PC vs Laptop (Three Options)

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So, I'm going to start my Computer Science degree next year and am in need of a new laptop. I have a £900-£1000(Around $1400-$1500) budget and am unsure which of the options (listed below) I should go with:

OPTION ONE:

1) PC + PS4

A £500 PC and a PS4:

Probably an i5 4670k, 8gb ram, Geforce GTX 660, 1TB HDD 7200RPM etc...

OPTION TWO:

2) High end laptop (Lenovo Y510p) OR (Lenovo G710) OR (MSI GS70 Stealth)

Since there is 3 options, I will only provide general Specs:

CPU: Quad Core i7 2.4GHZ

GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 750M/765M 2GB

RAM: 8GB - 12GB

Hard Drive/Storage: 1TB 7200rpm

No PS4/XB1

OPTION THREE:

3) Mid range PC (£400/$600) + Low-Mid laptop.

Specs for Laptop are shown above, PC specs which I'll be able to afford are listed below:

CPU: AMD FX-6200 6 Core 3.5GHZ 6MB Cache

GPU: Geforce GTX 650 2GB DDR5

RAM: 6GB DDR3

Hard Drive: 1TB HDD

OPTION FOUR:

4) Mid range PC (£500) + Xbox One

Same Specs as "Option one" and Xbox One

Issues:

Option Two - Looks weird walking into a lecture or a meeting with a gaming laptop.

Option Three - It seems pointless to have a PC and a Laptop + the uni labs already have powerful PC'S

HELP!!??

Well considering you have eliminated 2 options all by yourself before you even finished your question,you are left with basically an xbox one or a ps4...so decide what console you want then get the PC and you have made your choice....

Why would it be an issue walking into a lecture or meeting with a gaming laptop?

Plus, I doubt university computers have gaming GPUs in them unlike your Option 1.

Also, the GTX 650 is low-end. Even my GTX 560 Ti, which is old, smokes it.

Just get a laptop and a PS4. You'll need a laptop for schoolwork because you can't guarantee the university computers will always be available. School stuff takes priority.

I would just pickup a Lenovo IdeaPad Y510p with SLI 750m or 755m's for 1k and it will be faster then the desktop options.

I would just like to add the y510p Doesn't look like a gaming laptop aside from a brief (few second) glowing keyboard when you startup and the default screensaver, which you may be able to turn off.

@jun_aka_pekto - Idk why but whenever I see a guy sitting around with an Alienware or those Asus gaming laptops, I automatically think of Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. It doesn't look too professional. I will consider substituting the PC with a laptop but, I searched for a decent laptop with a price tag of £600 ($994) but couldn't find any in the UK... They're all touch or have really bad graphics cards.

@04dcarraher - Yeah, since it looks like a casual laptop i'll probably go with that one if I were to decide to go with option 2... Don't laptops have lower lifespans than PC's? If I were to only own a laptop then i'll be gaming/developing on it.

As long as you keep good care of the laptop, it will last years.

if you are looking for a laptop with gaming chops but thats not flashy then have a look at crowds like pcspecialist.co.uk. I got a vortex 4 x780 from them (which is a clevo P170SM.....thats a big one but they come in 15" trim also). they dont do any sort of branding on the laptop itself. to look at it it just looks like a big black slab. a thief probably wouldnt bother robbing it if they were looting my house :P. the only bling on it is a backlit keyboard (the lighting can be turned off).

but i have had it since sept last year and its been trouble free and its been known to play a game or two. its also generally quiet when its not under stress.

there are other smaller PC builders in the UK that make those kinds of machines also....could be worth a look.

That's what you may be thinking. But, most people don't even care what laptop you have. I still don't see why it would look unprofessional. My wife owns a $2000 Sager laptop much more powerful than my ASUS gaming laptop and she doesn't even game on it.

I don't see anything unprofessional about this. Most of the time, I'm doing schoolwork on it with lots of graphs and spreadsheets onscreen:

If you go the way of a laptop for gaming don't get any system witth any card from the 700's series. You can get one with better 800 series cards for the same price. Take lenovos ideapad 755mduel gpu settup. It gets beat by the same priced laptop with a single 860m and for 50 more you can have the 870m, also the 800 series of cards seems to save a decent amount of battey power.

@dannyoxygen:

If I could buy another laptop again, I'd pick this (13.3" $1099):

Sager NP338

£300 13" laptop off ebay for typing in lectures/programming on the go and spend the rest on a decent desktop.

Why? Because the whole point of a laptop is portability and the fact it has a battery. Gaming laptops don't do this, and yes, you look like an idiot sitting in a lecture with one. And I doubt you want to carry one round too.

I'm a computer science student.

Option three hands down, a modern gaming PC for half of the money, and a modern laptop that may let you game on low settings as well.

I could advice on both for you, just le me know what do you prefer to invest on more a more gaming laptop or a more powerful PC?

Laptop... You will want one that is lightweight and has a good battery... Gaming laptops generally have neither.

That depends. Many gaming laptops have dual GPUs: a dedicated gaming GPU and built-in Intel graphics. When the laptop stays in the Windows desktop environment (aka not gaming), The laptop uses the Intel GPU which sips juice compared to the gaming GPU. I get between 6-7 hours on mine when all I do is school work or surf the Web.

If I decide to game, it's always where there's an AC outlet available like in most student lounges. Most students (and many instructors) I've seen in campus couldn't tell dick whether I have a gaming laptop or not, not that it'd matter anyway.

The way some people are sounding, it seems to imply they haven't owned a gaming laptop in a while because there was a time when most gaming laptops had a battery life of a couple hours. There's been some solutions since.

Get a Lenovo Thinkpad for school work and a PS4 for gaming. Thats what I would do. Most games that are on PC will be released on the PS4 also.

I'm just saying that from what I've observed of a friend with a Lenovo Y510p, the battery is 4 hours at best, and that's on power saving mode with the GPU disabled and CPU at 50% speed...

Is a dual GPU gaming laptop lightweight?

My 14" ASUS G46VW weighs 5.5 lbs. That puts it in the same weight class as 15" laptops with CPUs that have similar speeds (2.6Ghz, turbo boost: 3.2Ghz). It's lighter than many non-gaming Lenovos and Acers. It's smaller than most (non-ultrabook) laptops I see on campus.

I don't have a Lenovo Y510p which have SLI'd GPUs. There used to be a non-SLI Y510 which has the nVidia GPU + Intel HD graphics. I considered the Y510. But, I opted for my ASUS G46VW instead which has a lower native res of 1366x 768 on a smaller 14" screen, more than adequate for my needs. Gaming wasn't my first priority on it. But, when I do game, I want to make sure there's not much noise or danger of overheating. The G46VW's fans and vents are plumbed for those functions.

On battery power, my G46VW acts just like the other lappies with Intel HD graphics. The GTX 660m doesn't kick in unless I game and my lappie is on AC power. I currently have mine on Power4Gear High Performance. With WiFi and surfing, I get between 4-5 hours of juice.