For my graduation gift, my parents are buying me a laptop. Unfortunately, I do not think they are going to include me much in the actual buying process - I won't know what they're getting me until it's plopped on front of my face. I would like to put together a list of hardware requirements for the laptop they buy, but am not entirely confident in my own knowledge of hardware, especially for laptops. I'd really like to have a laptop capable of running some higher level games, like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, though I want it to be fairly reasonably priced. At the very least, I want to be able to play the mass-released games like Skyrim or Deus Ex on it. I don't want to mess with consoles while I'm at college.

tldr: What do I need in a laptop to easily run games like Skyrim or better that won't make the laptop outlandishly expensive?

EDIT: Current list:

Needs:

• A dedicated (NOT integrated) graphics card.
• 4GB of ram, minimum. 6 or 8 would be nice.
• 2 USB ports -more is better, but I can live without them.
• 500GB hard disk
• CPU core i5 (i7 preferable, though probably not necessary, per se) with 2.0GHz or better - this is mostly what ensures the longevity of a laptop.
• For an nVidia GPU, a GT540M or higher. Preferably higher, though price will increase rapidly. The higher the better, the top tier mobile is a GTX 580M as of writing this.
• Tin foil hat (just in case)

Wants:

• I’d like a 4 hour battery life under normal workload.
• USB 3.0 is preferable, though not a sticking point.
• 1GB designated memory

It's tougher with laptops, but if I recall correctly, my stepdad's laptop was able to handle games that made my computer slow, so I'll ask him and get back to you on it.

Sony Vaio or Toshibas are good.
Dell Latitudes are also really awesome but really expensive and NOT to be confused with Dell Inspirons which break down or burst into flames after a year.
Thinkpads are nice for school/work stuff but probably aren't typically the sort of machine to run high-performance games.

As for specific numbers, I haven't bought a laptop for nearly a year, so I can't tell you what specs are considered "good" these days.

If you want to run higher end games like Skyrim, you're going to be spending around $600 to $700. At that rate, you might as well spend about $1000 and get a top of the line Acer or something.

If you guys can, more specific things like "needs x much ram" and an "x or y or better graphics card in it" are probably more helpful in this case. I can give laptop type suggestions, but they're less likely to listen to that than if I list out parts it needs.

If you want to run skyrim on ultra settings on a laptop expect to spend about $1200 minimum. Laptops are far more expensive than desktops. Skyrim specifically is very cpu-demanding and runs best with a quad-core processor. As for RAM, 4gb is a good starting point. You can always add more. For a graphics card, this website gives a list of tons of mobile GPUs and the framerate you will get on certain games. Xoticpc.com is a good website for picking a laptop that you can customize.

I don't need ultra - I just want decent. Something that won't lag horribly, and will look at nice, not INSANE SUPER OH MY GOD THE IMMERSION. If it fairly easy to add more ram (or even replace a graphics card) in a laptop, I'd be okay with buying better hardware after the fact, but I'd prefer not to have to really dig around and run the risk of breaking the computer forever.

I really know nothing about laptops. I've never even owned one before, let alone had to worry about doing things to it.

Generally speaking the graphics card is very hard to get to, or not replaceable at all, so I wouldn't attempt it. The biggest thing to look for is a dedicated graphics card in the laptop. Any integrated graphics won't be able to handle skyrim. I've seen skyrim being played on Mac Airs, so I think any 700-800 dollar laptop with dedicated graphics will be able to play.

My minimal knowledge is all second-hand, so I'd suggest you don't rely on it too heavily.

AFAIK, most current budget and mid-range laptops use the built-in graphics on the motherboard. You can pretty much forget running Skyrim on that. I would suggest, then, that the key specification is a separate graphics card. (No need to specify which, because if it has one at all the manufacturer wouldn't have bothered unless it was pretty decent.)

The Acer laptop of a friend of mine was advertised to run Crysis, and it did. A first person shooter from '99 had trouble though...
It went a lot better since we put Windows 7 on it rather than Vista, but I don't trust Acer at all anymore to deliver the specs they advertise. What they advertise is probably true, but somehow all of their laptops are rather slow and break down often (I hear that from just about everyone who owns an Acer or got experience with one).

My current laptop is an Asus EEE 1215n (was €470 about a year ago) and it runs Amnesia on low quality, but not easily. Most other games are also well playable, as long as you put them on low quality. My experience with Asus is that they deliver about the most power for the money. Dell laptops at school are generally more business-focussed and have faster CPUs rather than graphical power, but they game fine as long as you pay enough. One person also got a Sony Vaio which runs fast (about the fastest I've seen), but he never games at all. I suspect Sony also focusses on the business market though, so not that much gaming power. Also it was quite expensive iirc, but I don't remember what the price was.


RAM: 2GB minimum, but I'd recommend 4.
CPU: This is a very nice list, I think any CPU above about 1000-1200 score will do. (GHz is not always a good measure.)
GPU: Another good list, but I'm less familiar with this. I think you need about 700.

For battery life, my EEE-laptop was (iirc) advertised to last 6 hours. If you work normally on it, you get about 5 hours and 30 minutes (or should I say 4 hours and 60 minutes o'harean time here :P). When gaming I estimate about 3 hours, but I'm not someone who plays a game for very long especially on a laptop (we got desktops for gaming, imho), so I never really tried that. So decide what you want it to last under normal load (no games), add about 30 minutes to an hour to that, and tell them that's your requirement for the working time.
I personally am a bit like, as long as it lasts 2 hours I don't care. Within that time there is always a place to plug the power in.

