Need to buy a laptop, but I know nothing about them!

[Sjonsson]

Hello Mapcorians!

I'm gonna buy a laptop for the first time in my life as I am sickly tired of travelling with my stationary, I did it way too many times already.

I want to be able to work on it, that said, should be able to handle at the very least photoshop and UE4 running at the same time, preferably maya too.

Thing is I have no clue on what I need or what I don't need. Sure I know about games but computers, not really much at all.

How much would you need to spend to get something that can handle that? 

Pleease help, I'm entirely lost!  

Thanks!

[Zezeri]

Heya JDog

 

This thread might help you

 

Also I generally recommend this site:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/

Here it has a TOP 10 Of gaming notbooks:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Purchase-Consultation.13212.0.html

 

Apart from that, you probably want at least 8GB RAM, better would be 16 GB.

Also a fast intel quadcore (i5 or i7)

These requirements are ususally easily fulfilled by many laptops.

 

Where it gets more expensive is with the laptops that have a good GPU.

It should at least have a GTX 860M (Nvidia)

With these specs, you'll be above UE4's minimum requirements and be able to work decently. A better GPU is obviously nice.

Other things to watch out for with gaming laptops is the display quality (colors, brightness, reflections, panel), the battery life (usually very low with gaming machines), the temperature, component exchangability (battery, GPU, etc) and noise level. Also Display size is important (17,3" or 15.4")

It all depends on how much you are willing to spend. But you'll always have to make some kind of compromise with notebooks. Some are fast, but hot, others are cool, but loud and some are fast, cool and silent, but have a shitty display.

So I recommend reading tests in any case.

Regarding price, I'd expect that you'll end up paying something between 1k and 2k euros.

EDIT:
Concrete recommendations:

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-Edition-VN7-791G-7939-17-3-Inch/dp/B00NJNFVO0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1421186815&sr=8-2&keywords=acer+aspire+17
1200 Euros (be sure to not get the -759Q version, but newer versions like the 791G tho, I heard the -759 Q has problems with Wifi or sth)

 

o alright perfomance (GTX 860M, 16GB RAM, i7 Quadcore)

 

+light weight

+cool

+silent

 

-component exchangability not good

 

http://www.amazon.com/MSI-GT70-DOMINATOR-2293-9S7-1763A2-2293-17-3-Inch/dp/B00O4ORQ3C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1421187058&sr=8-2&keywords=MSI+GT70

1600 Euros

 

+very nice perfomance (GTX970M, 8GB RAM, i7 Quadcore)

+component exchangability good

 

-loud

-only 8GB RAM (there might be a version with 16GB tho, havent looked)

Edited January 13, 2015 by Zezeri

[blackdog]

Usually laptops let you upgrade the RAM and quite easily... it's just that if you spend above 1000K you should be able to get what you want.

From my research, price-wise, 15" or 17" don't make any difference... unless you need it only for mobility I'd go with the 17".

If you can afford them, the Aorus seem to be the Macbooks of the PC: beautiful design, thin, powerful... on their website they seem to pack a great cooling solution, just wonder if they are noisy.

I can tell you that mine (see linked topic) is not noisy at all, actually while gaming fans are less noisy than my 2008 Macbook while on youtube.

[Sjonsson]

Thanks a lot from your answers, I'm now compiling a "Laptop Recipe" from your answers, gonna read through that thread!

Gonna post here if I figure some questions or find something I might buy, need some advice with some weight behind!