Gaming-Oriented Laptop for School/Travel: Black Friday or Cyber Monday?

[runo]

As much as I am loathe to prefix any sort of electronics or peripherals with the word 'Gaming', I am in desperate need of a good gaming-ready laptop so I don't die of boredom during travel and school downtime -- like "I have to wait several hours between classes" downtime

I recently won a fairly hefty sum of cash from my local radio station (Thanks 98 Rock!). With that in mind I'm saving up a little extra money from odd jobs, savings and early Christmas gifts to throw at a relatively bad@$$ laptop. I'd like it to be able to compete with, match or potentially even surpass my current rig, which... honestly might not be too hard given my budget and how old some of my desktop hardware is. Looking at current pricing, I sort of figured I could probably get a pretty sweet deal when Black Friday and Cyber Monday roll around, but I've never really paid attention to laptops around either of those dates, so I don't know if I should see if Black Friday has any especially amazing deals on laptops or if I should just wait for Cyber Monday

From what I've read from past deal trackers for BF and CM 2014/2015, it looks as if Cyber Monday errs towards having much better gaming-inclined deals, even on gaming laptops. I was wondering if you all had any sort of past experience/dealings with purchasing or looking into purchasing a laptop on BF/CM and, if so, when would you say is my best bet to make the jump and place my purchase?

My budget will be around $1200-$1500 (preferably including shipping unless shipping is cheap... or free... I have a NewEgg Premier AND Amazon Prime account, if that helps). I'd prefer to place the purchase online -- say at retailers such as Amazon or NewEgg, but I can go to a store in-person if need be. I'm also more than willing to go through retailers that offer custom configurators for laptops such as Sager or Xotic

Preferred, but not deal-breaking specs, and an example of the power/price I'm looking for:
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-P57W-SL3-GTX970M-i7-6700HQ-Computer/dp/B01B962FXS"]Amazon.com: GIGABYTE P57W-SL3, 17.3" FHD IPS NVIDIA GTX970M Skylake i7-6700HQ 16GB RAM 256GB SSD 1TB HDD Windows 10 Gaming Laptop Computer: Computers & Accessories@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/410jhmXeFzL.@@AMEPARAM@@410jhmXeFzL[/ame]
*17.3" or larger display with a decent resolution -- either full HD IPS OR, if at all possible, 4K
*An i7 with at least 2.6GHz clock rate; a Skylake processor would be a godsend. I'll be doing some video editing and art on this thing after all
*More than 8GB (12-16+ GB) of DDR4 2400+
*I'm hoping and praying 1000-series mobile GPUs will be available by then. If so, I'd LOVE a 1070m or better (even if I doubt I'll ever be able to afford a 1080m), but if need be I can settle for a 1060m or any 970m or better dedicated GPU
*a 64/128/256+ SSD. The sweet spot would be 128-256GB, and I'll probably only find 128GB at my price range, but as long as it has at least a 500GB-1TB HDD so I don't run out of space then I'll be pleased as punch
*Windows 10 64-bit Home. Which is probably all I'm gonna find honestly



tl;dr: I'm waiting for Black Friday OR Cyber Monday to grab a fairly beefy gaming laptop for around $1200-$1500ish. Any thoughts on which 'event' tends to have the better deals on laptops? Given my specs, is there a chance I'll find the laptop of my dreams this November?

 

[Aetos17]

I won't link any hardware considering that your not looking to order until November from what I understand. Reason being alot of new hardware will come out this summer and fall. As for black friday and cyber monday I have never been very impressed. If you know what you want then just keep shopping around and find the best deal or I know newegg runs sales almost weekly. BF/CM sales always have good deals on nothing I want. I don't know if your going to hit 4k with that price range, but who knows... one item I would NOT budge on is an SSD. Pay the extra cost to get one it's the future and it will cut down on boot times, and loading times. Hope this helps.

 

[Macgyver]

I have an ASUS Republic of Gamers laptop that worked really well for many years I still have it but my parents use it a lot for things and I have a gaming desktop now so I don't really need it anymore and besides I stopped going to school 3-4 years ago.