Hmm what else... I'm not sure if you share files between computers somewhere (home, school, ...), but if you do a gigabit ethernet controller would be advisable. Also support for 802.11n wireless would be nice then, the older standard only goes to 54mbit.

Storage and size is something you can probably decide yourself. I think I got about everything now :).

(Note that I might be mistaken on anything though, everything I say is from personal experience, but I'm quite sure it will work out with the above specifications).

I disagree. You can get laptops very reasonably priced with good specs at newegg.com. About 4 months ago, I purchased a laptop (Dell XPS 15) that has no issues running Skyrim on high. It ran me $900, although the price has gone down since. Depending on when you are getting your laptop here are the specs I would recommend the following:

Processor: i7 with 2.0GHz or better (they typically will also have turbo boost). Intel may have a new processor out by the time that you purchase your computer. I would personally go for the newer processor as it will help ensure the longevity of your computer.
RAM: 2 gigabytes might be a titch too slow for gaming, especially as your laptop gets older. I would recommend anywhere from 4 to 8 (I have 6 which serves me very well).
Hardisk: Whatever suits your needs, 500 GB to a terrabyte is fairly standard.
Graphics Card: The model I'm using is NVIDIA GeForce GT525M. I don't really know much about graphics cards, but you want to make sure to have a designated graphics card, not integrated. I would recommend having 1GB designated memory for the laptop, but you should be able to function with less than that (for now).

Other things: I personally would recommend what you get a laptop with at least 2 USB ports (get USB 3.0 if possible). Make sure it has WiFi if you are using it in the college setting. Try and get 7200rpm as well.

Out of curiousity what is your price range? The specs I listed off are around $800 to $900 all together, but should last you through college, even if you are gaming on the most current games. Depending on your major, it will also handle more graphic and processing power intesive applications such as CAD and systems analysis software. I believe you said you are going into Computer Science? This will certainly suffice for what you are going for. I would also recommend waiting as long as possible, as prices for computer components are always going down as new models come out.

That was high, not ultra. I have an nvidia 540m in my laptop. I get a fairly decent framerate in skyrim on high settings. Just for contrast the Intel integrated graphics struggles on medium. For resolution I think it would be better to just have an hdtv or monitor to hook up to instead of paying extra for a high resolution screen built in. I don't know of a laptop you can run demanding games on for more than an hour on battery so that doesn't matter too much.

I am aware of that. However, the increase in required specs to go from high to ultra is not enough to be a $300 increase in price.

Could be. My main point was that the earlier post that said $600 or $700 is a little low

I just said run. As in, you know, at the very least, can meet minimum standards and run the game. Nowhere did I imply that you would be getting 60 FPS consistently or anything of the like for that price.

I have a Acer with a Core i5 at 2.3 GHz and 6 GB ram. It runs programs well, but graphics tend to lack, due to it has a nVidia GT520M.

For nVidia GPUs, I'd recommend a GT550M or higher. The higher the better, the top tear mobile is a GTX 580M as of writing this.

CPU a Core i5 or better. Honestly for games most of your processing is in the GPU, but you still need CPU speed.

Hard drive performance is also something to look at, a 7200 RPM HDD is probably recommended. Mine has a 5400 RPM HDD and I can feel the lag sometimes, especially for large programs.

Ram, 4 GB+ I have 6 and have never been over 70% usage of that.

That's my bad Nathan Drake, I misread your earlier post.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a laptop nowadays that couldn't at least "run" almost any game. If you want to get something that looks good and has a good framerate on the higher settings a laptop is going to be up there in price. Also, if you don't mind paying a little extra, a SSD is a good move. As are USB 3.0 ports.

If you want to run something like Skyrim, I would suggest 3-4 gb of RAM. You might get a bit of lag, and it won't be super fast and smooth, but it should work. However, I'm still stuck back when people worshipped 4-gb comps, so I may be wrong.

Okay, here is what I have list-wise so far.

Needs:
A dedicated (NOT integrated) graphics card.
4GB of ram, minimum. 6 or 8 would be nice.
2 USB ports -more is better, but I can live without them.
500GB hard disk
CPU core i5 (i7 preferable, though probably not necessary, per se) with 2.0GHz or better-
this is mostly what ensures the longevity of a laptop.
For an nVidia GPU, a GT550M or higher. The higher the better, the top tier mobile is a GTX 580M
as of writing this.

Wants:
I’d like a 6 hour battery life under normal workload. I’m not sure how often I’ll be needing to use it
outside of a plug-in-able environment, but more is better.
USB 3.0 is preferable, though not a sticking point.
1GB designated memory

Also, as far as price range goes, I think my parents are probably planning on spending $500-$700, however, I am petitioning them to feel free to take money from my savings account to cover the price if what I ask for proves overly expensive.

Just as an example, here's a laptop I found on newegg. It's little over your price range, but it's the cheapest I could find with a 550M gpu. It may be hard to find a laptop capable of 6 hours of batter life when packing all this higher performance hardware.

I'll probably be able to have it plugged in most places. I'll down it to four hours. Also, that is a bit over, and they may not be willing to get that (I think they'll be hesitant to buy me a gift with my own money, so it's probably better to try to stay lower).

Could I get away with a less expensive GPU? If so, what should be my real minimum for it?

Geforce 540m. Absolute minimum. Anything else and the Intel integrated graphics would be comparable.

Oh, and no matter what you do, don't get one of those laptops with built-in webcams. It's secretly a conspiracy by aliens to spy on you.

It's perectly fine to have an integrated webcam if you are wearing a tinfoil hat.

I'll make sure to take precautions :P