<$1000 Light, Light-gaming, Laptop

[Purphoros]

Hey everyone! So I posted earlier this week about getting a laptop for <$600 USD but I've come to the realization that I can't conceivably get exactly what I am looking for for that price (there still are some good options there however).  Because of this I've created a new forum post to reflect my changing budget and priorities.

 

Budget of less than $1000, it's a bit flexible but I would really like it to be below that price. My main use will be for school, lots of notes, it will be carried daily and gamed on infrequently but I would like the option.

Things I need in a laptop:

• Decently portable, the lighter the better but I won't set a hard limit; max size however of 15.6"
• Can run some games (BeamNG.drive, CS:GO, Running with Rifles, Men of War AS2, Civ 6) at 1080p 30 FPS low or better
• 1080p screen
• Upgradeability (Option of adding RAM or replacing/adding drives)
• Good keyboard that's backlit
• Solid battery life

I would like ThunderBolt 3 but it's not required and I also would like USB-C charging but again not required. (Type-C charging as in I can charge the laptop through the Type-C port)

 

Something to consider though, I have a family member who works for IBM thus they get a discount (which applies to me) for Lenovo products, it varies by computer and requires a login to apply so my numbers will look different than those on the site normally.

 

So some models I've been considering:

Dell XPS 15 9560 Refurbished

These come in high at ~$1,100

Feature:

• i5-8250U
• GTX 1050
• 8Gb RAM
• Good battery life especially the 97WHr (~6-8Hrs)
• The ones at this price generally have the 256Gb NVMe SSD (expandable, ish, with the larger battery it's M.2 only)
• Type-C Charging (I think Thunderbolt)

Lenovo Thinkpad P51s

With the discount to about $870

Feature:

• i7-7500U
• Quadro M520 2Gb (I nerd out over this stuff)
• 4Gb RAM
• 500Gb 7200 RPM drive (expandable)
• 104WHr between the front and back batteries (Lenovo claims 27Hrs, my brother has a similar laptop and he gets ~9Hrs of browsing)
• Type-C Charging (Thunderbolt)

For the price this laptop is ok, but I find it really cool.

https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-p/Thinkpad-P51s/p/22TP2WPP51S

Lenovo Thinkpad T570

Basically the consumer variant of the P51s. About $850 with discount

• i5-7300U
• 940MX 2Gb
• 4Gb RAM
• 500Gb 7200 RPM drive (expandable)
• 104WHr battery between front and back batteries (Lenovo claims 27Hrs, my brother has a similar laptop and he gets ~9Hrs of browsing)
• Maybe charging? It does have Thunderbolt.

This one is marginally better in GPU tasks in some ways, the benchmarks are in favor of the Quadro but games are in favor of 940MX it's weird.

https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-t-series/ThinkPad-T570/p/22TP2TT5700

HP Pavilion Power

For the price it offers it great performance.  I used it in person and like the keyboard. $640 with 2Gb 1050.

• i5-7300HQ
• GTX 1050
• 8Gb Ram
• 1Tb 7200 RPM drive (expandable)
• 70WHr (6ish hours of browsing)
• Non-charging Type-C
• 150W Power adapter

For whatever reason this one doesn't excite me but it is still and excellent laptop.

https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-pavilion-power---quad-w--2gb-gfx-touch-optional-1gk62av-1

 

Thanks for any help, advice, or harsh grammatical judgments!

 

[Streetguru]

10 minutes ago, Purphoros said:

 

Just get whatever has a GTX 1050 or better and a quad core i7

Or grab a Ryzen 5 2500U machine, just double check that is has dual channel memory
 

This one's $800 for an i7 7700HQ and GTX 1050
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9SK62T9086

[MR.weRTLos]

I have the Lenovo Thinkpad T570  and I'm comletly fine with it. You can't play everything on high settings but smaler or older games like Binding of Isaac will work just fine on the integrated graphics unit of the CPU. I recomend you don't play with the graphic card on battery, if you do your battery will be down in lik a hour and a half or so depending on the game you play and how broght your screen is set. I bought it for univerity and for this purpose it's ideal and if you want to casually game on it or play competetive games like CS or Overwatch it shoud be fine, but don't espect too much, expecally in that price range.

 

[genexis_x]

P51s and T570 are outdated. Avoid Pavilion Power, bad exhaust design. Go for XPS 15 refurbished or Ideapad 720s 15. Yoga 720 15 also a good choice.

[Crunchy Dragon]

My uncle's work laptop is a ThinkPad P50(not P51s, but very similar) and he's said really good things about it. I myself plan on getting one when I need a mobile workstation/gaming machine.

 

Just an absolute beast of a laptop.

[Purphoros]

2 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

My uncle's work laptop is a ThinkPad P50(not P51s, but very similar) and he's said really good things about it. I myself plan on getting one when I need a mobile workstation/gaming machine.

 

Just an absolute beast of a laptop.

