Laptop $600-1000 Range

My friend is in the market for a new laptop and he's looking in the 600-1000 range. Basically wants to be able to game with it and have it last a decent amount of time.

Any recommendations?

I was looking at this for 800

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834246324

but then I saw (Even though it's refurbed, for only 200 more wtf)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834152314

Anyone ever got a refurbed laptop before and is Newegg reliable with something like that? (Also, for the specs is it worth the price).


Any other recommendations are welcome. Looking for quad core, but if there's a decent i3 or i5 that will play current games, can look at those, too

Edit:
lol nvm out of stock guess those sold quick

links are broken.

any of these should do:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=32&Description=&Type=&N=100006740&IsNodeId=1&IsPowerSearch=1&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=1000&Manufactory=1315&PropertyCodeValue=2923%3A18470

sorry, now with i7 filter:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?bop=And&Submit=Property&N=100006740%2050001315%20600003982&IsNodeId=1&Manufactory=1315&PropertyCodeValue=2923%3a18470&maxPrice=1000

Doesn't matter since its out of stock now, but this is what there was for 1grand :/

I have personally an HP envy 17, thing gets way too hot.

GF has an Asus, with faster cpu and more video ram and runs cool as hell. (15.6" screen compared to my 17.3" though, but it shouldn't make that much difference).

oh that's not bad, MSI is supposed to be good but I can't say from personal experience as I've never had the pleasure.

edit: I'd look at the reviews, the negative reviews for each one you're looking at, and see for yourself what other people had issues with. Most of it is incompetence but the rest is what the issues are, which then you can see if you can deal with it. Almost everything has a downside to it due to personal preference.

I do all my gadget shopping this way, or nearly most, when I have a lot of options.

I have a refurbished asus k53ta-bbr6 i got from newegg and it's wonderful. it really does run cool, then only time it ever get's hot is if the vent ever gets blocked. the rest of the time i can rest my hands on it for unlimited amounts of time without ever breaking a sweat and the temps stay between 50-60C

Yea, the computer I have now is MSI. It's served me pretty well, some problems with it now but sending that in for warranty and it's been like 3 years since I've gotten it, so can't complain.

I've had an HP before, my first laptop, and my friend got an HP around the same time. Both of ours came to the point where it overheated itself to death and before that I had to replace the screen due to it slowly dying out (vertical colored lines randomly throughout the screen)

Anything Asus is aces in my book. Customer support is pretty good, and the quality and longevity of their products has always been top notch for me. MSI would be my second choice.

The most top of the line notebooks in my opinion though are Sagers.
http://www.sagernotebook.com/Gaming_Special_Intel.html

Always avoid: Acer, Alienware, Gateway.
(And I say Alienware because they are owned by Dell now which means they just put a pretty case and neon color lights on a typical Dell machine and mark up the price three million dollars for no reason.)

Alienware are just dell, I worked on a friend's gateway netbook awhile back, was rather sturdy and nice I guess for a netbook, but I wouldn't trust them for a performance machine.

Acer are just trash.

edit: beaten

It's sad Alienware sold out like that. They had something really freaking special and then screwed the pooch real real bad.

In Acer's defense.. they make amazing monitors.... but REALLY crappy laptops lol.

make sure the video card is not intel HD, so u can play ffxi and other games

well... you could probably play xi just fine on integrated, anything else, not so much unless it's old

I actually lol'd.... If it's not ATI or Nvidia it's a waste of cash... I can't believe they even HAVE integrated video still with the exception of tiny netbooks ect...

intel HD chipsets is more than enough to handle ffxi...i have a lesser laptop that i take with me for work to play the game on and it runs it just fine..

If anything dont get an I3 if you are looking for a performance machine. The world has seen its days of dual cores...[even though it has hyper threading in both cores..those 2 extra cores that show up within the operating system are virtual and cant handle as much workload as 2 physical cores. If you ask me the intel chipset computers are way too over priced if you ask me. Frankly i dont see what so great about them..unless you like super hot computers. I would recomend going with one of the phenom II amd processors, of course a quad core which usually has hyper threading in them now a days. Not only from personal testing and experience do these things run wayyy cooler than the intel chipset with the same specs..they are usually clocked higher. That aside lets talk ram. I have seen people go crazy with this...well unless you are going to go crazy..4-6 gigs worth is more than enough for what you will be using it for. I mean come on..i am able to run the witcher enhanced edition (pc version) on 4 full fps without any lag...Now on to graphic card (i am assuming you are buying a retail edition where you dont get to customize your motherboard so i wont get into that MB too much.) This is where things get real...real quick. Graphic card really is entirely based on personal opinion. Lol it also depend on what you are going to do with it. For me..i look for something i can possible overclock..how many pipelines etc. However if your for a gaming rig you can stick with the latest version of intel or ati cards...obviously you look at the specs to see if it is enough for what you are going to be playing..and then get one like 2 series above it if its not the latest..in order to ensure long use. With all that said..a good bang for your buck would be http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1753822&Sku=A50-156115&cm_re=Homepage-_-Spot%2001a-_-CatId_17_A50-156115

have a looksy...Something like this would handle your basic ffxi in hi res no problem. Though i am not a fan of this graphic card (i hate all M series really)...you would be able to play something like counter strike smoothly and with no probs. But you could always try to find a similar unit with an even better graphics card...(havent had too much time to look through all of them.)

I don't think he stated that his friend wants to play XI... he just said gaming in general which would probably mean integrated is out... but seriously... if your spending 500-600$ on an integrated your just wasting money. Save an extra 300$ or 1/3 and get something NICE that will last awhile and do whatever you want.

If you want to buy a laptop just for XI you can probably get one for like... $300 or cheaper?

lol yea it def needs to be a dedicated card

Also, he's looking to play 14

well laptop..for gaming...I'm sorry...i don't quiet understand the question....

yes..i am one of those ppl...Desktops all the way lol..

either..way...earlier comment edited with better insight i suppose..

Anyone heard anything about Tegra tech store? They're selling the MSI I was looking at from newegg earlier, also refurb, for the same price.

Integrated nvidia or ati .. that's what i mean, but ffxi runs slow/not good on any intel hd video card. That have been proven in several threads on this website, I also used to have intel hd as gpu on my laptop, doesn't perform decently @ abyssea and jeuno .etc. Can't play ff14 with intel hd

Shameless self bump :(

I know you're in florida Tiger, but I found a real nice laptop out here on Craigslist for 280.00. Only 6mos old, 6gig ram, 80G HD, GForce nividia graphics, windows 7. Runs the game perfectly. Btw, it's a HP.

that doesn't sound really great.....

>o

Never said it was, but it was only 280.00 and does run the game perfectly

you do know just because it says nvidia on it, doesn't mean it will run ff14 right? ....................

Everytime I hear laptop gaming, I get chills and want to say, "ewww" :P

I've been playing ffxi and other games on laptops for years and anyone who's ever watched my video's has always given me rave reviews and never said anything negative. These aren't the lap tops of the 90's

I got a refurbished i5 gaming laptop from them last year. I have been quite pleased with it.

I like their refurb and open box discounts.

Yeah, really the only thing with any laptop is keeping it cool. Cooling fans aren't an option. I have a really nice cooling pad with 8 USB ports, 2 extremely powerful fans, adjustable speeds and real cool light dispay.