[JiP]

i'm buying a laptop in the next few weeks, but have no idea what to go for. right now i would be using it for school work / internet but being able to play games on it would be pretty cool because our desktop computer is ancient. any recommendations for one that would be between 300 - 500 quid would be awesome. i'm looking at the dell website at the moment, but i know they aren't the best.

[Deonilin]

playing games depends really on what games you want to play on it. Having a onboard graphics is good for battery and price but will limit you only to the older games, having a graphics card onboard will add to the price wieght heat etc. I wouldnt recommend in ur budget trying to get one with a dedicated graphics especialy if you are looking for it to be portable.

Dells tend to be reasonable and a good starting point to see what you can get for your budget. Would want to check highstreet store as often for that price range, they often have deals on.

Might be worth looking at some of the acers too, they tend to make good quality laptops.

If you are running vista make sure that you get one with enough memory in it. Also dont go about a 15" screen if you are looking for portablility.

Ebuyer apparantly has a few HP's that a mate just brought for 300 which he thinks is good might be worth checking out.

[Calz]

sounds quite random, try looking around play.com they sometimes have so good deals, also places like the usual high street stores, pcworld.co.uk have a refurb section which might get you a good laptop for alot cheaper... again tho, its been a while since i've been pc hunting....

[JiP]

so a decent gaming laptop that's relatively cheap and doesn't weigh a tonne isn't going to happen? my dad has an acer, it's pretty solid, think it costs him about 300 quid as well. this looks like a fairly decent buy. does the t4200 processor mean that's what it runs at? all this dual core stuff has lost me.

This post has been edited by JiP: 21 February 2009 - 01:53 PM

[Driskell]

JiP, on Feb 21 2009, 01:49 PM, said:

so a decent gaming laptop that's relatively cheap and doesn't weigh a tonne isn't going to happen? my dad has an acer, it's pretty solid, think it costs him about 300 quid as well. this looks like a fairly decent buy. does the t4200 processor mean that's what it runs at? all this dual core stuff has lost me.

Dual Core means it essentially is two processors.

So a 2GHz Dual Core will be a single processor, but with 2 logical processors (2 cores.) Each core will run at 2 GHz.
So it will be similiar to having 2 2GHz processors in your computer. (Actually a bit quicker though because they share some cache.)

[Deonilin]

You must remeber also when running dual cores some application cannot make use of the dual capabilities so will be running on one core only. However running multiple applications will work well with dual cores as you can effectivly havre a processor for each application.

I cant access the dell link, says server is busy ill check it out later.

A "gaming laptop" and cheap are not two words which go togheter at all, even ignoring weight issues. When i say gaming i am meaning newer more powerful games. Most with intergrated intel graphics can handle something like hl2, and games from about a similar age. I expect that games like rts where the graphics are less intence but have more processing for AI are more likly to run.

Just as an additional note, laptops with glass screens are a nightmare as the suffer badly from glare. Make sure you get a matt screen if you can.


EDIT: the page loads, can you give more info on which of the specs you are looking at? They have their own graphics which might be better, although they are an older card they are not actualy too bad. Running vista 2gb would be a minium for me personaly.

This post has been edited by Deonilin: 21 February 2009 - 03:42 PM

[JiP]

Deonilin, on Feb 21 2009, 03:40 PM, said:

You must remeber also when running dual cores some application cannot make use of the dual capabilities so will be running on one core only. However running multiple applications will work well with dual cores as you can effectivly havre a processor for each application.

I cant access the dell link, says server is busy ill check it out later.

A "gaming laptop" and cheap are not two words which go togheter at all, even ignoring weight issues. When i say gaming i am meaning newer more powerful games. Most with intergrated intel graphics can handle something like hl2, and games from about a similar age. I expect that games like rts where the graphics are less intence but have more processing for AI are more likly to run.

Just as an additional note, laptops with glass screens are a nightmare as the suffer badly from glare. Make sure you get a matt screen if you can.


EDIT: the page loads, can you give more info on which of the specs you are looking at? They have their own graphics which might be better, although they are an older card they are not actualy too bad. Running vista 2gb would be a minium for me personaly.

thanks for the input deo. i'd be going for the first one, on the base package. i'd probably get microsoft office as well which puts the price up a fair bit.

[Adam]

Yeh theres not much chance you can get a gaming laptop within that price range like Deo says, you will get one which will run some games fairly ok but overall your talking at least £1500 for a decent gaming laptop! 2 years ago I paid £800 for my laptop which run quite a lot of games on medium settings it had a 8600M GT but I dont really bother with games on it no more now.

[JiP]

Adam, on Feb 22 2009, 01:31 AM, said:

Yeh theres not much chance you can get a gaming laptop within that price range like Deo says, you will get one which will run some games fairly ok but overall your talking at least £1500 for a decent gaming laptop! 2 years ago I paid £800 for my laptop which run quite a lot of games on medium settings it had a 8600M GT but I dont really bother with games on it no more now.

i think i'll probably just go for the cheaper option then, PC games ruin my life anyway haha.