I know nothing about notebooks(recommendations?)

Librarian

I am looking to buy a notebook, but I never had one before and the market is a bit crowded, so I want to ask for people's recommendations.

This is going to be a desktop replacement eventually, so weight and battery life is not all that important.
I would like to have a 17 inch screen and I would like to play games(doesn't need to be high end, but it should be able to run stuff like Team Fortress 2 and Deus Ex:HR) on it, but I don't want to spend more than 800 Euros tops on the thing.

I am really confused by the different types of cpu and gfx cards that are used in notebooks, plus I can not find reviews for a lot of models I have seen that looked interesting. Or there are like 20 variations of one model and they are only testing the one I can not find in a store.

Some others where I did read the reviews confused me some more, because the machines had decent specs as far as I could tell, but then the review will say something like "can play Starcraft 2 on medium settings but huge framerate drops on higher settings, only running at 15 fps" or something like that.
So apparently I know nothing about hardware for notebooks, because my 2 year old desktop which has at least to my untrained eye worse components(less RAM, slower CPU, older grafic card) can run the game on ultra just fine.

So what would be a good notebook to get?

kaliyama

If it's going to be a desktop replacement, why not get a desktop? And as you know bang for the buck on laptop components is much worse because you're paying for miniaturization. So when a graphics card was made isn't determinative of its quality - you should check out tom's hardware for benchmarks as well as googling the specs on whatever card is in the laptop you're looking at.

floobie

Desktop replacements are really, really niche products... though they don't seem to be purchased as such. Realistically, they're significantly underpowered compared to a desktop for the same price, and suck in terms of mobility and battery life relative to a smaller laptop of the same price. Maybe that very specific mix works for you, but do realize you're getting a very compromised product.

I know because my dad has one. He needed it for work, which was certainly pretty demanding on hardware. And he needed to be able to work from home and the office. The thing is pretty ridiculous, though. It's also 17 inches. It's constantly spewing out heat, the fans are always on, and it gets maaaaybe half an hour of battery life on a full charge. And it weighs as much as like 4 of my MacBooks.

I'd personally step down to a 15" laptop that might not be quite as powerful, but will likely be much more mobile. That, or reconsider if the laptop is necessary at all, since you apparently already have a competent desktop.

If you're set on this, have a look at some of Asus' offerings. They tend to be well made, and offer a huge array of hardware configurations. I'm not too well versed on laptop graphics cards, though... so I don't have much to offer in that regard. If you feel like splurging a bit, there are also those big-ass Alienware gaming laptops...

Stormwatcher

Honestly, I agree with the other guys. Desktop replacements are bad at being notebooks and bad at being desktops. Worse of both worlds.

I have a good desktop and just got a decent MSI 14" notebook, so I get the best of both.