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I've been looking around for laptops recently, which basically means I've been running around reading reviews of laptops because all the hardware information is fucking gibberish to me. And I can't look for gaming computers either, because according to Stryker as well as all gaming computers I've ever known, they tend to have the lifespan of your average Roman Candle if you use them for their actual intended purpose.

Anyway, these are the things I need to be able to do:

Store a lot of images, words, games, and dubiously downloaded Kung Fu movies.

The ability to play said movies and games fluidly and without framerate chugging harder than an unrepentant AA circle. Doesn't have to do this at max settings, but at the very least I'd like to run the game at a pace that doesn't make me regret leaving consoles behind. And also play movies at a rate that doesn't make me regret not searching every pawn shop and antiques dealer on existence for a real life copy of Sammo Hung's 2009 masterpiece Kung Fu Chefs just to watch it on a non-fuckled medium.

The ability to run Microsoft Office smoothly, which my real computer still manages to do despite its official brick status.

The ability to run video editing software.

The ability to do this for a considerably long period of time.

Here's shit that is of no object:

As long as it's reasonably laptop sized and can be moved without fucking it up, I don't care if it's a chunky piece of BFG-looking 80's technology. As long as it WORKS.

I don't give a shit about battery life. My house has fully functional plugs in places I'm still discovering in my 18th year of life, and I generally don't go to places that don't offer free electricity.

I don't give a shit about "bad design" or "too many buttons" or "clunky chargers" or whatever little nitpicks the scarf-wearing PC snobs get their hipster panties in a twist about as long as it fulfills the above functions. Laptop critics can sneer from under their handlebar mustaches and guzzle pussy juice all they want about their first world computer problems, but my priority right now is having a computer that works.

Here's some limitations:

Price isn't really a thing I'm too worried about, but the closer to 4 digits USD it is, the more of a pain in the ass it's going to be to buy it. Just keep that in mind.

If it's apple, fuck it. Fuck apple.

If it's a chromebook, fuck it. Those things only work on the internet, which is something I only have intermittently. And they don't run shit either.

If it's one of those new-fangled tablet books, fuck it. I don't like to use them at all.

If it's not a windows thing, fuck it. Windows is what all my programs are on.

You're going need to be more specific than just "games" if you want any sort of real advice.

I've stayed years behind on the games industry to save money. They're mostly Xbox 360 Era PC ports of shit, my most recent thing probably being Saints Row IV.

I'm also usually playing either Mount and Blade, Total War, or some certain  Twine RPGs that my computer somehow managed to run worse for reasons I'm unaware of.

I'm considering getting the GTAV or Saints Row 2 on PC now that I don't have access to my friend's 360 anymore, though I'm more worried about being able to run GTAV because it's new, and from what I've seen, the graphics quality probably can't go very far below default.

"... from what I've seen, the graphics quality probably can't go very far below default."

It can if you try hard enough.

What do you see in a laptop that you don't see in a computer that you could easily customize and make optimized for all of these things?

I see time. Lots and lots of time. So much fucking time spent struggling to learn every little thing I need to put together, so much time working to buy every piece of the thing, so much time trying to compare this thing vs that thing, and generally making the enormous investment in a media machine that'd be better spent having a summer since I only play games casually between doing things a basic laptop should be able to do anyways.

That, and the ability to travel.

I just waited till Thanksgiving and bought an already made computer

See, that's all fine and dandy, but I'd rather work on a computer for the same amount of time. And I'd rather not work on a computer.

hi I know nothing about computers but let me help you with your problem. I had a Dell Inspiron and it was okay until several years later when it spontaneously stopped working, except I had to buy a new charger twice.

I watched movies and played uhhh Minecraft and Torchlight on it I tickbut it wasn't really for games. they do have a 'gamer version' for like $800 though.

Other pros: did not actively give me cancer, as far as I'm aware at this point in time

Anyway I'll watch this thread in case somebody recommends an actually good laptop because I may get one soon too.

