Gaming Laptop for College

Hi guys. It’s been a long time since I last visited the forum, but I really need help with something. I’m going to be off to college next month and I need a laptop. I’m going to be a Computer Engineering major. Spec wise, I already have an idea of what I want, but I can’t find a laptop with the battery life I need for classwork. I want to game at 1080p in my free time, which granted as an engineering student, I won’t have much but I’ll still find time to game. When I game, I’ll be plugged in, so battery life while gaming doesn’t matter. The battery life I’m looking for is at least 4-5 hours when doing school work (document writing, web browsing, etc). I’ve found some laptops like the Razer Blade and Aorus X3, but the Blade doesn’t have enough store for the model I can afford (256gb) and the Aorus seems to be a flimsy laptop. Does anyone have any suggestions?

TL:DR I’m looking for a gaming laptop for school. The specs that I’m looking at are an i7 processor, preferably at gtx 970m, 16gb of RAM and minimum of 500gb of hard drive space. I have a max budget of $2500, but I’d prefer to stay around $2000ish. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

HardwareCanucks did a comparison of a few gaming laptops:

To me, the Gigabyte P35K v3 is what you are looking for LINK

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There is this one, with G-Sync. a non G-Sync version is $100 less.

Would you consider building a Desktop for $1200 and then getting a laptop for school for like $700? gaming beast and a portable school work laptop. :)

I agree with Weston, gaming notebooks suffer from diminsihing returns of that form factor of performance vs cost.

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i just hate laptops, for my lifestyle anyways. I mean, if you are a student (i am, and bought a chromebook, love it) or a professional who travels a lot, okay. but i just don't understand gaming laptops, to be honest. Most people who buy them could have easily gotten a cheaper laptop/tablet for portability, and a beast gaming desktop that outperforms the laptop, at like half the price.

assuming you have the space in your room/dorm/wherever. i would opt for getting an inexpensive laptop for schoolwork and taking on campus, and then building a desktop pc as a home base station.

I already have a gaming desktop pc...I can't take it to college though.

I would love to bring my gaming desktop with me, but I'm not sure how big the dorm room is. I'm staying in a suite style dorm room. 4 bedrooms, 2 people per room, a common room and a bathroom. If I think the room's big enough, I'd put my system there. I just though a gaming laptop would just be easier.

well my cousin lived in the dorms at Sac State (he is returning this fall after a year in an apartment), and he had more than enough room. I would try and get some pictures or call your school and ask about accommodations, because at the Sac State dorms, he shared a room (2 rooms, 2 per room) and each had a bed and desk per student. It is college, i am sure they have accommodations for everyone to have computers.

Then you could just get yourself a cheap laptop (or chromebook... no viruses ;) lol) to take with you around campus and to the library to type up stuff and web browse. i am like 99% sure you will be given a desk with which to put your pc on, or under. i think my cousin kept his pc on the floor.. but i digress :P

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Good lord do not get a massive laptop. Go for one of the GS things from MSI or Lenovo's competitor. You will regret getting a massive laptop. Anything over 15" is hard as hell to carry around, and those thick laptops are plain dumb.

Have a look into MSI's docking laptops. When in a lesson it's a reasonable laptop. When back in the dorm you dock it for a full PCI-E graphics card plus an extra harddrive.

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Something to think about. I just don't know if I can bring it first semester. I'll figure that part out.

I was planning to stay at no bigger than 15.6" and nothing over 5ish pounds.