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Consider the Toshiba Qosmio 870 It's a powerhouse of a laptop, especially for $1500.00. The only down side of the laptop is it weighs in at 14 pounds. You mentioned "for college" so you might want something lighter for better portability.

The Asus gaming laptops are really nice. This one is a 17", but it probably comes in a 15" flavor too:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230592

With your remaining budget, I would recommend one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148444

Or you can get a 256GB for much cheaper if you don't require a ton of space.

Every laptop in existence will be slow until it has a SSD installed. :)

The problem with built in SSDs is that they are almost always pretty crappy compared to buying one after market. I don't know of any of the major laptop builders selling consumer laptops with high end SSDs (business line laptops are a different story).

Also do you want super mobile (around 13") or a desktop replacement (17")?

I'd rather the SSD be built in than have to buy it seperately.

Don't really want the ASUS gaming laptop. 17" is too big.

Maybe a more mainstream laptop that can do gaming on the side?

Now i don't know how good this laptop handles Fifa and Dirt, but i can run StarCraft II, Far Cry, EVE Online, Dear Esther + many more games on it though. Ofc the graphic settings wont be on high or higher on most games. Most games are running on Low or Medium graphic settings. On some games like StarCraft II, i can run most graphic settings on High / Ultra except for the Shader that have to be on Low.

Other than that, this laptop is insanly good: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834131383

I have this laptop my self except that my version only have 128 GB SSD and mine came with Windows 7 Home Premium (upgraded to Windows 8 later). And it's crazy fast and it's very light to be a 15 inch screen on it. It weights only 1.65 kg and it's only 1.49 cm thick.

So this laptop can easily be taken with you everywhere.

If you want, i can give you some performance scores of the CPU, SSD and the RAM.

So would this laptop be any good choice for you?

EDIT: Forgot to mention that Samsung have used the front to most of the screen. It have so thin sides around the screen, so that means that the laptop case size isn't bigger than a normal laptop with a 14 inch screen

Those two games run fine at 1080p with max settings even on my 6750m (see my signature) and my laptop took only 600 euro from me about a year ago., something that I'm sure that will be very future proof is this laptop : http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009P2EQWW/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE check the specs (specially the 7970m that it has)

Those two games run fine at 1080p with max settings even on my 6750m (see my signature) and my laptop took only 600 euro from me about a year ago., something that I'm sure that will be very future proof is this laptop : http://www.amazon.co...=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE check the specs (specially the 7970m that it has)

That laptop weights 6 kg lol. So i think that laptop is out of his choices since he said that he didn't want that heavy laptops earlier.

Since i can't edit my posts here now, then i'm also gonna add this review of the Samsung 9-series NP900X4C laptop here: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=6527&review=samsung+series+9+np900x4c

I like the Samsung line of notebook's. They're probably the best non-hybrid laptop's out there.

Any idea when the new line will be launching? http://www.anandtech.com/show/6640/hands-on-with-samsungs-2013-notebook-lineup

And what is a good hybrid laptop out there?

Now i don't know how good this laptop handles Fifa and Dirt, but i can run StarCraft II, Far Cry, EVE Online, Dear Esther + many more games on it though. Ofc the graphic settings wont be on high or higher on most games. Most games are running on Low or Medium graphic settings. On some games like StarCraft II, i can run most graphic settings on High / Ultra except for the Shader that have to be on Low.

Other than that, this laptop is insanly good: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834131383

I have this laptop my self except that my version only have 128 GB SSD and mine came with Windows 7 Home Premium (upgraded to Windows 8 later). And it's crazy fast and it's very light to be a 15 inch screen on it. It weights only 1.65 kg and it's only 1.49 cm thick.

So this laptop can easily be taken with you everywhere.

If you want, i can give you some performance scores of the CPU, SSD and the RAM.

So would this laptop be any good choice for you?

EDIT: Forgot to mention that Samsung have used the front to most of the screen. It have so thin sides around the screen, so that means that the laptop case size isn't bigger than a normal laptop with a 14 inch screen

Ultrabooks are great, but I'd recommend a laptop with real GPU power, and not integrated graphics. I forgot how much I hated Intel integrated graphics - I just got a cheap laptop with the HD 4000, other than playing HD videos, and some games at low quality, don't expect very much from the Intel's integrated GPU.

Ultrabooks are great, but I'd recommend a laptop with real GPU power, and not integrated graphics. I forgot how much I hated Intel integrated graphics - I just got a cheap laptop with the HD 4000, other than playing HD videos, and some games at low quality, don't expect very much from the Intel's integrated GPU.

Yes. I very much want real GPU power. So, which do you recommend?

For the price point why not get a cheaper laptop just for the schoolwork, and a nice gaming rig as well? Your 'gaming' laptops go out of date as fast as any other computer, but are nigh impossible to upgrade in 2-3 years like a desktop. In fact you could make a gaming rig for about 1k (splurge pricing really) and set aside 500 for 2 years from now to upgrade it. Leaves you 500 for a decent enough laptop.

I say this because when I went to college fall 05 I too wanted a gaming laptop, we splurged, got a dell XPS laptop (think slightly cheaper alienware) and it was great for about 2-3 years depending on the games, but then the video card burned out on it (heat was a real pain on the xps laptops at the time) and I'm stuck with a chunk of aluminum and plastic. I wish I had gotten a laptop that was actually portable, and a desktop I could have upgraded at will/replaced parts on as needed.

I'd rather the SSD be built in than have to buy it seperately.

Don't really want the ASUS gaming laptop. 17" is too big.

Maybe a more mainstream laptop that can do gaming on the side?

Buying a SSD separately is much much cheaper and you can actually pick the one you want. The add-on thru the manufacturer will cost a lot and could be a crappy cheapo one. Plus by buying it yourself, it forces you to put on a fresh install of Windows, which is always a really really good idea when buying a computer.

Asus is mainstream, so you'd be fine with them. Here's the 15" flavor:

http://usa.asus.com/...#specifications

http://www.amazon.co...k/dp/B007Z9WWDW

Also, check out the Lenovo Y580:

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:category.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC01C087&current-category-id=AC523278A4F13F27A84F5F5622D1AC7A&action=init

That one might actually be cheaper than the Asus with basically the same specs.

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