Thinkpad's in general have this great reputation of not dying, ever.  I have two from my uncle who used them when he lived in Switzerland running Linux but they still work and stay relatively cool and quiet despite being around for most of my life.  My brother has a Thinkpad T460p which he loves, my mom has a Thinkpad T470 for work and my dad has some other Thinkpad from his job too.  They're just ubiquitous with business and quality.

 

Lenovo took over the top spot in consumer favor from Apple in a Laptop Magazine poll and they hold 4 of the top battery life spots on Laptop Magazine's top battery life list.  Thinkpad's specifically have a unique and nice keyboard with a modern trackpad and some of the best chargers I've ever used.  Hell most have hot-swappable batteries because they hold a 24WHr in the front of the laptop so you don't have to plug-in or shutdown to replace the back one.  They're just convenient.

 

Thinkpad's have one issue though: they're fucking expensive. For basically every Thinkpad there is a different laptop which is faster or cheaper. My dad made an excellent point though; when it came to the cost of a Thinkpad, on the spectrum of balls-to-the-wall performance to break-the-floor when dropped, they tend towards the latter.  Unfortunately that means you deal with last gen hardware or hefty premiums for current stuff all wrapped in a plastic shell, albeit a really nice plastic shell.

 

Buying a laptop is an interesting experience and balancing battery, performance, portability, and durability is one of the most frustrating challenges I've faced.  I love the Thinkpad's but I can't bring myself to buy one because I know there are laptops with better performance or are cheaper.

 

I spent waaaaay too much time writing this.

[Purphoros]

3 hours ago, MR.weRTLos said:

I have the Lenovo Thinkpad T570  and I'm comletly fine with it. You can't play everything on high settings but smaler or older games like Binding of Isaac will work just fine on the integrated graphics unit of the CPU. I recomend you don't play with the graphic card on battery, if you do your battery will be down in lik a hour and a half or so depending on the game you play and how broght your screen is set. I bought it for univerity and for this purpose it's ideal and if you want to casually game on it or play competetive games like CS or Overwatch it shoud be fine, but don't espect too much, expecally in that price range.

 

Good to know and welcome to the community.

[Purphoros]

3 hours ago, Streetguru said:

Just get whatever has a GTX 1050 or better and a quad core i7

Or grab a Ryzen 5 2500U machine, just double check that is has dual channel memory
 

This one's $800 for an i7 7700HQ and GTX 1050
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9SK62T9086

AMD really pulled a fast one.  I saw one of the x360's at BestBuy and I was surprised when I pulled up UserBenchmark to see it dominate a 940MX.  I wish the Ryzen 5 2500U was in a wider selection of computer however.  I'm currently also considering one of the Ryzen 7 chips since they are also 15W.

[Streetguru]

3 minutes ago, Purphoros said:

AMD really pulled a fast one.  I saw one of the x360's at BestBuy and I was surprised when I pulled up UserBenchmark to see it dominate a 940MX.  I wish the Ryzen 5 2500U was in a wider selection of computer however.  I'm currently also considering one of the Ryzen 7 chips since they are also 15W.

The Ryzen 7 mobile chips are not going to be worth the price increase, both are 4 cores 8 threads, R7 just .2ghz faster turbo and 2 more CUs.

Really The Ryzen 5 laptops need to be $499 with fast RAM and bigger batteries and they'd be perfect.

[Purphoros]

Anyone know if there is any benefit to getting a Quadro?  I don't really do any CAD work or video editing so I don't know if I would see any appreciable difference with what I do.

[Streetguru]

1 minute ago, Purphoros said:

Anyone know if there is any benefit to getting a Quadro?  I don't really do any CAD work or video editing so I don't know if I would see any appreciable difference with what I do.

It would be worse for gaming most likely, a GTX 1050 is probably all you need. Or an R5 2500U if the price is right.

[Purphoros]

8 minutes ago, Streetguru said:

It would be worse for gaming most likely, a GTX 1050 is probably all you need. Or an R5 2500U if the price is right.

Yeah, a 1050 is a great card.

[genexis_x]

1 hour ago, Purphoros said:

Lenovo took over the top spot in consumer favor from Apple in a Laptop Magazine poll and they hold 4 of the top battery life spots on Laptop Magazine's top battery life list

That doesn't mean anything. There are so many models in a brand. Every brand has good and bad models. Also laptop mag stuffs are mostly crap.

1 hour ago, Purphoros said:

Thinkpad's have one issue though: they're fucking expensive.

Not for the entry level Edge series. L series also can be quite cheap too. It depends on country though.

1 hour ago, Streetguru said:

The Ryzen 7 mobile chips are not going to be worth the price increase, both are 4 cores 8 threads, R7 just .2ghz faster turbo

Correct. It depends on cooling and TDP limit. Same applies to KBL-R ULVs.

1 hour ago, Streetguru said:

bigger batteries

The problem now is the Ryzen mobile ecosystem hasn't mature yet. This is why the battery life sucks so much in Ryzen U laptops compared to KBL-R. Still needs firmware updates and optimizations.

1 hour ago, Purphoros said:

Yeah, a 1050 is a great card.

