Recommendation for portable gaming laptop!

[Akaz1976]

Googling gaming laptops usually leads to massive 17" monsters and/or $2000+ machines.
I am looking for something a bit more reasonable. Preferably something ~$1000. Also not too heavy (ie something i can travel with without killing my back/shoulders).
I was almost thinking 11" but that might be too small for gaming (can anyone comment on this from experience?) so maybe 13" or 14" might be better. Under 5lbs would be nice.
Games for me are Civ5, Football Manager 2011 at the very least. Hopefully i could also play fallout 3, Bioshock 1/2, alien swarm and dragon age. Something that could play upcoming game like shogun 2 would great but i fear likely unachievable given budget and size constraints.
batterylife i am not sure. i figure gaming will mean that regardless of rated battery life the laptop would need to be plugged in almost all the time when gaming. Compact power brick would be nice though!
Thanks

Currently i am considering: Acer 3820TG
http://forum.notebookreview.com/acer/533318-acer-3820tg-gaming-experience.html

 

[kami]

While I have heard decent things about the Timeline series (that they are better than the usual crap Acer puts out), I want to share with you my experience cause it sounds very similar to yours.

I too was looking for a sub-$1000 gaming notebook that wasn't a big 17 incher. I did endless research and eventually settled on a 14" Gateway (aka acer) that i got for $749 CAD and it had a geforce 330m w/ optimus tech (so just a tad slower than the 5650 you are looking at), i3, 4GB, etc. The price/performance ratio is really good when looking at raw specs.

My need for the notebook was i was often away on weekends and wanted to be able to game when I was away, but my desktop was still going to be the primary gaming machine.

It ended up being a mistake. While it would run games decently (at medium settings, sometimes low depending on the game), the overall experience just wasn't very good. The laptop was cheaply built (though at first seemed decent, probably me just in denial), and the screen was crud. Horrible contrast, absurd viewing angles, etc. Plus when gaming the cooling system was not sufficient and my hands resting on the keyboard got very hot so I had to get a notebook cooler which is just another thing to lug around.

I ended up taking it back the day before I wouldn't be able to anymore and spending $1200 + tax on a 15" Asus G53JW-XR1 (price matched at NCIX) and am so much happier with it (see the specs in my sig, though later on I added the extra 4GB of ram and threw a SSD into the second hard drive bay and changed out the default 500 gig for a momentus XT).

It can actually run games at its 1080p res, and the cooling system is phenomenal. No notebook cooler needed here. The downsides of course are its heavier than a regular 14 or 15 incher and the power brick is larger too. Oh and the battery life is only gonna be about 2 hours.

Games i play on it: WoW, Starcraft 2, shooters (crysis, cod, metro 2033, battlefield, TF2, etc. etc.), Fallout 3/NV, Dragon Age, Civ 5, and whatever else in my steam library.

Just sharing my experience as you sound like I did a few months ago. My advice would be to save up a bit more and spend the extra few hundred on a true gaming laptop so you won't have any buyers remorse.

My 2 cents

 

[CurseTheSky]

The ASUS line of gaming laptops are really your best bet. They put out some really good stuff considering their price, especially if you can find last year's model with a GTX 260m.

On the other hand, if you want something more geared toward portability and battery life, but still capable of gaming, I'll recommend the Envy 14 like I always do. The 1366x768 screen is sufficient (though the 1600x900 screen was one of the model's best selling points), and the internal specs aren't bad at all. With a coupon or another discount, you should be able to score a base configuration for under $1000.

 

[Akaz1976]

I did check the Asus one out but the cost and more importantly for me weight (dont want it lugging around airports/hotels) ruled it out. I would love it if Asus launched a smaller/cheaper machine in the brand.

wrt to Gateway/Acer build quality, my understanding is that Gateway is being positioned by Acer as value brand (much like HP did with Compaq) and such i would expect better build quality from Acer for its 'higher end' brand. Also i do own a Acer (1820Tz) which has been a good experience so far (~10 months). Build quality is okay (keeping in mind i have never really owned a high end laptop so my standards likely lower than you guys ). I do play Civ5 on it some time but small screen size plus low specs (Su4100+Intel HD) makes for a miserable experience. I have not dared install any other game on it.

As for Envy, i would like to consider it but for two points. 1)i have had 3 HPs conk out on me in a ~year time frame. 2) Envy is much more expensive here in Canada (i am talking like double the price of acer). Given the price differencial, i could conceivablly replace the Acer every 2/3 years vs. envy having to last me 3/4 years if not longer for same annual cost of ownership.

That said i would look around for a deal on Envy see if i can find a deal on it that makes it more palatable.

 

[SparhawkJC]

I'll throw out a recommendation for the Alienware m11x R2. Excellent battery life, solid gaming performance, AlienFX lighting, etc. There's some hinge issues that Dell says they're dealing with, but I haven't had any problems with mine after 3 weeks of heavy usage.

RTS games are the system's main weakness but it's been able to run SC2 fine.