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Is there a 13"-15" laptop that will play TES:O for around $700?
seeyouspacec0wboy
Member UncommonPosts: 714
in Hardware
Looking for a friend but not sure what a good deal is. Just looking for some quick links and suggestions while I do my own searching. Thanks! 13" is preferred 
Originally posted by Scagweed22
is it the graphics? the repetativenesses? i mean what is the point? you could be so much more productive in real life
Real life brings repetition and pointlessness too. The only thing real life offers is Great graphics. Its kinda expensive too and way to dependent on the cash shop. Totally pay to win as well. No thank you. Ill stick to my games.
Comments
Laptops aren't designed for gaming.
How ever, Alien Ware do "gaming laptops" cost more though.
Originally posted by Scagweed22
is it the graphics? the repetativenesses? i mean what is the point? you could be so much more productive in real life
Real life brings repetition and pointlessness too. The only thing real life offers is Great graphics. Its kinda expensive too and way to dependent on the cash shop. Totally pay to win as well. No thank you. Ill stick to my games.
you'll hardly find a 13'' laptop with performances good enough to run any of the new games...
15'' laptop with capabilities of gaming with medium settings is usually possible but I doubt you'll find it for around 700$... most laptops I found with good hardware were 950$ and above
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
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+1
Yeah I can only say Alien ware here. Not many companies around that make gaming laptops in the UK. I made the mistake buying a laptop around 5 years ago. I am unable to upgrade and that is the issue with laptops. All I can recommend is a PC custom built. If you know any one who can build them I would. I built mine for £700 pounds, yes it may be bit more in $ Dollars but it can be upgraded and last good few years.
Keep searching though, you'll find what you're after, and good luck
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B7JE6FS/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I play Battlefield 3 with this at full graphics and it's smooth. I play Path of Exile with the same smoothness. Borderlands 2, The Witcher 2, League of Legends, and the list goes on.
You're going to have to decide what your priorities are. The only 13" or smaller laptop that is more or less viable for gaming that has ever been released is the Clevo W110ER, which now seems to be discontinued and I'm not sure if Clevo is going to release a successor. But it was out of your budget, anyway.
On a $700 budget, you can't get a discrete card that is meaningfully faster than modern integrated graphics without making some severe sacrifices elsewhere. So you might as well just go with integrated graphics, and this might be the best that you're going to get:
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/cto.do#anchor-top
Make sure that you get an A10-5750M and 8 GB of memory. A 1080p monitor only costs $40 extra, so I'd grab that, too. It's only 4.68 pounds, which is very light for any 15" laptop, let alone one that is more or less viable for gaming.
If you are getting it for TES:O, you should really wait until it gets closer to release. When we know more about how the game plays its easier to make an informed decision on the right hardware to target it. Also any laptop under $700 is going to be on an integrated chip. The main reason to wait is because by the time TES:O releases, we will be close to the release of another generation of AMD chips.
Either you're trying to crank maximum detail settings out of it and you're judging it based on what a desktop should do, or you didn't get a gaming graphics processor. If you didn't buy the right laptop for gaming, that's an honest mistake which is easily explained by a lack of computer knowledge. If you did buy a gaming laptop and are cursing it for not playing games at maximum detail settings, I feel bad for your misled expectations of the system. My guess is you are running on Intel's integrated graphics and what you bought is really an overpriced "ultrabook" with a hybrid SSD hard drive.
OP: If you want a gaming laptop on a budget, AMD's A-core systems are probably the best you'll find. If you have more to spend, a discrete nVidia or ATI card will outperform the A-core and deliver a solid gaming experience.
I'll also second the advice to wait until the game is nearly released. Better technology might be available and you'll have a better idea of what you need to run the game.
I play on an Asus G75vx - payed less than $1k for it. It's the 17inch model - I bet you can get the 15inch model for around $700 - try to find one with a gtx670mx in it. Great card written with the new architecture and won't bust your wallet. I play bf3, gw2, skyrim,...... you name it, its playable at high settings. The exception is like lets say ps2 and there are a couple hundred people in the vicinity it can get a little sticky at times, but those occasions are far and few.
Asus is pleasantly quiet too unlike pretty much any other laptop - they have some kind of patented super cooling that beats any air cooled laptop hands down, I can barely hear my fans run. This is also because im using a gtx670mx instead a hotter gtx675mx or gtx680m
Good luck my friend.
That's a good point. Kaveri is coming late this year, and should handily destroy anything you can get today on a $700 budget. A lot depends on when you need the laptop.
If you have ideas about playing games on it, an Ultrabook is pretty much the worst thing you can get.
Dell does offer a version with a discrete graphics card, but it's the dumbest hardware configuration that I've seen in a while. You pay extra for a ULV version of a processor to save power even though it means that you don't get that much CPU performance, and then you pair it with a power hog of a Fermi video card.
Poor misguided laptop gamer.
It always makes me chuckle to see laptop gamers, with an external keyboard and mouse hooked up, with the laptop on a cooling pad with 18 fans blowing at max, tethered to the wall - and giggling because once in blue moon they can take it to the couch, set it up on a stainless steel lap pad (for fear of going sterile because of heat rejection to their crotch) and play hunched over trying to use the built-in trackpad. But otherwise, 99.8% of the time, could have used a desktop for the same purpose, spend half as much, have half as much noise, have some upgradeability, and generally much better reliability.
