New Hardware College Laptop

[TheConqueror15]

I'm looking to get a new laptop for college, but haven't been real sure on what to get.
I'm hoping to get one that is mostly for general usage in the $600-700 range.
I don't really need it to run any really heavy programs since I'll mostly be using Excel and Word Processing, but I would like it to be able to run Minecraft, CS:GO and possibly TF2 reasonably well.

Currently I've been looking at these three and am leaning more towards the Acer with the i7 (first link):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834315015

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152877

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA0AJ35X6359

Please let me know what you think about these options or if you have better suggestions I'd greatly appreciate your insight.

Thanks for the help

 

[reflex99]

As a professional in the industry, I would highly suggest something smaller than 15.6"

Carrying anything over ~13" is far more inconvenient than it sounds. I own a 15" Macbook Pro, which as far as 15" laptops go is relatively compact, and even then its kinda a pain to carry around. Luckily I don't need to carry it to class every day.

If I didn't need the power I would almost certainly have opted for a 13" model.

Anyways, if you're set on 15", to answer you original question:

I would not consider the Acer E5-573G-59C3. It has a (almost certainly) horrible TN 1366x768 screen that will make your eyes bleed.

The choice (out of these three) then is between the other Acer and the MSi

The GTX 950m in the MSI is a SUBSTANTIAL upgrade over the GT 940m in the Acer, so if you are into gaming and want better performance in games, I would suggest the MSi.

The MSi has the caveat of an older processor (i5 4210H). That said, it is a full voltage chip so it will outperform the i7 5500U which is an ultra low voltage part.

The flip side to this is that between the more power hungry 950m and the full voltage processor, the MSI will likely have considerably worse battery life.

Comparing these two is somewhat difficult since the MSI is clearly targeted towards gamers who tend to not place much value in battery run-time, and prefer all out performance, whereas the Acer appears to be targeting someone who wishes to use their laptop away from a power source for longer periods of time.

Either system should run the programs/games you mentioned without issue. The MSi will likely do it cooler, and faster, but the Acer should be able to keep up with playable framerates.

If I were in your shoes I'd go with battery life over performance in a college environment. Running out of battery in class or needing to sit near a power outlet is annoying.

 

[TheConqueror15]

As a professional in the industry, I would highly suggest something smaller than 15.6"

Carrying anything over ~13" is far more inconvenient than it sounds. I own a 15" Macbook Pro, which as far as 15" laptops go is relatively compact, and even then its kinda a pain to carry around. Luckily I don't need to carry it to class every day.

If I didn't need the power I would almost certainly have opted for a 13" model.

Anyways, if you're set on 15", to answer you original question:

I would not consider the Acer E5-573G-59C3. It has a (almost certainly) horrible TN 1366x768 screen that will make your eyes bleed.

The choice (out of these three) then is between the other Acer and the MSi

The GTX 950m in the MSI is a SUBSTANTIAL upgrade over the GT 940m in the Acer, so if you are into gaming and want better performance in games, I would suggest the MSi.

The MSi has the caveat of an older processor (i5 4210H). That said, it is a full voltage chip so it will outperform the i7 5500U which is an ultra low voltage part.

The flip side to this is that between the more power hungry 950m and the full voltage processor, the MSI will likely have considerably worse battery life.

Comparing these two is somewhat difficult since the MSI is clearly targeted towards gamers who tend to not place much value in battery run-time, and prefer all out performance, whereas the Acer appears to be targeting someone who wishes to use their laptop away from a power source for longer periods of time.

Either system should run the programs/games you mentioned without issue. The MSi will likely do it cooler, and faster, but the Acer should be able to keep up with playable framerates.

If I were in your shoes I'd go with battery life over performance in a college environment. Running out of battery in class or needing to sit near a power outlet is annoying.

Thanks for the advice. Currently I'm thinking that I will mostly use physical notebooks in-class and mostly be using the laptop for out-of-class work but am waiting to decide after going to class for a bit and getting a feel for how things work. I wasn't too worried about the computer being too big but thanks for pointing that out as something to consider.

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