 

[hate]

Just bought a ASUS ROG gaming laptop. Really quite impressed with its performance, but like Aetos said... spend the little extra and get a multi HD setup with a SSD and HD. Just be careful as I found many laptops that have the dual HD setup, the secondary mechanical drive is often 5400 RPM, not 7200.

I also have never really had any luck with the black friday/cyber monday deals when it comes to computer items. I know they are out there, but seems its never what I am looking for.

What i got for $1200
[ame="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015ZG9964/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1"]Amazon.com: ASUS ROG GL752VW-DH74 17-Inch Gaming Laptop, Discrete GPU GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB VRAM, 16GB DDR4, 1 TB, 128 GB SSD (ROG Metallic): Computers & Accessories@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61ABOx4plPS.@@AMEPARAM@@61ABOx4plPS[/ame]

 

[Maserati]

I bought this one not too long ago $800-825 from Dell Direct though, I had a student discount.

[ame="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015PYZ0J6/sr=1-4/qid=1465379297/ref=olp_product_details?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1465379297&sr=1-4"]Amazon.com: Dell Inspiron i7559-2512BLK 15.6 Inch FHD Laptop (6th Generation Intel Core i7, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD + 8 GB SSD) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M: Computers & Accessories@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/8144KF4zcKS.@@AMEPARAM@@8144KF4zcKS[/ame]

 

[runo]

@Aetos17:
Yup, I'm holding off 'til November for Black Friday/Cyber Monday (or any other good deals I can snipe between November and Christmas). Definitely hoping that some nice new hardware shows up by the time I make my purchase -- I'm trying to hold off in hopes that nVidia's 1000M-series dedicated GPUs will be available. If nothing else, they'll inevitably knock down the price on 900M-series (and potentially even straight up 900-series desktop GPUs)

Also I totally agree re: SSDs. I got to try a laptop out that had an SSD for the OS drive and oh my goodness -- going from hitting the power button to viewing a fully-ready desktop in about three seconds was NICE



@Macgyver & Hate:
I was looking into either a pre-built ROG or possibly a custom Sager from XoticPC or directly off the Sager website itself, depending on what the deals are like around November/December. I've heard a lot of good things about both ASUS and Sager laptops. The good thing is it looks like going custom will net me pretty much ALL the features I want in a laptop and hopefully for a good price -- I was looking at a custom from XoticPC and I could probably grab a 17.3" display, a solid GPU, 16-24GB DDR4 2400 RAM and a sizable SSD plus a 1TB 7200RPM SATA-III HDD for ~1600-ish

Unfortunately I've got several years of college ahead of me (plus I may have a desk job soon that will allow me to futz around on a laptop in my downtime), as well as some extensive cross-country traveling, so a laptop is pretty much a must



@Maserati: Niiiiice rig! I have heard good things about Dell laptops -- apparently they've stepped up their game lately, though I still hear Alienware laptops are hit or miss (and expensive...)

 

[epicfail331]

I just bought an MSI GE72 Apache Pro 6QF. Its specs are i7 6700HQ 2.6-3.5GHz; Nvidia GTX 970M 3GB; 16GB DDR4 2133MHz RAM (2x8GB); 128GB SSD OS; 1TB HDD; Windows 10 64bit.
By that time as you will be ready to buy, it will most likely be on sale. I bought mine at Frye's for$1,399. Bought a Kensington Lock with it and all told with taxes came out to just under $1,700. The i7 is 6th Gen which I think is Skylake.

https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GE72-6QF-Apache-Pro.html#hero-specification

 

[Macgyver]

If your budget is $1,600 then you will find a great ROG laptop that will be good for gaming and school. I had a budget of $1,100 at the time and for what it was worth I think it was more but there was a sale when I got it. There should be many sales over the course of November/December where you will find something to your liking. If I had the money I would be doing the same thing that you are doing right now.

 

[Snipeye]

My recommendation: start pricing/looking at possible laptops a few months early before Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Keep track of the prices. When those holiday sales arrive, see if you're really getting a deal, or if the vendor marked the prices up to make it look like you're getting a deal now. I scored a nice deal on a Dell laptop that I can use for gaming or Internet/Word/Excel for 10 hrs for about $1k (less when combined with promos and discounts).