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Looking for a cheap semi-gaming laptop
Shoe-Eater
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
My little brother is looking for a new laptop, he wants to keep it under $800.
he does some occasional gaming? but doesn't need to run Crysis or anything. mostly plays Minecraft. he did mention BLACK OPS & ASSASSINS CREED, but i think that might be pushing it for an $800 laptop.
I'm not up to date on laptops, is it even possible to get a gaming laptop for under $800?
We'd be buying in Canada.
Thanks for any recommendations.
he does some occasional gaming? but doesn't need to run Crysis or anything. mostly plays Minecraft. he did mention BLACK OPS & ASSASSINS CREED, but i think that might be pushing it for an $800 laptop.
I'm not up to date on laptops, is it even possible to get a gaming laptop for under $800?
We'd be buying in Canada.
Thanks for any recommendations.
Shoe-Eater on
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That is just a terrible laptop in every respect except it's video card, which is mediocre instead of terrible. That is of course if the $200 discount is still going on, which I couldn't seem to find, but lets look at its specs:
Overclockable Intel® Core™2 Duo SU7300 1.3GHz (3MB Cache)
2GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 800MHz
160GB HDD SATAII 5,400RPM
1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 335M
11.6-inch WideHD 1366x768 (720p) WLED
Also DOES NOT HAVE A CD/DVD DRIVE
Cool features: two color choices for case, color choice for keyboard, can get your name engraved into it
Now lets look at this Acer laptop at $680:
AMD Phenom II Triple-Core N850(2.2GHz)
4GB Memory DDR3 1066
500GB HDD @ 5400rpm
DVD Super Multi
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650
17.3"
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Alright, lets compare:
+WAY better processor - higher clock speed and 3 cores rather than two
+Twice as much RAM at a higher speed
+Way bigger Harddrive at same speed
+A CD DRIVE!
+Considerably better Graphics card
+Much larger (Don't know if this is a plus or minus, maybe he wants a small screen)
+Because of size is also going to be heavier (bad)
In review: for $80 more you getter something that has better hardware in every respect, especially the CPU, GPU and RAM which is what is vital for gaming. That 4gb of RAM instead of 2gb WILL be noticeable, especially in Minecraft, and the other two if he's playing a modern game at medium settings. Starcraft II or Battlefield Bad Company 2 will both be playable on both laptops, but you're probably going to have a difference of between 15 to 25 FPS better on the larger laptop. That is however, it's major drawback. I dunno if you've handled a 17.3 laptop recently, but those babies are big. Big and heavy.
So lets look smaller. I give you this Toshiba at $699, it has the same stats, except for a slightly better CPU, and smaller size, all for $20 more.:
Intel Core i3 370M(2.40GHz)
4GB Memory DDR3 1066
500GB HDD 5400rpm
DVD Super Multi
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650
15.6"
----
EVEN SMALLER YOU DEMAND? Well I've got bad news in that case, which is your going to have to seriously downgrade your GPU unless your willing to pay round $1000.
This MSI laptop fits the bill at 14" and $699:
Intel Core i3 380M(2.53GHz)
4GB Memory
500GB HDD
DVD Super Multi
NVIDIA GeForce GT 325M
14"
At the 14" range, that alienware begins to look appealing, but when I went to the Dell site, I couldn't find the aforementioned $200 discount. Which makes it an $800 pile of pretty overpriced parts.
XBL : lJesse Custerl | MWO: Jesse Custer | Best vid ever. | 2nd best vid ever.
Some quick looking for what you might be able to find in Canada at the budget.
HP DV6
i7, 6GB ram, 500GB hard drive, Radeon 5650, 15.6"
Looks to be the best bang for the buck at the moment, not available online so you might luck out and find it in a local store. I'm not the biggest fan of HP, but that generally stems from ancient history of the company. I couldn't tell you either way what build quality and reliability are like today.
ASUS K72
i3, Radeon 5470, 640GB hard drive, 4GB ram, 17"
slightly over your budget, not quite as powerful but I really like the ASUS build quality, and in general warranty service in Canada has been pretty fast, usually around a week turn around.
Another HP DV6
Another HP, AMD Phenom triple core, 4GB ram, 500GB hard drive, Radeon 5470, 15.6", little bit cheaper
Acer Aspire
i5, Radeon 5470, 5GB Ram, 500GB hard drive, 13.3"
ASUS K52
i3, Radeon 5470, 4GB ram, 640GB hard drive, 15"
The 5650 is going to perform quite a bit better than the 5470, especially for anything newer, especially Black Ops and Assassin's Creed.
If you can increase the budget by a couple of hundred, there are quite a bit more options that will open up. Best of luck in your search.
1) Good build quality, mobility
2) Powerful
3) Cheap
Pick two.
At 800 dollars, you can get something decently powerful, as has already been listed. But, at least to my standards, it will probably be lacking in number one. PERSONALLY: I would go with the Alienware M11x, and bump up the budget a bit. From what I've heard, they're solid, very mobile laptops, that can be made surprisingly powerful. I'd personally rather spend more, and have the thing for 3-5 years, instead of buying something cheap and having to replace it in half that time because it's built like crap.
Isn't some of the Asus republic of gamers refurbs in the 800 dollar range ?
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/241949
Same graphics cards as some of the ones mentioned above but maybe slightly slower? I want something that will run WoW on fairly high settings (and maybe plays Starcraft II / Civ 5). Beyond that, I liked the build quality of the VAIO.
Anyone have any advice? Unfortunately us British people get totally screwed wehn it comes to paltops for decent prices.
I really don't see why that wouldn't handle what you're after. As I understand it, WOW is more cpu intensive than anything, so I'm sure the gpu is more than enough for that. You probably won't be running SC2 maxed out, but it should still look pretty good and be quite playable. And I've generally heard good things about Sony's build quality.
This one starts at 750
also the speakers are the best laptop speakers I have ever heard.
Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!
I bought my Vaio from Argos for 800€ a few months back, and it's basically the upgraded version of yours with a better CPU, blue ray, better display and so forth. I'd look around some more. Even though we get shafted on prices, that price seems a bit much for an i3 with a HD5470. Like I said, I bought mine a few months ago, for roughly the same price. Wait till after Christmas in any case. Mid-january should see a decent drop in prices.
Dell XPS-14
Anandtech reviewed its 15" bigger brother very favourably, and I think I'm going to pick one up, configured at about $1500. But this one is MORE than capable for just $899:
* Core i5 460M
* Gorgeous 14" WLED display (seriously excellent)
* 4GB DDR3 X 1333MHz
* 500GB SATA 7200RPM
* 1024M GT420M
* 8x CD/DVD Burner
The speakers are lauded above pretty much all other laptop speakers, it performs, it's SEXY, the keyboard is excellent (I'd spring for the $25 extra backlighting option, really makes a difference in dim/dark locations), what more do you want?
Oh.
Right.
Dell.
Dell's customer service is atrocious, right, I understand. It's why they call it "Dell Hell."
But there's a secret - sign up for the site as a small/medium business account. Tell them you're planning on launching a consultancy or whatever if they ask. They don't need to know. The XPS line will disappear from the available laptops. This is not a problem. You just click on "chat" and explain that you want an XPS on your business account. They'll ring you up and process the order for you.
The secret here is that Dell's business customer service kicks ass.
Anyway, that's my recommendation.