Wanting a gamer laptop

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As the title says, I'm shopping for a gaming laptop... or at least a laptop which will run some of my games better than my 7 year old Asus (which really has had a great service life). I'm not the tech-head I used to be but doing some homework and I think an i7 quad core CPU with the GTX 1060 6gb GPU would be a sweet spot. In fact, the machine I'm looking at (Acer Predator Helios 300) offers just that, along with some other features including a 256gb SSD. Unfortunately it lacks a high capacity HDD as well as an optical drive. Which, call me old school, but I find a big deal. For one, I often times like to burn CD/MP3 discs for my car.

Anyhow, the price looks tough to beat in this performance range, so perhaps I would just convert the old machine to a linux box for media use. Any thoughts on the Acer or similar systems? Does anybody miss their integral large HDD or optical drives?
 
I like the ASUS G-series laptops for gaming rigs. They've given great service and tend to be well built and reliable.
 
I've used Acer in the past and they were fine. I bought an Alienware 13 recently and it is awesome. Great cooling and the display is phenomenal. Cooling is the bane of laptops if you game. You might look over at Newegg and check their reviews on that Acer model. Might give you some machine specific info. Also, here's a good link for a review

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Predator-Helios-300-G3-571.236164.0.html

I made my old desktop into a dual boot machine win 7/Linux Mint. I do most of my photo editing on this machine but, I can do it one my laptop when I travel. I love the dual boot setup. Gives you so much flexibility.
 
I have an Alienware M18x and it is pretty awesome. Mine came with a SSD and a HD as well as a DVD drive. The SSD was a M.2 drive. I updated both and added a 3rd hard drive. It has gone on a few flights with me and I have the Alienware backpack to carry it.
 
I play Europa Universalis mostly and for me any cheap laptop has worked well, especially Acer. They tend to stand the heat well. (My experience)
 
I have a 512 SSD installed in my laptop and it's adequate, with external drives for backup and media storage. 256 I think would be too restrictive in my opinion. They are fast, no doubt about it. An additional graphics card (instead of the Intel built-in graphics) and an i7 should be just fine; works for me anyway.

External optical drives are cheap and work well, there isn't much price penalty to go Blu-Ray burner, so unless money is super tight, that's where I would go. In practice, you don't use them much these days, so occasional use burning a disk won't be a burden, probably.
 
Just showed up today, and of course I'm tickled. Just got home from work, finished the always necessary updates and currently waiting for Steam to install the new DOOM and the rather much older Bad Company 2. Any review I have at the moment would simply be comparing a old and worn machine which required minimum settings on everything including desktops to a new machine.

Packaging was nice, not excessive but protective. Machine looks very sharp. The SSD of 256gb is not big enough and I will likely need to through a second drive in at some point (very easy, machine even includes extra screws in the box). Of note, the screen itself is rather "matte" which is OK with me so far; fewer reflections/glare noted in the evening sun. Keyboard is comfy and natural, zero adjustment time.
 
The matte screen, is that the outside of the screen or what the actual graphics rendered by the GPU looks like on the front of the monitor when everything is turned on. If so, wouldn't that be a disqualifier of sorts since you want vibrant high glossy type graphics? BTW, I am not in the market for a gaming computer at all. I'm using my little lenovo laptop and just updated with a major feature update netting my Windows Defender back up after a lengthy timeout due to uninstalling Mcafee and defender wouldn't work again. I'm in heaven. I Updated it again and got a 2017 cumulative update so in hog heaven again. I don't get laptop gaming cause for one, they are heavy and if I'm gaming, I want it on my tv or some large screen.
 
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I would say both the screen itself and the graphics tend to be a bit matted. Have only played DOOM (newest), which is new to me so I can't directly compare. I'll try to report back with thoughts after I play some older titles, but the graphics on DOOM are pretty killer so no complaints yet.
 
Originally Posted By: buck91
I would say both the screen itself and the graphics tend to be a bit matted. Have only played DOOM (newest), which is new to me so I can't directly compare. I'll try to report back with thoughts after I play some older titles, but the graphics on DOOM are pretty killer so no complaints yet.


I thought the matte was a complaint.
 
Ive read some reviewers complain about it, but I like it. No reflections from lights and what-not.
 
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