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First of all, laptops are trash just get a chromebook for school work and build a pc for gaming, nobody needs to "game on the go" but if that us truly out of your reach then your current laptop looks fine, you can definitely get over 100 fps with that cpu

I will need to play a week of matches/scrims this season in january as I won't be around. It is also highly likely to happen in the future. If it wasn't for comp tf2, I wouldn't need it

My current PC runs games extremely well and has absolutely no issues. I just need something that can at least run tf2 on the go.

If youre willing to get familiar with ubuntu system76.com will allow you to rent laptops which you can order in different configurations

I wouldn't even get a chrome book, I'd just go for a netbook. With a chromebook you need internet to do stuff, wtih a netbook you don't

You mean those dell mini laptops? If thats the case then i wouldnt reccomend those for school use, you see the beauty of a chromebook is that you can do nothing but school work, minimizing distractions and improving productivity :)

Also the chrome ui is less inviting and more sinister looking than windows, which personally helps me to study

I picked up an Asus E200HA-UB02-GD solely because of it's size and battery life. There's still internet on a chrome book and you need it to do literally everything. With a netbook it's like a dumbed down laptop with a weaker CPU, smaller storage size and no graphics card pretty much

for everyone saying to get a chromebook you first need to know that it can run the software you need for school, so if you use a more resource intensive program such as unity I would steer away from a chromebook and get something with more beef, and if this is your primary computer 128 gigs wont go very far.

youre right about the internet part, but not having wifi isnt too much of a problem since im assuming hes in college

The chromebook conversation is completely irrelevant, the possibility if him getting a chromebook has been eliminated, he needs a laptop since he wont always be near his desktop during matches and scrims

this thread is stupid

you probably already know this but most laptops come with shit hard drives (5400rpm usually) and if they have ssds they are massively overpriced so your best bet as far as that is concerned is to just buy one separately and install it yourself (there's usually videos on youtube of people doing it provided its possible for your given model)

for around that price about a year ago i got an asus with a quad core i7 and dedicated gpu and decent display (15" @1080p) but the downside is that its mad heavy and the power supply/charging cable thing is a huge fucking brick
during thanksgiving break i played on it and though 60hz was a pain it got pretty good fps (i copied comanglia's config from my main desktop, got 100+fps pretty much all the time)

im sure you can find 14 inch or smaller ones with cpus (all that really matters for tf2 tbh) that will fit your needs
from my experience the most important things for having a good experience are just having an ssd and a fast cpu (128gb is fine for a school laptop unless he's downloading tons of music or dumping tons of media on it for some reason its not like a bunch of word docs will add up to 100gb)

someone else who knows what theyre talking about can probably elaborate on which current parts are best or on if you need a dual core or quad core or whatever (afaik tf2 isnt very well multithreaded but at the time i did a lot of video editing which benefits from that)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Flex-4-14-Full-HD-IPS-2in1-Touch-Laptop-Core-i7-7500U-8GB-RAM-512GB-SSD-/332058074193?rpp_cat_id=5000006407
you might like this one idk

This site has a lot of good options. Your price range to fps ratio is definitely doable.

http://www.gaminglaptopsjunky.com/gaming-laptops-under-800/

I'd look at Lenovo, MSI, and Asus' past models. Stuff with GTX 860Ms should go for pretty cheap. I'm personally a huge fan of what Asus has to offer. Great laptops.

Hes doesnt need a dedicated graphics card for tf2

It helps with a laptop to take strain off the weaker CPU

A dedicated graphics card absolutely helps a huge amount to run tf2 smoothly, and it's really easy to find a laptop that has one in his price range anyway, so there's no reason not to.

An i5 can run tf2 at above 100 fps WITHOUT a graphics card, i know this from personal experience, and most laptops with graphics cards that also have everything else he listed are too expensive for him.

http://www.gentechpc.com/Sager-NP9873-S-Clevo-P870DM3-G-nVidia-GTX-1080-p/sager-np9873-s.htm

Here u go, two 1080s in sli should be enough for tf2 but ull nbeed a low graphics config

A graphics card is not needed, source games are very cpu dependent meaning that with a decent cpu you can get the frames you want. The only reason why he might need a gpu is if he wants to play some more graphics intensive games, which he is not.

Deathy i believe that if youre up to the "challenge" you might as well get a cheaper laptop that has the same specs without the ssd, and then just transfering the ssd from your desktop to your laptop, since im assuming you wont need to be using both at the same time