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[Lightningfalcon]

So, it is time to replace my incredibly aged Inspiron laptop as I move off to college (I've had to replace multiple parts multiple times, and the battery for it last maybe 30 minutes now).  Any suggestions?  I have a desktop, but since I won't be able to move it easily from my dorm to my house and back, I want to be able to play the majority of my games on it.  At a minimum I need to be able to run most of my strategy games (Crusader Kings, Civilization, Warhammer), but I would also like to be able to play whatever other games I have, like Witcher 3, Skyrim, or Metro.  Budget is preferably as low as possible, but my current range that I cna manage is up to 1500$.  If I have to pay one or two hundred more for a large boost in performance that is fine, but otherwise I want to stay beneath that.  Additionally, the longer the battery life the better, since I'll be running around campus and probably doing lots of traveling. If I can get an extra battery that I can swap out that would be great, though I have no idea how practical that is.  Currently, I'm looking at these computers-
Lenovo Y50
Gigabyte P37
How good are those laptops, and are there any better ones in that price range?

[Thief^]

The gigabyte is far better for games. The lenovo has a 4k display, which will look amazing, but the gpu can't drive it - you'll likely be running games at only 1080p anyway.

Note: for both of them, gaming on battery is not a good idea. If you can get the gigabyte one with SSD storage instead of hdd, that's a great idea for both battery life and ruggedness.

[Lightningfalcon]

Thanks.  Looking at the Y50 a bit more people definitely complain about not being able to run anything at 4k, so that doesn't really offer anything.
So apparently I actually meant the P35, because the P37 is way outside of my price range. Is that still a good laptop?
Finally, how big of an upgrade or downgrade is it from these two laptops-
Precision M3800
ThinkPad W541
I can get the precision for about 1,700 and the Thinkpad for about 1,300 through my college, along with some nice warranties and stuff. 
EDIT: Also add the G551 to that.  Seems to be a little bit cheaper, run a little cooler, and have a little more RAM.

[oriramikad]

Are there any better ones in that price range?

Definitely. You can get a laptop with a GTX 960M for about $900, and one with a 980M for about $1600. Take a look:
http://www.xoticpc.com/custom-gaming-laptops-notebooks-clevo-sager-notebooks-ct-95_51_162.html
(I know Sager has quality, but I can't vouch for any other brand on that site. Sager is the best value anyway.)

Alternatively (this is what I'm doing), you could get a laptop with a good CPU and integrated graphics and use an external PCIe adapter for your graphics card. That way, as your graphics card gets outdated, you can upgrade it, and your laptop will run cooler when it doesn't need a graphics card. (Haswell chips already run pretty hot -- adding a GPU to the already underpowered cooling system of a laptop isn't the greatest.)

[Thief^]

I wouldn't get a quaddro GPU. My experience with the desktop ones is that people are frequently disappointed with their gaming performance.

The P35 still looks decent, as does the Asus. The Sager ones look pretty awesome too. Generally, get at least a 960m GPU (not sure what the equivalent AMD is, sorry) and an SSD if possible, and at least 8GB of ram. For customisable ones like that it's worth checking if you can buy the ram yourself cheaper than their upgrade price, especially for larger amounts it's often the case.

[Eldin00]

I've been relatively happy with the quadro GPU in my Lenovo laptop, but that might just be because I had realistic expectations of it. The laptop can produce playable (30+) frame rates in every game I've thrown at it so far, but on a few I have to turn the graphics settings down a relatively low. In short, I wouldn't get a quadro in a laptop with gaming as its primary function, but it's good enough to get by in most games, and is a solid choice for a laptop where gaming is intended as a secondary use.

[oriramikad]

I have an NVS 160M, and it can't handle the lowest settings on MWO and requires lowest render quality on KSP, although the laptop only has a Core 2 Duo at 2.8 Ghz and 4 gigs of RAM . . .