Buying a new Laptop

[Kurai]

So I'm purchasing a laptop. These were some of the options forwarded to me.

HP Probook 4540s
i5 3210M 2.5 GHz
4gig ram
500 gb hd
15.6"
DVDRW
1 OR 2 GB gfx card


HP Pavillion G6 2035tx
i5 3230 2.6 GHz
4gig ram
750 gb hd
15.6"
DVDRW
2GB gfx card


Dell Inspiron 15 3251
i5 3337M[1.8-2.7ghz] OR i7 3537u[2-3.1ghz]
4gig ram
500gb OR 1tb hd
15.6"
DVDRW
1 OR 2 GB gfx card


What I'm looking for is something under or around $700 which could sub as my main system while I'm away at uni. Maximum performance while remaining within the budget is quitessential. I know the information I have provided is very sketchy especially the gfx cards. I have sent a query as to their details about brand, make, freq and memory bandwidth.

What I want picked of these three atm is whether a particular model is prone to heating very easily, has build issues, **** materials, bad value or battery life etc.

Also if you do know of any laptop which exceeds these three and you can personally attest to it's functionality, specs and overall performance. Please do suggest it and I'll check if it's availiable to me.

My main use of the machine apart from assignments etc will be gaming/movies/anime etc. I don't want a monsterous gaming laptop, my budget constrains me far too much for that. But I still want something that will deliver a solid media experience and give me at least averagely modest performance on current gen games.

[FireclawX]

For a solid gaming laptop I'd go with the Lenovo Y580 I own one and can attest to it's awesomeness, but if you don't believe me you can always ask White
That being said, it's $1000 which is a little over the budget that you mentioned...

About the laptops you've selected, honestly I've had shitty experiences with both Dell and HP, they just make shitty computers (with Dell's being the worst, their plastic, flimsy and heat up way too fast)
So I have one question for you, are those graphics cards "Intel integrated graphics" or Dedicated AMD/Nvidia graphics cards?
That's kinda the most important part...

If you're fine without a dedicated graphics card, then I'd reccomend the Lenovo Z580 (I have two of these, their just that good)
Their cheap, and pretty damn powerful, and the quad core third gen i7 will handle everything you can throw at it...
The only downside is that the graphics card is the intel integrated....

It'd help a bit if you could specify what kind of games you will be playing... because if you wanna play something like Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, or Far Cry 3 on a laptop at medium settings, you're gonna have to spend more than $700

EDIT: to my knowledge the Dell is the only one with a dedicated graphics card, both the HP's have integrated graphics...
If you can name a couple games that you want to be playing, it'd really help in telling you weather or not you need to sacrifice build quality for a dedicated gfx card

[Kurai]

I definitely want a dedicated graphics card with a minimum of a 1 GB vram. And my guess is they're sporting dedicateds since they only mention vram if it is a dedicated here otherwise simply "Intel HD"

TR, Dishonored, Bioshock Infinite and Far Cry 3 are somewhere in the neighborhood of games I want to be playing. I wouldn't mind having to turn my setings down low-med if I have to so that the game runs. As long as it can run fluidly and playably.

[Shikamaruuu]

Stay away from the HP Pavillion at all costs. It sucks beyond suckiness. Constant problems and the fan easily overheats because of it's ridiculous location at the bottom of the laptop.

[FireclawX]

I definitely want a dedicated graphics card with a minimum of a 1 GB vram. And my guess is they're sporting dedicateds since they only mention vram if it is a dedicated here otherwise simply "Intel HD"

TR, Dishonored, Bioshock Infinite and Far Cry 3 are somewhere in the neighborhood of games I want to be playing. I wouldn't mind having to turn my setings down low-med if I have to so that the game runs. As long as it can run fluidly and playably.

tl;dr version in red

Not really, even the intel integrated cards have dedicated vram, they just don't have a dedicated "GPU" or graphics processor/card if you will...
Having a dedicated card, and having dedicated vram are different things... A graphics card is like a mini computer, just like a regular computer, it has a processor or GPU, and RAM, or VRAM... The difference, is that it is a mini computer dedicated only to graphics...
Intel integrated, uses one of the multiple cores in your intel processor as the GPU, BUT it has it's own dedicated VRAM, so if you compare it to a regular graphics card, it's only one half of the picture...

Well let me say this, I have the Lenovo Y580 (3rd Gen quad core i7, 8 gb ram, and a Nvidia Ge-Force GTX 660M 2GB) and I can play Far Cry 3 at max settings, 1080p at around 30+ FPS, so if you really want to game, that's the lappy for you... That being said, it is $300 more than your budget...

For gaming, out of the three you've mentioned, the only one that would even be able to run Far Cry 3 is the Dell, because it is the only one with a dedicated graphics card.... like I said earlier, all of them have dedicated VRAM, so videos will be no problemo...

No on to regular preformance, I can tell you for a fact that firstly the graphics card on the dell, while dedicated, is only an AMD 1450 (or something along those lines, I don't remember the model) and if you take the specs on that laptop, I estimate that on Far Cry 3 you'll get 30ish FPS at lowest settings...

The build quality of dell's are even worse, aside from the shitty gaming performance (while it's better than not being able to play) you'll also get terrible build quality and materials, a full plastic construction, a shitty keyboard with keys that fall out, and temps rising above 100 degrees F, I don't actually own a dell, but that is what my friend who owns one has told me...

The HP's both probably won't even be able to run FC3, and if they can, it is likely to be so choppy that it is unplayable...
The other thing about HP's, is that they have stupid fan placement (as shika said) i'm typing this on a HP Pavilion G7 series notebook right now, and let me tell you that my legs are about 100+ degrees F, HP's are shitty, period

So from personal experience I can tell you to stay away from HP (I own one)
I can recommend a Lenovo Z580 (because I have two, though FC3 probably wont run on it, TR will play at low, Bioshock at low, and other stuff at low or not at all)
I can recommend a Lenovo Y580 (because it's a ****ing monster when it comes to gaming, Crysis 3 at max settings, 1080p @ 20FPS, and I own one)
I can tell you that Dell's are shitty, don't last long, and are just terrible overall, but they will game, well sorta... (because I have a friend who owns one)

HP (both of them): Estimated preformance stats:
Videos/Anime: 7/10
Web browsing: 8/10
Gaming: 4/10
Quality: 6/10
Temperature: 0/10 (no, seriously, it's that bad)

FPS on games mentioned: (note, quality is on a scale of: lowest, med, high, max)
FC3: Probably won't run at all, but expect 5-10 at lowest if you can...
TR: 20+ at lowest
Dishonored: 15+ at lowest
Bioshock: 10+ at lowest
(note: these are optimistic estimated values)

Now for the Dell: Estimated preformance stats:
Videos/Anime: 8/10
Web browsing: 9/10
Gaming: 6/10
Quality: 4/10
Temperature: 4/10

FPS on games mentioned: (note, quality is on a scale of: lowest, med, high, max)
FC3: 20+ at lowest
TR: 30+ at lowest
Dishonored: 30+ at lowest
Bioshock: 20+ at lowest
(note: these are optimistic estimated values)


And that's pretty much all I can tell you
If you have more questions, feel free to PM/VM me or whatever...

[Narutos pimp]

My laptop is: http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Envy-m4.80199.0.html