Looking for new laptop

[Navy4422]

Hi all,

I'm looking for a laptop for this coming year mostly for college but also for some fun during breaks and I'm still undecided

The best contenders that I have founds so far are:

The new Dell XPS 15-
i5-3210m (2.5ghz),1 gb gt630m, 500gb 7200rpm hdd + 32gb msata SSD, 6gb 1600mhz ram ( i will up it to 8 on my own), 15.6 in 1080p screen, backlit normal keyboard

Price 1299$

Sony Vaio S15-

i5-3210m (2.5ghz), 2gb gt640m le, 500gb 7200rpm hdd, 4gb 1333mhz ram ( i will up it to 12 on my own), 15.5 in 1080p screen, backlit normal keyboard with num pad, and sheet battery

Price 1099$

Which of these two would be better in your opinion?

If you want to through in another laptop with similar specs feel free ( one condition I will not buy an Asus due to many many issues with their products and support)


Reasons for the specs

I don't need the i7 for my laptop my desktop would be used for such tasks and the i5 is less power hungry from what I understand

I want to be able to play some games when not around my desktop like on school breaks.

I might up to an SSD later so hdd stays at default.

What is your budget?
1500

What country will you be buying this in?
USA

What size notebook do you prefer?
Mainstream (15 - 16-inch screen)

Would you consider a refurbished laptop?
Yes

What are the primary tasks you need this notebook for?
Classes, AutoCAD, Flow simulations, Some Games

What games will you be playing?
Battlefield 3, KSP, Minecraft, TF2, Skyrim, etc.

Where will you be using this laptop?
Classes or on my desk

How many hours of battery life do you need?
4 or more but around 7 while web browsing would be awesome

Will you be buying online or in store?
Online

Which OS do you prefer?
Windows 7

List the screen resolutions that interest you:
Full HD (1920 x 1080)

Do you prefer a glossy or matte screen?
Glossy

Is the laptops design important to you?
Yes (big on temp)

Approximately what date will you be buying this laptop?
Around 08/10/2012

How long do you want this laptop to last?
2-4 years

How much storage capacity do you need?
500 GB

Are you interested in SSD for storage?
Maybe

Do you want a built-in optical drive, what type?
DVD

[Androyed]

The Sony Vaio, without a doubt. The XPS 15 is way overpriced. The GT 640M LE has slightly less performance than the GT 650M DDR3. That should give you enough power for playing the more demanding games like BF3 at medium settings. There are other, maybe even cheaper laptops with the GT 650M GDDR5, which is a better card than the DDR3 versions. You could even go for the Lenovo Y580, which has the GTX 660M and incredible performance for the price.

As for performance, both the Sony Vaio and XPS 15 are overpriced, so unless you have other reasons to buy those, I would look at other laptops. Best performance/price ratio is the Lenovo Y580 at the moment. The GTX 660M is a good deal better than the GT 640M LE, and certainly a lot better than the GT 630M.

[Navy4422]

I did look at the y580 only two issues its battery life and weight really killed it in my opinion ( also I don't think it had an i5 option, the reason for the i5 is several programs I use are cpu intensive but wouldn't benefit from more core but they will benifit from the higher clock speed) but thank you for the suggestions I'll take another look at it. I have a desktop for most of my gaming needs so this is just a back up and looking it up the gt 640m is close to my current gtx 460m so thats good enough for me.