Need Help Finding A Great College Laptop

[DeadlyTigerKingProductions]

I am on the lookout for a new laptop for college. Anything in the $1000-$2000 price range works, so long that it is available in store or online from Best Buy. If not then the budget is knocked down to $1000. My most important features are: Great Battery Life, Thin and Light, Has a Numpad, 1080p not 4k Display, and Good Build Quality. This will be my primary workhorse for the next 4 years so I want it to be perfect, and to be built well. I will be taking accounting classes so the numpad is important. In this price range I would expect a somewhat decent graphics setup i.e. a GTX 970M, 965M, or 960M. I already have my eyes on the MSI GS60 Ghost Pro-002 for my 15.6" screen choice and the MSI GS70 Stealth Pro-006 for my 17" choice. The only problem I have with these are they they have poor battery lives and I don't want them to die on me in between classes. Other than that they seem great. It would be nice to know from someone with experience in college if that issue can be worked around or not. Thank you for your help!

[SauronsV]

I don't think any laptop with 960m 965m and 970m GPUs have good batteries because they are geared towards gaming. 

[papapoi]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2020688,00.asp

 

i agree that the msi battery life is not that great, i have a  gt72 that i let my son use for college and he gave it back and we ended up buying a dell 7559 which has a pretty decent battery life, not what they say in the review here but still better than the msi .

 

http://slickdeals.net/f/8628378-dell-inspiron-15-7000-core-i5-6300hq-15-6-1080p-gtx-960m-4gb-8gb-ddr3-1tb-hybrid-drive-win-10-home-686-at-dell-with-f-s?src=catpagev2

this is a decent deal for this laptop, we ended up taking out the hybrid and putting in an 250gb ssd that was in my desktop and it helped with the battery life a little,

[ZeusXI]

15 minutes ago, DeadlyTigerKingProductions said:

I am on the lookout for a new laptop for college. Anything in the $1000-$2000 price range works, so long that it is available in store or online from Best Buy. If not then the budget is knocked down to $1000. My most important features are: Great Battery Life, Thin and Light, Has a Numpad, 1080p not 4k Display, and Good Build Quality. This will be my primary workhorse for the next 4 years so I want it to be perfect, and to be built well. I will be taking accounting classes so the numpad is important. In this price range I would expect a somewhat decent graphics setup i.e. a GTX 970M, 965M, or 960M. I already have my eyes on the MSI GS60 Ghost Pro-002 for my 15.6" screen choice and the MSI GS70 Stealth Pro-006 for my 17" choice. The only problem I have with these are they they have poor battery lives and I don't want them to die on me in between classes. Other than that they seem great. It would be nice to know from someone with experience in college if that issue can be worked around or not. Thank you for your help!

What do you plan to use this laptop for? Gaming? programming? Visualization? video rendering?

 

[DioOmicida]

The gs60 is a sold buy. i7, 16gb ram, gtx970m, etc, etc.
A 6 cell is about as good as you're going to get.
My only suggestion is that you don't go above a 15", whatever your choice is.
I hated carrying around my heavy 17" while I was in school.

[Suika]

26 minutes ago, DeadlyTigerKingProductions said:

It would be nice to know from someone with experience in college if that issue can be worked around or not.

Unfortunately I've only come to two possible solutions with my ASUS ROG G751JM. While my laptop does have enough battery life to get through 4 classes, which is enough if you consider one math class into the mix, I'd have to stretch it, so I had a couple ideas.

 

As I mentioned the battery life for me is fine for 4 classes, but what if I planned a math class in the middle of the day and made sure I sat next to an outlet to let my laptop charge while powered off? I've not encountered a teacher who doesn't like it, except on test days, but it worked the couple times I tried it.

 

Another option that might extend your college day, depending of course, is cutting a period out for a break to charge the laptop and of course refresh yourself with some food and chill time, which is enough to guarantee my laptop to reach the 4th class and after, and give me a breather, which I like.

 

Anyway as far as recommendations I found a couple. Solid state boot drive is basically essential for a laptop so here's my selection and recommendations.

 

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-17-3-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-128gb-solid-state-drive-black/4714306.p?id=1219807036567&skuId=4714306

 

It has G-sync, a 980M, 16GB, an SSD, i7, but it has one fatal flaw - it's a huge mofo. As I said it took me a week to find a decent bag to carry mine in, but otherwise it's fine. Also I know the battery life on it, as I said it lasts me 4 classes (1 and 1/2 hour classes) if I have the GPU disabled.

 

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-17-3-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/4714300.p?id=1219807029424&skuId=4714300

 

This is the same as the one above but has a 970M and no SSD, so spend an extra $100 and buy a nice 480GB drive.

 

Also heat won't be an issue for these machines, like, ever. Cooling is amazing, but size is the cost.

[exercutor5]

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/cybertronpc-matrix-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-120gb-solid-state-drive-black/4754319.p?id=1219814595471&skuId=4754319

 

I would recommend this tho. But this is not the best price for this laptop, it can be cheaper, if you don't limit to only Best Buy.

[DeadlyTigerKingProductions]

So to provide more information, I plan on using the laptop for software that is not very demanding like Quickbooks and other accounting software. As for gaming capability I want to be able to play games like GTA V and Battlefield 4 on Medium settings anywhere from 30-60fps. I don't plan on any super serious gaming and if the integrated graphics, or a much smaller card in the laptop could afford me a better battery life or weight/thinness then I am willing to make that trade off. I will have an Xbox One with me for gaming as well so I can do most of my gaming on there. I also am considering waiting until the new graphics cards are released and some new possibly better laptops come out this summer.