Need a laptop

[Faroeseviking]

budget is 500 usd.

im going to use it for school and sometimes mild gaming 

11.6 inch is the smallest i will go for

[joshuamurphy]

first off nice picture, second shout out to my birth city. and three i know nothing about laptops sorry.

[Faroeseviking]

I like my picture too!

[Chenty]

What about this? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314007

With money saved, you could buy an SSD for a boot drive and place the hard drive either in an external enclosure or in place of the DVD drive.

[Faroeseviking]

well its acer....

[WitzTech]

well its acer....

My hierarchy for Laptop manufacturers (in the US) is:

 

 BEST Lenovo > Samsung > Asus >  Toshiba > Acer > Sony > Gateway > Dell > Pile of dog turds > HP Worst. 

 

Red I completely avoid unless the deal is fantastic.  Purple are good value, but I am not convinced are worth the same premium as green, which are my go-to brands for recommendations.  

 

There is nothing wrong with Acer anymore.  A few years ago, sure, they were a bargain brand, but nowadays I am pretty impressed by what they have to offer.  If you want to play games, however, I would really recommend either waiting for Intel's improved graphics chip on Haswell or go AMD, as HD4000 isn't going to be much fun. 

 

Acer has a V3 with a 7670m on board, which is WAY faster than HD4000.  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215663

Other than that, I'm not sure there is anything else that really has the same "gaming" chops.  This ASUS isn't too shabby: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+K-Series+15.6%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+6GB+Memory+-+750GB+Hard+Drive+-+Indigo/7525157.p?id=1218848535039&skuId=7525157

 

Source: I sell this stuff for a living

[Faroeseviking]

My hierarchy for Laptop manufacturers (in the US) is:

 

 BEST Lenovo > Samsung > Asus >  Toshiba > Acer > Sony > Gateway > Dell > Pile of dog turds > HP Worst. 

 

Red I completely avoid unless the deal is fantastic.  Purple are good value, but I am not convinced are worth the same premium as green, which are my go-to brands for recommendations.  

 

There is nothing wrong with Acer anymore.  A few years ago, sure, they were a bargain brand, but nowadays I am pretty impressed by what they have to offer.  If you want to play games, however, I would really recommend either waiting for Intel's improved graphics chip on Haswell or go AMD, as HD4000 isn't going to be much fun. 

 

Acer has a V3 with a 7670m on board, which is WAY faster than HD4000.  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215663

Other than that, I'm not sure there is anything else that really has the same "gaming" chops.  This ASUS isn't too shabby: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+K-Series+15.6%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+6GB+Memory+-+750GB+Hard+Drive+-+Indigo/7525157.p?id=1218848535039&skuId=7525157

 

Source: I sell this stuff for a living

Can warmly agree with what you say but do the Acers stil get hot? i remember that they got kinda hot.

[WitzTech]

Newer chipsets use such little power compared to what they used to that I haven't come across many laptops that get really uncomfortable (HP and Sony are exceptions).

 

If heat is a major concern, ASUS has put some thought into thermal design recently ("IceCool").  I have an Asus X501, which is one of the machines advertised as having a thermal design that keeps the keyboard and trackpad cool.

 

The best way to figure this out is to head into one of the big box stores towards the end of the day.  All of the machines have been on for 10+ hours straight, so you should get a good idea of what temps will be on a daily basis.  Even if they don't have the exact model you want, as long as it is the same series you will get a general idea.