won't run, but the performance is comparable to a 1650. When it comes to battery life / weight / screen, it's pretty much perfect, although you'll need an adapter if you want to use Ethernet.

[superfightergod]

1 minute ago, NunoLava1998 said:

The M1 Air's GPU is decent enough for light gaming; you probably won't be running something like Cyberpunk on it well, and any Windows-only games won't run, but the performance is comparable to a 1650. When it comes to battery life / weight / screen, it's pretty much perfect, although you'll need an adapter if you want to use Ethernet.

I'm just really not looking for a MacBook, I really don't care about weight and the screen just has to be bright enough, I don't care about high resolutions or refresh rates.

[Bombastinator]

10 minutes ago, superfightergod said:

They're just so overpriced, and I have nothing in the Apple ecosystem. I'd love to run games on-machine. I really don't care about bulk from the gaming laptops I've seen.

The thing you are looking for in a college laptop over even power is toughness because things get treated very roughly in college because you’re in a hurry all the time, and most of what you do is type papers and take notes, both of which it excels at.

[superfightergod]

3 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

The thing you are looking for in a college laptop over even power is toughness because things get treated very roughly in college because you’re in a hurry all the time, and most of what you do is type papers and take notes, both of which it excels at.

I dunno what to tell ya, it just doesn't appeal to me. I have my everything on my Microsoft account, like Windows, and want to be able to game after class. I'm not one to just break things willy nilly. Looking for Windows laptop suggestions along the lines of my post.

[TylerD321]

37 minutes ago, superfightergod said:

I dunno what to tell ya, it just doesn't appeal to me. I have my everything on my Microsoft account, like Windows, and want to be able to game after class. I'm not one to just break things willy nilly. Looking for Windows laptop suggestions along the lines of my post.

I got a gaming laptop when I was a freshman going into college. I had the Dell G3 15 (i5 18300h with 1060 6 gb). It was great once I got to where I needed to go, or was in my dorm. However, if I was walking between class or standing in line to get food, the weight became a large issue. If I had even a single textbook in my bag along with my laptop it would hurt to wear on my back for any long stretch of time (such as walking to class). I ended up selling it and getting a Lenovo laptop with Intel Iris XE integrated graphics and using the steam link feature to play games.