There are some legitimate people who can use a "gaming" laptop. There are not very many. They are expensive, hot, and fairly impractical all the way around. If you need one, you need it and there is no getting around it, but if you can at all avoid it, you would be very well served to avoid it.
my $1600 laptop can max any game i throw at it...so you might be able to find a decent one for around $1k not sure about $700
Check out sagers
Mythlogic.com
You must of had some bad experiences with laptops. I literally have never had any of the issue you are speaking of. I run everything I play at the highest settings and my fans don't even need to come on. I don't use an external keyboaard, but I do use a regular mouse. I'm a disabled veteran, and sitting in a sit for longer then 10 mins gives me extreme pain. So, I can only game on a bed or couch. I never understand when someone asks something about a laptop, and there immediate answer is "get a desktop because blah blah blah". Lol, he's aware, but wants a laptop.
We don't yet know what TESO requirements will be but just for general knowledge, the laptop I got from work, an hp elite blah blah, i5, 4gb ddr, intel hd 4000, can run games like gw2 / borderlands 1 / eve online / defiance / torchlight II very smooth at natural resolution 1600x900 and for diablo 3 / borderlands 2 and modded skyrim i have to lower the resolution to 1360x768 or something like that.
So I'm quite sure that if you are ready to give up on some visual cuteness, you'll be fine.
I do not recommend to use it as your main gaming rig, though, I only use it once a week for 4-6 hours for gaming and I can't wait to get home and play games "normally"
Edited: I checked for laptops with semi-normal specs that should be able to run most modern mmos at low settings and are 13.3 and the one I liked the most was Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E330. Not sure if it's available in your country by the same model name but the specs I'm looking at are:
Intel® Core i5 3230M Processor, 2.6GHz - 3.2GHz, 3MB Cache,1066MHz FSB
16GB SSD cache + 750 GB 7200Rpm
13.3'' HD (1366x768) Anti-Glare, LED Backlight, 16:9 Aspect Ratio
Intel® HD Graphics 4000
If you can find a retailer who sells it without an OS (freeDOS or Ubuntu usually), it's even better.
I realize that it isn't a "gaming" laptop but such specs are probably the best you can get for around 700$. Moreover, with intel hd 4000 and 13.3 screen, I would actually recommend to specifically look only at 1366(0)x768 resolution laptops and not higher, to get better fps on that small screen of yours.
Cheers.
"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."
Hans Margolius
Fine then, wise guy. What are the specs on your laptop?
Even if you need to play on a bed or couch, if it's consistently in the same spot, you're probably better off with a desktop next to the couch and a monitor stand.
You may have a very legitimate reason for using a laptop to game with. But I highly doubt it beats " most " peoples desktops.
I would be very interested for you to list your Model # and laptop specs. Otherwise I will just consider you as someone blowing smoke trying to justify paying 2x more for a " gaming" laptop.
Its cool if you need one, and it sounds like you very well may. But there is a reason almost everyone here suggests alternatives to buying a laptop for gaming. The heat, noise, lack of upgrade paths, shorter life span and other inherent problems with gaming laptops.
For most people the novelty of being able to sit on the couch with laptop on the lap and game wears off after the first couple of days. Then its sitting on a desk being played. in which case they could have saved $100s or more and just gotten a desktop.
I personally have a laptop I use mainly for work, I travel 2-4 days a week almost every week. I paid around $700 and can play many games at med. settings. Batman AA/AC, Skyrim, Falout 3 / NV, Diablo 3, PoE, Rift, ect are all very playable. Some better than others granted, but all can be played for a few hours a night in a hotel.
To the OP I would suggest going that route if you need portable gaming. If you dont really need portable gaming then stick with a desktop for gaming and a cheap laptop for your other needs.
I have a Laptop with an i7 3630qm, Radeon 7970M and 8 GB of ram and it runs games way better than my PC (obviously, because it only has a Radeon 5770). It was around 1200 Euro
The point is... It doesn't need a cooling pad even if I benchmark the hell out of it both GPU and CPU. Hot air blows through the back, but the bottom stays marginal and the keyboard never reached 30°C. The internals go for a nice 70°C and never actually grow hotter. The heat shielding is just awesome on this machine.
It's a Clevo Laptop, a 15 inch large one (sold as Sager for example in the USA. Bought it as Schenker (www.mysn.de) in Germany)
I travel to the USA every year and take my gaming with me. Every weekend I'm at my girlfriends house and - take my gaming with me, because she games with me. Taking the tower would be horrible.
It runs every game I throw at it on it's 1080p 15" screen, full resolution, full details.
Since it's a modular piece I can actually upgrade the GPU (some mobile PCIe sort) but not the CPU (that one is soldered, sadly, but that's why I took a good quad core CPU).
It was SO worth it, even though I could've gotten an equivalent PC for much less.
I just found this one on a german site in 15": http://www.notebooksbilliger.de/lenovo+ideapad+z500+mbypage+notebook Lenovo IdeaPad z500 for 570 €. It has no OS, an i5, a GeForce 645m with 2gb of dedicated ram (not sure if ddr or gddr), 8 GB ram and a TB of hdd... 13.3" are much more expensive if you want to game a little. It also has the Intel HD Graphics 4000 and runs the 645M in NVidia Optimus.