Mine had Windows 8 but I think Windows 10 forces you to download a thing to watch a DVD.

My recommendation.

Friend who has more expertise in computers than I do recommended this

His is more expensive but it's on sale right now and it gets you a 1050 Ti and the best practical CPU on the market along with an SSD for a boot drive. This is technical mumbo for "you should probably buy this right now or soon before it goes off sale cause this shit is good at everything"

My recommendation's specs and other laptops

Both are great for regular stuff - ignore buzz words like "gaming" gaming is just used to convey that "it can run games really well" which means "it has parts good enough to run games really well" because intense games are hard to run.

Doesn't Acer still have that thing where they ran out of Windows licenses and you have to send it back to buy Windows for real in order to activate it? Or is that just an Amazon problem?

never heard of that problem and I can't find anything online that says it ever existed

If it says it comes with windows it probably means it comes with windows.

I would not recommend getting a SDD at the budget. All t idoes is be expensive and decrease load times.

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Ideapad-510-GeForce-80SR002SUS/dp/B01FJFN2DC/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1498053055&sr=1-2&refinements=p_36%3A40000-60000%2Cp_n_graphics_type_browse-bin%3A14292273011%2Cp_n_operating_system_browse-bin%3A12035945011

Costs 540 bucks. Will run Gta V at 60 FPS Med and Siants Row 2 at 2 FPS. Fuck the Saints Row Pc port.

I hear they've got several and a half fixes for that.

This is pretty much suitable for the price and performance. I'd go for a 1060, and 6 gigs of VRAM should keep you sailing smoothly into 2020, which is when I guess you'll first have thoughts of changing. Knowing your old system is running on duct tape and dreams by now, I'd say go ahead and pick this up. Otherwise, the next gen of graphic cards is probably two months away, and that is rumored to outpace this once by another 40% (switching from GDDR to HBM). However, it'll probably take another two months for the tech to make it into laptops, yet the tradeoff is 4 months of waiting for arguably another year or two of performance relevance at the high end. On the other side, (non graphic intensive) indies for all purposes will not need anything more than a 1050. 1060 is the baseline for VR should you ever get that craving down the line, so I'd recommend it over a 1050Ti. The only other major trend that's coming up is new forms of memory that Intel's running (Optane), which apparently is fast enough that the Hard Drive doesn't need to use RAM - at all (RAM's just a faster temporary harddrive that's used because it wasn't cost-effective to run the entire hard drive at that speed, when only a fraction was being used at any given time). New gen of motherboards is out already, and the only updates have been at the high end of intel (i9s and above which have zero use in gaming), and Ryzen for AMD (which I haven't seen in laptops yet, and for now Intel outperforms Ryzen for gaming). RAM prices are on a spike right now due to supply issues, so you may save a bit of money by waiting for a couple months for those to come back down to normal.

If you want to play any modern games (GTA V was 2013 I guess so it doesn't really count) at respectable framesrates (45-60), you will have to invest in a 1060 or 1050Ti - both of them will cost over 900$ in laptops. Processor (a mere 2% performance increase going from i5 to i7) and SSD (only faster loading times) are not important so you can cross them off when searching. If you are looking for anything pre 2015, a GTX 940 will be sufficient. I would recommend getting a 1060 for future proofing if your budget allows!

