Looking for Laptop - Lots of encoding, light gaming

[Malachai]

I'm looking for a laptop as you may have guessed from the title. It will mostly be for encoding videos (Vegas,) but I'd like to have the option to play games on occasion. This will be a secondary machine; I have my desktop for 95% of my gaming needs.

What I'm looking for:
- Quality screen
- Large base drive would be good as I usually have several hundred gigs of video to encode, but I can use an external if needed
- ~$1000. Could probably go higher if bang-buck is worth it
- Customer Service I can depend on if there are problems

Not very necessary:
- Battery life. It'll be plugged into an outlet the majority of the time
- Weight. It will be at home mostly and maybe brought to work sometimes so weight isn't a big deal.

 

[TheStu]

What size are you looking for? Smaller and lighter, or bigger and beefier (note: this also applies to lunch choices)

 

[kleinkinstein]

A Lenovo T530 with a 1080p screen is all that and more. Get one on the cheap with B&N deals and discounts. T430 if you think you'll need a more compact FF and heightened portability.

 

[Malachai]

What size are you looking for? Smaller and lighter, or bigger and beefier (note: this also applies to lunch choices)

Size/weight isn't a big deal. I will probably take it to work occasionally but it doesn't need to be ultra portable.

CPU power is more important as I'll be doing a lot of encoding. So, beefier; a half-pounder with cheese I'd say.

A Lenovo T530 with a 1080p screen is all that and more. Get one on the cheap with B&N deals and discounts. T430 if you think you'll need a more compact FF and heightened portability.

Thanks for this. Going to check them out.

One question: Why are the T530 and the T430 the same price? The only difference I saw was that the T430 has a smaller screen, so shouldn't it be less?