Looking for a $800-1200 Laptop

[Sleepingforest]

Hey guys. I'm looking for a laptop for a friend, and after some preliminary searching, I haven't found anything super amazing, so I was wondering if anyone else had any opinions. Here are his criteria:

Definite stuff:

• 15.6" or more
• Relatively light/portable (yes, hard to reconcile with the size, but it would be ideal)
• Has home/end/pg up/pg down navigation
• Ability to play Starcraft 2 on Ultra
• At least 1.5 hours of battery life (under all circumstances, including gaming)
• At least 90GB of solid state storage
• Ability to support 2 1080p monitors
• Bluetooth 4

Ideally (these would be tiebreakers):

• Numpad
• No optical drive
• Matte screen
• Windows 7. 8 is acceptable, but not preferred.
• 6 hours battery life during casual internet usage/text editing.

Options so far include the Lenovo Y510, maybe a Clevo/Sager build.
Thanks.

 

[skankinstein]

Thinkpad T or go boss with the W via the outlet.

 

[alkemyst]

With a NumPad and a real laptop, I'd say the W (Workstation) series by Lenovo.

 

[Sleepingforest]

Thanks guys! Definitely feeling like the Thinkpads are the way to go then?

 

[raildogg]

LOL, such Lenovo loyalism on this board.

The newer Thinkpads are definitely not like the previous versions. They are totally reworked and will be a different experience.

The T series that was recommended above has a sort of weak graphics card. The W series will exceed your budget if you start adding in the options.

The Y series seems good but also look at the new Dell XPS series. They are lightweight, powerful and feature great screens (QHD I believe). I would recommend check out other laptops on each company's website and see which ones look good to you. In fact, check out their entire lineups - you may come across something you did not expect.

 

[desura]

I looked into this stuff recently,

The best one looks like MSI Apache laptops, because they have the 860m video chip. Basically, it is the first next-gen architecture from Nvidia in like 5 years.

But basically you want the 860m. Others that have it are the Asus Republic of Gaming and I think Gigabyte makes one too.