Need some laptop buying advice

[sammyDAbull]

Salvete everyone, I've been looking for a new laptop for college, starting this september. So I need something sturdy and reliable for schoolwork but... I also just bought Empire and Napoleon and would like to be able to play them as well. I've looked at some computers so far and some stuff on this site but I could use a little more help. I just want to know what kind of specs would be good for running these games on medium settings, maybe with a couple options on high, without slowness and sluggishness. Also, I only have probably up to eight hundred dollars or so to spend (have to buy microsoft office too). Any advice would be much appreciated as I know next to nothing about computers. Valete!

[karamazovmm]

I would advise going for the x220 and egpu combo.

You can grab a x220 for that budget that you have and save some 300 latter, so that you have the same performance of a good entry range gaming notebook, like any notebook using the 6870m or the gtx 560m, and have the portability and durability of a thinkpad. BTW the battery life on this thing is nothing short of amazing, it gets roughly 10-12h on the 9cell battery, and when you add the slice you get a whole 24h of battery, productivity on a flight around the world!

However you might want to have the gaming on the go, you can go for the lenovo e320 (recently launched), the model you are looking for packs the 6630m.
or go for the lenovo y470, the problem here is that I graded the construction quality (x220>>e320>>>e320)

the problematic part is always the budget, to have a notebook for gaming and that is still portable is one difficult thing, try to take a m18x to college.

[sammyDAbull]

Thanks for the reply. I'm not concerned overmuch about the portability of any laptop, they're all small enough for me. I looked at the x220 you were talking about, that might be a little exspensive at the moment. I think we found an hp with an i7 core for only 899. Could you give me links to the lenovos. Thanks

[karamazovmm]

portability is the crucial factor when going to college, you carry more than the notebook, there are at least 2 books with everywhere you go, that is when you are not drinking.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/notebooks/.../y-series/y470

the e320 is only really available (at least with the 6630m) in asia right now.

depends what gpu is in that hp, which model is it?

[sammyDAbull]

Thanks for the link, and i think it's like the dv6 or dv7 model, not sure, I think my mom found it, we've both been looking at computers

[karamazovmm]

yeah I thought as much, that is a good notebook. be sure to get one with the new sandy bridge processors (for example: i7 2630qm) notice the 2 means second gen, and the qm means quad core mobile. and to get one with the 6770m, since that is one good gpu