Macbook Pro or Alienware

Alienware. No questions asked.

 

If you are willing to spend that much on a laptop, for those specific tasks, go with Alienware or even Razer, the 14" model has killer specs and is sexy as hell, and it also has a 4k display. Yes, 4k display on a laptop.



Please, not Mac, just, don't.

 

I've been using a 2012 Macbook to edit videos and it does a decent job despite using integrated graphics.

 

I love my Macbook - doubt I'll ever go back to PC - but for what you're looking for (particularly the video game playing) I would recommend the Alienware.

 

Alienware. Mac for gaming...nah.

 

Alienware. Look up Asus gaming laptops, they're better for almost half the price.

Stay away from Mac for gaming.

 

Don't do Alienware; most of what you're buying is the brand. I've had good luck with Asus, Toshiba and Lenovo laptops for performance vs. cost.

Oh and don't do Mac if you want to play games, but that goes without saying.

 

Toshiba definitely.

 

Do not buy Alienware. You can buy the exact same hardware for about half the price by shopping around with other brands.

I'd also highly recommend that you consider getting a desktop instead. I only recommend gaming laptops over desktops if you cannot use a desktop for whatever reason or it's very important to game on the go. You get a much better performance to price ratio for desktops. If you need a laptop for other purposes, you could probably buy a high end desktop and a low end laptop for cheaper than an Alienware laptop.

Also, desktops give the the ability to upgrade later as well as better durability. If one part breaks, you don't necessarily need to replace the entire unit.

 

Stay away from the mac.

 

Linux: No viruses, Lots of Free-Ware, runs smother than Windows or Apple.

 

You can install Both Linux and Windows along side each other in dual boot. Ubuntu one of several free Linux distributions that can easily be installed besides Windows on most pcs.

 

I dual boot my laptop - it runs Fedora most of the time, but I have some Windows apps that I need to run.

My desktop at home also dual boots, but it sadly runs Windows most of the time since I have become addicted to Spotify (and using the Citrix ICA client, which I need to work from home, is impossible on recent Fedora - or it was the last time I checked. Some X library had changed ABI or something).

I'm an early adopter, so my laptop was one of the first Lenovo Haswell laptops off the line (it's a T440s) and was fairly expensive (but OMG that display is BEAUTIFUL. FHD on a 14" laptop? Yes, please!) - I paid $1500 for it, but it looks like you could buy the same thing that I bought today for $1300 (I did upgrade it after I bought it with more RAM and added a 128GB M.2 SSD which is what Fedora runs off of so I didn't touch the internal drive)

 

bad and bad for what you want. I second a desktop but if it needs to be a laptop then look into a plain Asus one or something and spare yourself the money.

 

I've got a Lenovo Y510P. It's as powerful as an Alienware and was much cheaper than an Alienware. I runs extremely smoothly and has plenty of power for all of your games

---------- Post added 27th Jul 2014 at 10:14 PM ----------

I would suggest the Lenovo Y510P. It's as powerful, if not more so than many Alienware laptops and it's much cheaper. It runs extremely smoothly and can power though a marathon gaming session. The only downside that I've dealt with is that the battery life is a bit limited when playing graphics intersive games online. I've drained a full battery in 3.5 hrs before, so if you do a lot of off the plug stuff it may not be the best option. However, just on sheer power for the price it really is hard to beat.

 

I have a Mac and I love it. That said, go Alienware.