New laptop, advice needed :D

[Da Viksta]

Hey Guys

I'm in the market for a new laptop for university [studying medicine next year at oxford so I'll likely be writing a lot of essays, so a good keyboard is somewhat essentiall, but I also want to game at reasonable settings. Because I won't be able to take my heavy desktop along, I will need this laptop to fill in the void left by my lack of a desktop with respect to gaming, but I'm not looking to max crysis out or anything - the games I play predominantly are CoD MW2 and Starcraft II.

My budget is a maximum of £1000, I may be able to sneak a little bit past, and I don't really want to go over 15" screen size...

I looked at the Acer Timeline X 4820TG, but the keyboard quality was dubious at best, even though the rest of the specs matched up [I'd personally have preferred a higher res....]
The HP Envy 14 is at the end of my budget, but it seems like a bit of a ripoff compared to what you yanks get in the USA....
And the Alienware M11x was also on my list but I'm worried about typing essays on the teeny tiny keyboard on it....
The MSI GT640 is now only a grand, and it seems ideal save for the battery and the miserable keyboard....

Any ideas? [yes, im picky....]

 

[MindoverMaster]

Brand for brand, HP is a p.o.c.

I personally would go for an ASUS or Alienware M11x. On the alienware, yes, it is quite small.

As you are going to use it for college, I would suggest a Lenovo. They have excellent battery life and have adequate graphics. I'm sure some will suggest Dell, but most are a little overpriced.

 

[Yami]

Indeed, a Lenovo is a great idea. Not the lookers, but probably the most reliable of any laptop brand.
I've been looking through various sites, the MSI GT640 does seem the best at the £1,000 price-range. However if it's for uni or anything like that, I wouldn't get it, or any other gaming laptop for that matter. Battery life is much more important, and gaming laptops generally aren't renowned for battery life.

One common suggestion is, get something small like an 12-13" netbook or ultraportable - I can recommend several - and spend the remaining £500-700 on a decent desktop (you could get an i5 - and a GPU much better than any laptop's - with that budget).
I use my my netbook (11.6") daily, and for the past year for all my A-level work (including in lessons) and I've had no problem with the keyboard - I've been happy with it from the get-go.

 

[Da Viksta]

Sadly I haven't found many with the graphical inclination to run my games very well, any that do are grossly overbudget

I can't really take a desktop with me as I will be taking the train to uni and back, and I have to vacate my accommmodation every term end, so it will be a bit much to take a desktop with me to and fro on the small cramped 4 hour train journey to and fro, especially as I have to swap trains as well.... Plus I already have a desktop that can max all my games out without breaking a sweat

I was considering an ultraportable, but like I said, most have pretty poor graphics except the vaio Z series, and thats prohibitivelly expensive..... I can't afford 1600 quid for it I am leaning currently towards the timeline X, as my sister is getting the 3820TG, if I like the keyboard on that, I may well get the 14" one with the ATI 5650 and get the best of both worlds...

 

[MindoverMaster]

That should be best. Does your university have any discounts on laptops?

 

[Da Viksta]

Sadly not as far as I can tell