Not really. For esports games yeah. For more demanding games, be ready to play at low to medium settings. Also the 2GB VRAM variant will bottleneck in most modern games.

[Purphoros]

10 minutes ago, ZM Fong said:

1 hour ago, Purphoros said:

Lenovo took over the top spot in consumer favor from Apple in a Laptop Magazine poll and they hold 4 of the top battery life spots on Laptop Magazine's top battery life list

That doesn't mean anything. Also laptop mag stuffs are most crap.

It does mean something.  It means they have long battery life for what Laptop Magazine has reviewed.  I've actually found their reviews to be helpful and consistent with other sources and would hardly call them crap.  Consumer favor does actually matter too as it is an overall performance of a brand in the eyes of those who purchase from it.  Having excellent consumer favor is a good sign that not only are the products good but the support alongside them is aswell.

 

10 minutes ago, ZM Fong said:

1 hour ago, Purphoros said:

Yeah, a 1050 is a great card.

Not really. For esports games yeah. For more demanding games, be ready to play at low to medium settings. Also the 2GB VRAM variant will bottleneck in most modern games.

I'm ok with that.  I would like to do light gaming.  The 1050 is certainly capable of playing some AAA games on medium settings at 1080p like Battlefield 1.  Is there a difference in CUDA cores or clock for the 2Gb VRAM version?  If there isn't it would hardly be a bottleneck as it would hit its limit at or before it overfilled its RAM.  Sure it might not be as good for say simulations but that is hardly the point of the card.

Edited April 7, 2018 by Purphoros
Spelling

[genexis_x]

22 minutes ago, Purphoros said:

It means they have long battery life for what Laptop Magazine has reviewed.  I've actually found their reviews to be helpful and consistent 

1. Lacking details. For instance, they doesn't mention build quality and cooling (only measure surface temps?)

2. Not detailed enough. For instance, display only measured brightness, colour gamut (which is inaccurate) and Delta E. Contrast, backlight distribution, PWM etc are all missing.

 

Check out reviews from Notebookcheck, Ultrabookreview and Laptopmedia. Laptop mag reviews are low quality IMO.

 

Not every Thinkpad model has long battery life. It depends on which model and the battery configuration. Also their battery life test method is questionable since they only test one method unlike Notebookcheck which consists of 4 methods.

 

And I need to repeat, brand is less relevant. Buy model not brand. Every brand has good and bad models. If you don't agree with me then you can just ignore me.

22 minutes ago, Purphoros said:

Is there a difference in CUDA cores or clock for the 2Gb VRAM version?

No.

[Purphoros]

8 minutes ago, ZM Fong said:

15 minutes ago, Purphoros said:

It means they have long battery life for what Laptop Magazine has reviewed.  I've actually found their reviews to be helpful and consistent 

1. No in-depth analysis. For instance, they doesn't mention build quality and cooling (only measure surface temps?)

2. Not detailed enough. For instance display only measured brightness, colour gamut (which is inaccurate) and Delta E.

it seems you didn't quite get the whole sentence in that quote.  Sure they may not have the best testing methods, sure there are certainly better reviews out there but their conclusions are consistent with other reviews for the same product.  I will always cross-check sources when purchasing a product especially one as expensive as a laptop.  I find that Laptop Magazine has an easy to read review style compared to the unintuitive format of say NoteBookCheck (it has a bit of a learning curve especially the benchmark comparison tools), that is an opinion however.

 

15 minutes ago, ZM Fong said:

Buy model not brand. Every brand has good and bad models.

While brand does not always represent the quality of the product, brand will represent the quality of the service related to the product as I said earlier.  Dell for a while was known to have terrible support for their products (they have since improved).  As a consumer a brand that has a bad reputation sticks out in my mind as something that I might want to avoid even if it has an excellent model of a laptop per say the concern of not having good service in the case of a device failure or any number of possible issues could cause me to choose a competitor's product.

[genexis_x]

3 minutes ago, Purphoros said:

brand will represent the quality of the service related to the product as I said earlier.  Dell for a while was known to have terrible support for their products (they have since improved). 

Agree. But it depends on location. For instance, generally Dell has the best support here. Also depends on luck. Many ppl said Lenovo Malaysia service sucks but I think they are OK (I've done a RMA before).

4 minutes ago, Purphoros said:

device failure

This also depends on luck IMO.

[Purphoros]

1 minute ago, ZM Fong said:

Agree. But it depends on location. For instance, generally Dell has the best support here. Also depends on luck. Many ppl said Lenovo Malaysia service sucks but I think they are OK (I've done a RMA before).

This also depends on luck IMO.

So yeah service will be dependant on region and on who actually responds to the request.  But brand identity changes in areas in accordance to how they act.  Unfortunately device failure is a matter of luck the whole situation can be improved by a receptive and helpful person on the other end.  One of my best experiences with customer support was with Noctua after receiving my email about a fan which died suddenly they had dispatched a replacement and responded to my email within the day (it was a weekday).