I'm buying my first gaming laptop and.....

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My decision making skills are letting me down big time. A pre-emptive thanks for anyone's input.

A few months ago I was given a laptop from my place of work to do the usual boring work things with it. Bearing in mind I've not owned a pc for 7 years.

This laptop has given me the spark to get myself a decent rig except this time I've got 2 big life burdens (AKA children) that have selfishly taken my wonderful mancave so a desktop rig is a no go.

With my amazing 2 hours of googling skills I've found this:

** Do Not link to competitors please **

To the mod: Apologies, I will not post any links.


I've found this one for under £1200:
  • GeForce GTX 1050Ti Graphics card
  • 17.3 Inch Screen
  • Intel Core i7 7700HQ Processor
  • 16 GB RAM
  • 1TB Hard Drive + 256GB SSD
  • 1920 x 1080 Full HD Screen
  • Windows 10 Operating System
  • 2 years warranty
That one seems ok to my laymens eye. It's also my whole budget

So I'm here to ask the people of this forum to guide me with your wisdom on selecting a gaming laptop with a budget of £1200. Or let me put it to you this way, if you had 1200 schmeckles to blow on a laptop, which would you buy?
 
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Soldato
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Keep checking the dell outlet, for that sort of price you can comfortably pick up a Alienware with GTX1060 and potentially even a 1070. Just had a look and you can get an Alienware 15 with a 1060. Is a 17” a requirement?
 
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£1200 and only a GTX 1050ti? that's not worth it.
For that price, you could get a 1060 - this can be had for £1100 if you shop around
 
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@Muddy Funkster go to the dell website, find the black friday doorbuster deal for the dell 7000 gaming.
£699 or £1099, your choice. i'd suggest the £1099 one, as that'll last you longer (specs-wise) #jobdone
 
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Personally I'd say if you plan on doing any gaming at all go for the best GPU you can even if that means making sacrifices on the CPU side - with laptops these days the GPU becomes obsolete far before the CPU and is often non-trivial in terms of upgradability.
 
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@Muddy Funkster i'm not advocating that you spend more than you can afford, but if you could stretch that little bit more, then consider the lenovo y910. for £1299, you get a 17 inch laptop with a GTX 1070.
you can find this on the lenovo website.
 
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@Rroff - Yeah, future proofing with the budget I have is the way to go that's for sure. With my budget it'll have to be a 1060 minimum.

@tamzzy - That's £99 over budget but the monthly repayments only go from £40 to £43 so it's a very negligible increase. I got approved for a £4500 limit credit card but if I like the place where my testicles are then I better not spend £4500 on a laptop or at least not tell my better half. I'll check that lenovo out.
 
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@Muddy Funkster i'm not advocating that you spend more than you can afford, but if you could stretch that little bit more, then consider the lenovo y910. for £1299, you get a 17 inch laptop with a GTX 1070.
you can find this on the lenovo website.

This. Mech keyboard, 1070, overclockable i7, pcie ssd, ips display, and g-sync for £1,299 is unbeatable.
 
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This. Mech keyboard, 1070, overclockable i7, pcie ssd, ips display, and g-sync for £1,299 is unbeatable.

@tamzzy and @MiSJAH

It's done, I've just bought it. It should arrive this Tuesday....

Ooh boy, never spent that much on a piece of tech before, £43.33 a month for the next 30 months, not too bad actually, I've still got 20 years left on my mortgage for some perspective.

I've actually been looking for a laptop for a couple of weeks now, I simply couldn't make a decision on anything, very frustrating and I was very close to choosing any old crap to be done with it. Certainly dodged a bullet I feel. Thanks very much tamzzy and MiSJAH I really appreciate your help.

And thanks to everyone else for the input.

Now if you'd excuse me I'm going for a stiff drink of vodka to drink to the lack of buyers remorse :D
 
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That Ideapad Y910 is a great deal as long as you don't want VR support, apparently the hdmi routes thru to the Intel GPU
 
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That Ideapad Y910 is a great deal as long as you don't want VR support, apparently the hdmi routes thru to the Intel GPU

They seem to mention it specifically in their piece about VR. Are you sure it doesn't work?

http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/virtual-reality-gaming-gets-real-with-lenovo-pcs

The best part is we have a whole portfolio of VR-ready gaming PCs. Having a PC with a streamlined, space-saving chassis can be a huge asset when moving your rig between rooms or transporting it. This need led us to craft many of our newest PCs – including the IdeaCentre Y700 with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970, IdeaCentre Y710 Cube with GeForce GTX 1070 and comfortable carrying handle, IdeaCentre AIO 910 with GeForce GTX 1070, and IdeaPad Y910 with GeForce GTX 1070 - for quick and easy mobility and setup anywhere around the house and beyond.
 
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Update:

It arrived Thursday and it was glorious!.....

But it's going back :(

There's a fault with the 1070 card and now it won't even display anything. Even the motherboards built in display card had horizontal lines across the screen that wouldn't go. I'm super wounded about it. The Lenovo support center has your 9-5/mon-fri opening hours so I'v got a £1300 paperweight until I can contact them Monday.

I'v forgotten how much of head ache owning a pc can be when something goes wrong. Ah well..... first world problems I guess
 
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