What is the best bang/buck laptop brand?

[fur]

I'm just curious as to what brands have the best prices for the highest performance. I've found brands like iBuypower are decently priced compared to alienware and msi. Granted they do cut corners on things that are less essential such as the trackpad and mic to get the price down. Also, what sites do ou find are the best for shopping for a gaming laptop? I personally used newegg for my last two laptops (the first wasn't really a gaming laptop).

[theJF]

I don't have any experience with the Sager/Clevo, Lenovo, Asus, or Alienware gaming laptops, but I do have a MSI GT-70 0NC 17.3in notebook, and I have really been enjoying it. Build quality is very nice, interior component arrangement is well laid out, cooling is very good, and the performance is great for the money (3610qm + 670m). Of course, I got mine for $1000 used (several months ago), but their new prices still aren't bad, and used ones can be found for (generally) decent prices. As with all large gaming laptops though, be prepared to get a bit of a workout if you decide to haul it around regularly, as it is understandably thick and heavy. Good luck!

[Mike House]

i recently picked up an alienware m18x r2 with 660m sli i73820qm for 1200 include ship off ebay if you hunt it down and look all the time u can get the m18x2 for great price now

[qbar]

I'd say that both Lenovo Y500 and Y580 offer good performance in comparison to their prices. If you want to use it mainly for gaming stick to HD screens, otherwise 1080p is the way to go.

[stcomrie]

I wanna say hp pvailion series. They are equipped with quad core cpu's that although they are clocked low can easily be overclocked, and come with the built in gpu. imagine a 350$ hp pavilion g6-1c58dx killing bf3 at 60 fps on med settings!

http://h20566.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/kb/docDisplay/?sp4ts.oid=5145708&spf_p.tpst=kbDocDisplay&spf_p.prp_kbDocDisplay=wsrp-navigationalState%3DdocId%253Demr_na-c03138574-2%257CdocLocale%253D%257CcalledBy%253D&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken

[Maks_a]

I have Lenovo y500 within 2 GPU's and I damn happy playing in games with best pergomance

however for the office working I acquired lenovo yoga 13

[fractalbrain]

I also bought a Lenovo y410p to be a "workstation" that would easily fit in my backpack. It was about $830. I then swapped out the HD with a 250GB SSD. Now I have my own amazingly fast "workstation." So, lots of bang for the buck, BUT I ran straight into Lenovo's attempts to stop people like me making "poor persons workstations." Here are the limitations I ran into, and what I am doing to mitigate them:

- Could not boot the Windows recovery USB I made using Windows instructions. Either I did something wrong, or Lenovo really wants you to buy their CD recovery media. I've never run into such restrictions. I ended up cloning the HD and changing partition sizes. My recovery media is the original hard drive. I guess I don't really own my windows installation. It might be easier to plan on buying your own Win 8.1 media and do a fresh install.

- The wifi card is whitelisted, meaning you cant swap it out with another. There is a modified BIOS you can flash: http://forum.techinferno.com/lenovo-ibm/4668-lenovo-y410p-y510p-unlocked-bios-wlan-whitelist-mod-vbios-mod-28.html

- The screen is glossy glossy glossy. I ordered a matte screen protector. I'll see if it works. Glossy is fine in a darkened room, but for work out and about, naaaa.

- Case is not as sturdy as a business line laptop, but it is decent. I ordered a Bihn top-loading case with hard sides to compensate.

Do those things and you end up with something that fits the niche of much, much, more expensive laptops. However, it is clear Lenovo WANTS you to buy the more expensive option. You have to work for your "workstation." When I'm on battery I don't need the Nvidia graphics or the top processor speed. With power saving on I get about 7-8 hours battery.

[paoliniluis]

Definitely the y410p with an SSD and 16GB of mem and the whitelist mod! Think about it: $749 (laptop) plus $200 ssd plus 150 of mem... and you get almost the best of the best out there... a no brainer!

[goodman]

I would have to say Malibal is a good brand, That's where I got my p150em (lotus p150em se), (I know a year old). But I had gotten a 675mx, i7 3630qm and 8gb ram with 500gb 7200rpm drive for 1400-1500. Their real value is in their tech support though. Had a squeaking power adapter, On hold for under 10 minutes, got a replacement within a week.

PS. what is your budget?

[Zorkenthose]

MSI tends have some of the best bang for your buck laptops. There $1200-$1500 laptops usually come with pretty high end GPU's.

[Cookiemonsta]

Without a doubt it is Clevo. You get unbranded hardware which means you are pretty much paying the fair market price for the hardware. The downside is that the software support tends to be very 3rd party and semi-custom.

[Offmylawn]

definitely the y410p, its cheap and can handle most newer generation games at medium or high settings

[OfficialDenzil]

I'm not sure if it's available in other country's but Medion has decent Notebooks/Ultrabooks. Their gaming serie is actually the MSI GT70 serie with a lower build and hardware quality. Even though you've got enough waranty to cover those.

I believe they are about 20-30% cheaper then a MSI GT70

[stark1885]

I am also a y510p fanboy. Paid $800 for mine, i5 4200m, 6gb ram, 2x 750m with 2GB each of GDDR5. My cpu is upgradable but I dont have any issues at the moment. Its hard to beat that gaming performance for the price.

[jon10110]

I also agree with those that have stated Sager/Clevo. I bought mine and it is great. I had a 870m installed and was able to get rid of my desktop. Xoticpc is who i went through and they had great customer service and good deals. They have laptops of all sizes and brands to compare and choose from.

[IronOxide42]

I agree with Slayerus -- for gaming laptops at least, the Lenovo Y series has way more bang/buck than most I've seen. Just over $1k for a 860M? 8 Gigs of memory, 4th gen i7? Fantastic deal.

[Willi24]

Lenovo or MSI is best bang for buck imo

[iman240]

lenovo y510p is good for gaming..

[hermelinmaster]

If you go for Bang per Buck then I have never seen something better than Medion (German daughter company of Lenovo). They use mostly MSI or Lenovo barebones with (at least their Gaming-Laptops) good hardware.

BUT their plastic material does not feel as good as it could be. And the Screens have been for a long time TN-panel (or at least no IPS). And (hopefully just for now) they don't have a 15.7" Gamer :-(

Regards Kevin

[awlmfgskar]

Lenovo ist good, and i never buy a Clevo again! Support is very poor!

[RinconeLopez]

It is definitely Lenovo all the way. Besides offering great prices, what I really like about them is that they have so many variants. There is a very high chance that you will find exactly what you are looking for in terms of specs, like when you are shopping for an assembled computer almost!

[RoseJacobson]

Lenovo is the brand that rocks. I am using this brand from past 5 years, anf ity never crested any problem to me. So I personally prefer lenovo Laptop

[kristofaro1]

DELL is optimal brand..the support is good only replace part are refurbished.

[jcagara08]

Sorry OP to be OT but

a mini ITX build @ $600-700 will be a monster in games and productivity.

[vewen]

Lenovo; I absolutely love my y510p so far. The IdeaPad product line is really good.

Only downsides I have experienced were the lack of 5 GHz / .ac WIFI support and the touch pad quality.

Those things can be quite easily overcome though.

[mindfree]

Lenovo is nice but it's BIOS is buggy. I own a y510p and after updating bios it does not work well with my SSD