I'll have to strongly disagree with some of your recommendations here. SSDs have tremendous impacts on gaming performance, I can knock off a slick 60FPS when XCOM2 (an asset heavy game) is running on my SSD, but it groaned to give me ~30FPS when it was temporarily on my HDD (both are part of the same laptop, so all other parameters are the same). This is consistent over other games, and SSDs also significantly improve PC boot times. The advantage of an i7 is to be honest, fairly limited on laptops, as most games depend more on the clock speed your first four cores give instead of the addition 4 i7's bring. Further, trying to get performance from from laptop CPUs is a loser's battle, expect a max of 2.8-3 GHz, which is pitiful compared to the baseline 3+ you'll get in a desktop. Still, if you can go for an i7, nothing's stopping you. As for 9XX series vs the 10XX series, you're missing a fundamentally critical piece of analysis. Outside of the 980 on the highest of the high end laptops the 9XX series never got its full processors into laptops due to size and heat constraints. The 9XX series all had 9XXM versions, and that M is extremely significant. The M, or mobile versions are cut down, so a 970m is more like a desktop 950/960. The 10XX series was a breakthrough for laptop gaming, in that the desktop cards were power and size efficient enough to be snuck on the laptop as is, with no downgrades. Ergo, a 1060 laptop is about 60% more powerful than the 970m it replaced (note that a 60 series replaced and outperformed a 70m). I'd never recommend anyone to buy a X40 series graphics card, especially now that the 1050/Ti are so reasonably priced.

I agree with the gpu. A 1060 (I rock the 3GB version myself :)) can give you 1080p Ultra 60FPS for the next two years. If you want to play anything other than GTAV, get a 1060 (or 1050). About the SSD, I don't know. I used to have one back when games were reasonably sized. I swapped it with a mechanical one and had absoultely zero performance drop. XCOM 2 again runs at 60+ Ultra on A HDD for me. Also - http://www.pcgamer.com/how-do-ssds-affect-gaming-performance/

Though XCom 2 did hitch during loading scenes (when the squad is chilling in the skybird or whatever it was called), it was completely smooth ingame. Never had any problems with open world titles either (although I only played Witcher 3 and Stalker SoC).

SSDs are useful for draw distance and pop-in, because large game worlds (e.g. Witcher 3 Novigrad/Skellige) require a lot of assets on hand, just out of the RAM. Since CDPR did an excellent job with that game you won't notice it as often as in other games, but SSDs do make a notable difference. There was a great article on the topic on how adding an SSD to consoles (XOne/PS4) gave notable performance improvements in multiple games as well, for context outside of the PC space. That performance boost, plus booting windows in 15 seconds is just way too valuable to not take a SSD over.

True. But if I was given a choice, I would rather have a 1070 + HDD than a 1060 + SSD. *shrugs* I guess it depends on what games one plays. :)

That's more because you can swap out an HDD for a SSD later in the laptop's life cycle, while GPUs and CPUs are physically locked in place (outside a few unique laptops that had replaceable GPUs, and even there the price premium is just silly).

I personally recommend ibuypower.com (cant link stuff, long story.), you can make a custom laptop to get a good idea of what you want so you can get a good idea on how much you want to spend, what specs you want, etc. This might be cutting it close when it comes to budget however.

It's good for getting a good idea of what you want and the general price your laptop might be.

Somehow I skipped the first line till now. Gaming desktop PCs are what I recommend if you're not moving around to work a lot, the modularity and ability to upgrade the system for years is formidable, and delivers FAR better value for money than a laptop (there's a hefty premium for the small size a laptop offers). That, plus heating issues (the bane of laptop gaming) are much less of a threat on PCs (they're larger, so better airflow management) and easier to clean as well (it takes disassembling everything, including my screen and MB to get to the fans in my Alienware).

From my experience, gaming desktops have lasted half a decade before feeling out of date, while the same feeling creeps in within two years for laptops (though with the new full fat laptop GPUs from the 10XX series, that may no longer be the case going forward)

He does want a lappy tho ( 4 or 5th post).

He originally wanted a real computer, he's just an impatient baby now that using a phone a couple weeks broke him.

I'd definitely get a desktop, but I don't really have a desk, and I probably will continue to not have a desk for quite some time. I don't have the time to get a really good one, nor would I have a place to put it once I had it. Considering the fact I'm going to be moving around alot, I wouldn't have access to it most of the time I'd have access to a laptop.

Pfft, a truly good computer makes you want to arrange your life around it, not the other way around.

Go for a 15' screen, avoid touchscreens, 1920x1080 is IMO the most reasonable resolution (I have 4K, but software is not optimized for it - I can't use some of my classics - and it honestly strains the eyes).