Hello, I'm thinking about buying a laptop for college but I also want to be able to play games like Gw2, etc on the laptop as well. My budget is $1000.00 US. However, a friend of mine told me it is better to buy a laptop solely for college and spend the rest on the desktop for gaming. But I'm not sure if that will over my budget or not. As it will cost about 400-500 to get a laptop and that means I only have 500 for the desktop?

Any help is appreicated. Thank you,

Originally posted by KathG8108

Hello, I'm thinking about buying a laptop for college but I also want to be able to play games like Gw2, etc on the laptop as well. My budget is $1000.00 US. However, a friend of mine told me it is better to buy a laptop solely for college and spend the rest on the desktop for gaming. But I'm not sure if that will over my budget or not. As it will cost about 400-500 to get a laptop and that means I only have 500 for the desktop?

Any help is appreicated. Thank you,

you can buy a decent gaming laptop for $1000 that would suit both your needs.. I'm not big on laptops for gaming but honestly $500 isn't going to get you much for a desktop especially if that includes all periphials and if you need a laptop for college you could get one that games well also.

You can go a couple of ways here.

1. laptop and desktop.  - lesser on both ends

2.  Desktop only - Good quality, best bang for the buck if you do it yourself.

3.  Laptop only - A growing option for many people these days but a bit more pricey.

I would say to spend your money where it matters most, graphics card (and memory if possible), processor, and memory (don't need to overdo it here).  There are certainly other things that are important but I think if these are the things that will make the most difference for a gaming computer.  If you get a laptop make sure you get a dedicated graphics card, it goes without saying for a desktop too.

Personally  I would put all the 1000 into a laptop.  You hsould be able to get  a decent gaming laptop for that price.

look around but this one is good and right around your pricerange

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152349 or this one not as good but even closer to the price you are looking http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152339

the new 600M series should have no issues playing GW2 at high settings

If you definately need a system that you can be mobile with then just get a decent gaming laptop. if you don't really need the mobility stick with a desktop and forget the laptop, you get much more bang for your buck with a desktop. With a $1000 budget, getting both would be a bad idea, you'll just end up with two average system instead of one above average system.

Simply put, for gaming, a $1000 laptop will be better than a $500 desktop. A $1000 desktop will be better than a $1000 laptop.

Laptops are very very expensive for gaming performance in comparison to desktops. On top of that, many laptops designed to play games have abysmal battery life and aren't exactly light and easy to carry from class to class.

Your best bet is to list what you need/want.

If you go for laptop only, what do you need the laptop for?

Can you do desktop only?

If you go with a combination, what do you need the laptop capable of? If all you need is a laptop to take notes in class, you can go cheaper than 400.

Also, what kind of graphic settings are you looking to acheive? Do you want it playable and don't care about much else?

The best option is to have a laptop for school and desktop for gaming if you want to crank the most out of your budget. This will allow for some upgrades when the budget expands. With a laptop, you're pretty much stuck with what you buy until you replace it.

Thank you all for the replies. I use my laptop for basic college work such as microsoft office, video/web surfing, listening to music.  I'm planning to play Gw 2 at a optimal setting (medium?)  on my computer when it comes out.

I usually build my own computers but my nephew who lives in another state asked me for help. I could build him one fairly cheap and ship it to him but then if anything goes wrong I would feel obligated to fix it for him. My solution was bestbuy of all places. Bestbuy was the only place they lived close to with a fairly decent set of computers. I looked and the best one for the money I could find was this.  I know three are better ones out there, but if you want something fairly inexpensive this might be what you are looking for. 

edit: well I didn't read your full post I guess! I read desktop and that stuck in my head! :(

Originally posted by KathG8108

Thank you all for the replies. I use my laptop for basic college work such as microsoft office, video/web surfing, listening to music.  I'm planning to play Gw 2 at a optimal setting (medium?)  on my computer when it comes out.

the laptops I posted would work great for both as long as you don't mind keeping it plugged in since the battery life isn't very good... overall for a decent gaming desktop you still need about $1000 not including montior so really upto you and your personal needs but like others say spend the $1000 on one or the other because $500 on either end won't get you much

You can get a little netbook for cheap that should do fine for college purposes...But that'd still leave you with a kinda subpar Desktop. Just get the uber Laptop, and maybe an extra battery for it! GW2 promises to make you forget about your battery life and send you to a black screen :D

$1000 is really the wrong budget for a laptop right now.  For the latest generation parts, the high end ($1600+) is already out, and enough of the low end (under $700) is out that you at least have some decent options.  But the handful of options in between tend to cost a lot more than I think is justified by the hardware.  I think a laptop with an A8-4500M and a Radeon HD 7870M would be perfect for you, and probably fit your budget, too.  And it's probably coming, but isn't out yet.

The simplest question is whether you actually need a laptop at all.  If you're going to use it in your dorm room but not going to take it with you various places, then get a desktop and skip the laptop.  Some people seem to have ideas about taking notes on a laptop in class, but most professors will assume (usually correctly) that if you have a laptop out, it means you're not paying attention.

If you already have peripherals from an old desktop that you could reuse (monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, surge protector), then the laptop+desktop combination makes some sense.  You can start with a cheap laptop:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246633

And then that leaves $650 for a desktop, which is plenty enough to get you something that will dramatically outperform any laptop you could hope to find under $1000.  Or at least, it is if you can assemble the desktop yourself rather than having to basically use up ~$100 of that budget to pay someone else to plug things in for you.

I would suggest Quiz's advice but with a twist.  Check craigslist (or another site if you prefer) for a CHEAP laptop.  The fact is "throw away" laptops are available in droves on craigslist because every year new students start/graduate college.  Typically the laptop only needs to run very basic programming which means finding a used laptop for a few hundred bucks or less is easy.  

Every dollar you save on something you only need for notes/videos/music helps you to increase the power of your desktop.  Just be sure to wipe the drives and do a "clean" install of the OS just in case (don't wipe it before you have a proper boot/install disk made).