'Gaming' Laptop

[Sean B]

I am looking to purchase a new laptop as my current one is on its last legs. I use the term 'gaming' laptop loosely as I don't need anything too powerful. I also need it to be portable, hence the reason I am not considering a PC.

I basically play football manager and may venture into some other games such as Guild Wars and Age of Empires but nothing too strenuous. I'd prefer it to have blu-ray but not essential and even with the bad reviews, I'd prefer to step up to Windows 8.

My budget is no more than £700 if I can help it, and cheaper the better really. Would consider refurbished if they're trustworthy.

Can anyone suggest anything suitable?

Thanks in advance.

 

[PhilTheFragger]

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/lapto...-561g-15-6-laptop-iron-grey-22070768-pdt.html

Or something slightly cheaper, but still a good spec

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/lapto...ps/lenovo-g5070-15-6-laptop-22068948-pdt.html

dont worry about Windows 8, download "Classic Shell" (google it) and it gives you back the start button as in earlier incarnations of windows

 

[Sean B]

Thanks Phil. Seen a decent one on Dino pc but it's not a well known brand so a little hesitant to order from there. I like the look of those two. Should they manage most games at a decent level?

 

[ColchesterFC]

See if you can do a little research on the lesser known brand and see if they make laptops for any of the well known brands. My other half wanted a sewing machine for her birthday so after looking at all the brands like Singer/Brother etc I came across one by a company called Jaguar that we'd never heard of. Went in to our local shop and chatted to the guy and it turns out that Jaguar make a lot of motors and other parts for the bigger more well known brands. All made in the same factory with exactly the same quality but with a less well known name on the outside of it.

 

[PhilTheFragger]

Can you put up or pm a link to the dino PC one and we can compare like with like

 

[Sean B]

Yeah there's one for £689 but that's only a 13.3" screen. This one is £739.

http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/Pegasus-15-6-GTX-765-Laptop-156p1990.htm

Thanks for your help both.

 

[PhilTheFragger]

The Dino Pegasus looks a little over priced, for that money I would expect an Intel I7 cpu,
It does however have a nice dedicated graphics card with 2Gb of its own RAM. having said that, the games you are looking at all have pretty modest graphics requirements, so it may well be overkill.

The Acer above also has a dedicated Graphics card (so it doesnt use any of your system RAM) and with the I7 is a better buy. also Acer is a "known" brand with tried and tested support in the background, whereas Dino is an unknown quantity ( Doesnt mean they are inferior, just unknown.)

If it was me, id buy the lenovo spend £100 on a 256GB SSD hard drive, Set up the laptop with original spec and go through the process of making a recovery disc set.

Swap in the SSD drive and use the disc you just made to install windows.

then you will end up way under budget with a faster PC than either of the others with benefits on heat generation and also power consumption and battery life.

win win win

 

[DannyOT]

If I were looking to future-proof myself, i would go for this: http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/9WP15FV23-GB-A-001-Gigabyte-P15F-V2-CF1_1629234.html for slightly over budget.

There's an awful lot of choice around this price point. I would highly suggest using saveonlaptops, they are a reputable company and I have used them a few times, along with other people I know.

I'd alos look at this Lenovo: http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/59415169-Lenovo-Z50_1585701.html

or this MSI: http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/CX61-2PC-681UK-MSI-CX61-Haswell_1620393.html

The Lenovo looks excellent for the price and should be built really well.

 

[PhilTheFragger]

That Lenovo in DannyOT's post above looks very good value

looks like Gigabyte are doing what Asus did a few years ago, expand from making Motherboards to other areas inc laptops also MSI used to just make graphics cards, i would go for Lenovo over both these other manufacturers

 

[guest100718]

700 quid will give you plenty of choice, all the name brands are made with the same components from the same places anyway.

 

[Sean B]

Thanks for the help guys.
The problem I have is that I keep thinking "well if I pay another £100, I can get this" and before I know it, I'm well above my budget.
Is the graphics card and RAM the most important detail to look out for?
I've been inputting details into the gamedebate website to see if the specs could cope with the games I'm looking at playing but still no closer to making a decision.

 

[PhilTheFragger]

The most important components are the CPU and RAM
Intel is the way to go with either an I5 or I7 Simply dont bother looking at anything other than these.

Ram : 8GB is a very good amount, it is unlikely you will notice any difference if you ram it up to 16GB (see what I did there

The games you are looking at have pretty moderate graphics requirements so onboard graphics (uses some of your RAM) will do, but a dedicated graphics card is generally better, a 1GB card will be fine, 2GB is better, but again you may not notice any difference.

That lenovo mentioned in an earlier post looks bang on and within budget

Remember that there will always be new kit out next week/month that superceeds yours, but that doesnt mean it is obsolete. laptops of this spec should still be working nicely 5 years down the line as long as you dont drop it