For gaming, consider adding some money (not much) to your budget for a laptop cooling pad/cooling station. Mainly to improve airflow, reduce over heating which may lag your game and/or damage your laptop. Many of the damn things die after about half a year to a year though.
Also, many laptops can be connected to an external screen if laptop screen size is a problem.
I suggest a business grade laptop (ie: The elitebook suggestion above or a Lenovo X/T series). You can find these at staples. XPS is one too I think, but I don't like Dell.
Lasting 2-3 years is easy if you have a solid state drive or hybrid drive. i5 or i7 isn't really a necessary discussion. Even if you have a i7 over i5, the mechanical drive is generally still a bigger bottle neck performance wise. Probably cost about $100-200 depending if you need 256 or 512 GB drive and A) An hour of research and a 5 minute youtube tutorial on how to clone a disk using Acronis or B) A case of beer and an evening to some random cp member who knows how to do this.
|