Reddit mentions of MSI GS43VR Phantom Pro-069 14" Ultra Portable Gaming Laptop Intel Core i7-7700HQ GTX 1060 16GB 128GB SSD + 1TB VR Ready

This Eluktronics P650 for $1500 would be the best option if looking for a 1080p 120Hz display (good for gaming) with your budget. It comes with a Kaby lake i7-7700HQ processor, 16GB of ram, 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD, and a GTX 1060. It weighs 5.8lbs, but like other powerful gaming laptops only gets around 3+ hours of battery life. This Eluktronics is a 15.6" as well.

Another option is the MSI GS43VR Phantom for $1400. This has a slightly smaller screen at 14" and only weighs 3.8lbs (very light for a gaming laptop). It has a Kaby lake i7-7700HQ processor, 16gb of ram, 128gb SSD + 1TB HDD, and a GTX 1060 dGPU.

Feel free to check out my gaming laptop guide for a good understanding of whats on the market right now.

Portability + power is a bit of an issue. That said, here are some sub-$1500 suggestions from Amazon:

• Inspiron 7000 with GTX 1050, $678--all-around decent option for the price. It might be worth opting for the one with the SSD, although it's a bit more expensive. You could also just install a SSD yourself (should set you back less than the upgrade at checkout).
  
  
• Insipiron 700 with GTX 1060, $900--a big price jump from the previous one but IMO worth it for the performance. I would say this is the sweet spot for price, performance, and design.
  
  
• Alienware 13 with 1050 Ti or 1060--if you want something smaller, although it's going to cost more than the Inspirons despite having very similar specs.
  
  
• MSI GS43VR with GTX 1060--another smaller option, although it's going to cost you.
  
  
• Eluktronics P857HR with GTX 1070, $1400--probably the best you can get in terms of pure gaming performance for under $1500.

Have you looked at the MSI GS43VR Phantom Pro-069 and Gigabyte Aero 14Wv7-BK4 14? Both are very powerful- they have a powerful quad core 7th gen processor, 16 GB RAM, fast 512 GB SSD and even powerful gtx 1060 dedicated graphics card..

My wife plays on a MSI GS43VR Phantom Pro. She travels all the time, and needed not only a laptop, but a small 14" class laptop, and this one fit the bill. It's under your budget, too. It does high settings and 45-55 fps in most places, so it exceeds your requirements there, too. And the IPS screen looks very nice color-wise.

Heat-wise, you're going to want to put it on a table or use a laptop cooler. While Playing Ark it will definitely be too hot to use on your lap. If you put it on a table, the exhaust fans are going to be noticeably loud unless you have headphones; they might be a slightly annoying pitch even with the laptop cooler, depending on how sensitive you are to that sort of thing. Another downside is that in the cheapest model, Ark isn't going to fit on the 128gb SSD (but it has an included spinning drive you can install on, or you can get a model with a larger ssd, or upgrade it yourself)

Neither my wife or I are hard-core gamers, though, so I can't really comment on serious gaming issues beyond casual Ark play - but if your initial goal is 30fps on medium, you're probably in the same boat as we are.

If you can push your budget a little then I would recommend this Aero 14 because it comes with everything you need , i7 quad core CPU which is one of the best in the market and great for your usage, 16 GB of ram for smooth multitasking, Good SSD storage of 512 GB for faster boot up and loading, QHD screen which is great to have for this price range, high build quality, very good heat management, long battery life, 1060 GPU that should be able to handle the games you mentioned on high settings with very good FPs, light weight at 4.16 lbs and it is not too much over your budget.

If you can't push your budget then This would be your 2nd best option but the build quality and battery life will take a hit, but at the same time it is also lighter at 3.75 lbs.

Since you want portability and power I would recommend the MSI GS43VR Phantom Pro-069. The display is pretty good for video editing and if you want even greater color accuracy you can use an external monitor

• Display 14" FHD 1920x1080
  
• Processor: Intel Core i7-7700HQ
  
• Graphics: GTX 1060
  
• RAM: 16GB
  
• Storage: 128GB SSD + 1TB
  
• Weight: 3.75 lbs
  
  The Phantom Pro provides a strong build quality in its metal body and its very portable weighing only 3.75 lbs. The GTX 1060 graphics card will provide a great gaming experience on AAA titles. The SSD for the OS will allow your system to boot quickly and while your bulky files can be stored on the HDD
  

The MSI GS43VR from Amazon is on sale for $1399. Comes with the quad core i7 7700HQ and a GTX 1060. The SSD is only 128 GB but has a 1 TB HDD. The battery life is mediocre, but still relatively thin and light weight.

If you were willing to spend more ~$1700, you could get larger SSD and better battery with the Gigabyte Aero 14 w/ 1060.

For better battery life within your price range you could go for Asus Zenbook with the MX150 or one of the Dells with a 1050 or 1050ti.

Shopineer is a good place to compare, although I didn’t see the Dell’s pop up there.

I have been all over the market for the last few months and feel like I have checked out everything at one point or another. I found the sweet spot for the low end is right around $1300. Below that I wasn't happy with anything I saw even knowing that it was low end (and not expecting much). Around $2,000 all day for midrange laptops and there are a ton of really good ones. $2500+ for the higher end stuff. Really anything above $2600 is going to be enthusiast level stuff that has extras just to have extras, stuff 99% of people can do without... (i.e. 32-64g Ram, 1TB_PCIssd, 512NvME_SSD, dual solid state drives, 4k monitors on a laptop :/ SLI 1080s etc.

If you really want to be happy I would ignore the stuff under $1300 and start looking in the $1500-2000 range.

This is a good place to start
This one is pretty solid. Right in the middle of the price range.

My brother just picked this one up. Super slim and light, feels like a MacBook. Games awesome the gtx 1060 is honestly just fine on a laptop, it can max most games now but might not be as future proof as a laptop with the 1070 or 1080.

Good luck!

Hi, this is my result based on your requirements:search result. If you want to change or add more parameters, you can use Refine
results button.

I would recommend the GS43VR because of its
longer battery runtime and it's a lighweight model - about 3.75lbs.
You can get it from here. Avoid the HP.

Avoid integrated gpus in laptops, as they clog the microprocessor with extra load which is bad for gw2.

You still can buy small factor gaming laptops:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MYXGCK5/

https://www.amazon.com/Razer-Blade-GeForce-Gaming-Laptop/dp/B01N4P5HKV/

https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GS43VR-Phantom-Portable-i7-7700HQ/dp/B01N0V9QP3/

you are welcome.

They didn't allow electronics, you can take notes with pen or pencil. Reason is some kids will literally watch Netflix in class in the auditoriums. I go to one of the biggest schools in the country population wise. Obviously this doesn't apply if you take computer related courses but gen eds especially the smaller sized ones laptops are a no go a lot of the time.


For that price hard pass imo unless the two in one feature is a hard requirement for you in which case that's probably the best for you. Might as well get something like https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01MS14CQH/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile or
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01N0V9QP3/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile imo since they'll be far more future proof and are just much better in general.


Edit: I'm exaggerating a bit they're "allowed" most of the time in bigger classrooms but again I've never actually seen more than one person take notes on one

If you can get this MSI GS43VR Phantom Pro-069 in your county or ship it there it would be just perfect for you. but its 128 gb ssd.

Unfortunately, the lightest gaming laptop MSI GS43VR is sitting at 3.75lbs. And its battery s**ks. The one with good battery (Gigabyte Aero 14) is 4.17 lbs.
If you do not need to game on the go, then I would highly recommend an ultrabook with Thunderbolt 3 and an external GPU.

Video editing especially if done intensively, is a very demanding tasks that requires a powerful processor preferably a quad core i7 processor, in addition to a fast and large storage, a decent dedicated graphics card for video processing and of course, the minimum of 8 GB RAM- 16 GB or more recommended. A decent display is also very essential as no one wants a laptop for any sort of visual editing and they are not able to see colors etc properly.

A GTX 1050 Ti will do a decent job in video editing although I would prefer to go for a 1060 to ensure future proof. Your weight criteria and long battery life requirement though are a bit tricky. Something like this MSI GS43VR Phantom Pro-069 would be a very good pick but it doesn't have the best battery life.. Or you could spend as little as $999 for this HP Pavilion Power 15 with the gtx 1050 ti, a very good battery life and weight of 4 pounds.