Hey guys, another one of those topics I guess. For my 21st my parents are wanting to get me a new laptop, as this one I got from my brother and is dying a really bad death.

I'll be moving to the US for a year (at least) in September, and I'm not planning to take the desktop I have, as it's just a large amount of uselessness and I'm aiming for a bit more minimalism when I get there.

Basically my main want is to have a laptop that's capable of playing games, probably not much more than TF2.

A built in webcam would be nice, not essential.

Battery life would be great. My current one is bad enough that unplugging it grants me no more than 40 minutes of life.

Given this is a gift, they won't tell me what price they're happy to pay, and so if I suggest something that's over it, they'll ask me to contribute, so what sort of price would I be looking at for what I'm looking for?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

I'm going to assume that you know of the drawbacks that a laptop has in comparison to a desktop when gaming is concerned.

Now, first a few more infos are needed. Running TF2 should be no problem for pretty much any modern laptop, since it's a source engine game, so the better question is what sort of performance you want in new games if you play one. Do you want maximum details at 1080p 60fps in newer games? That would bump the price up pretty high. Or are graphical details unimportant, as long as it can run them?

Also, if you really want to get the best deal be prepared for many comparisons between internet and local deals. Unlike desktop hardware, the prices can vary much more depending on where you look (at least in my experience here in Germany). Oh and I assume you're going to buy the laptop in the UK before you go to the US?

 

Laptops with decent gpu's can get expensive quickly. But fortunately TF2 isn't very demanding, so as Sacro said you can probably get good performance on any new laptop.

It seems like scan.co.uk has a decent selection of laptops under 1100 pounds. This one looks like it might be decent. http://www.scan.co.uk/products/173-...gb-ddr3840m-2gb-gddr3-dvd-win-81-plusfree-bag I don't know what the battery life is like. Though powerful laptops do usually end up sacrificing battery life.

I wouldn't worry too much about a webcam. You can pick up a cheap one for under $40 off of amazon. I think I paid $15 for mine. If you want to cut costs further, ram and hard drives are both easy to upgrade. But a new hd will probably require an OS install. So you could always pick up more ram or a bigger hd in the states if you are dissatisfied with it.

I can't really give suggestions on where to buy one though. I don't know who has good deals in the U.K. But computer parts are significantly cheaper in the states. You could get that laptop for around $830 right now from Best Buy instead of the 743 pounds scan is charging. That is about 30% off.

 

Yep, well aware of laptop disadvantages versus desktops when it comes to gaming, but when I'm planning to move like this, my aim is to get across with a suitcase and a holdall, so I'm gonna minimise life as best I can, and a laptop is a big part of that.

For new games, it's not even required to be able to run them. I game quite little nowadays, so a bit of TF2, Portal, maybe some Mirror's Edge, that's about as far as I go graphically. If it's only a little jump to go up to running them, then I'd only be bothered about low performance, I don't need super high res or quality.

Yeah, I'll be buying in the UK.

Thanks for the info bob, that one does look pretty good, I'll have a read about it more.

Wow, it is a hell of a lot cheaper in the states. While I'd be okay with getting it when in the US, given that it's a gift from my parents, I think they'd like to see it and be able to give it to me properly, so I'll need to buy in the UK.

Cheers so far guys

 

Alright, so next question: what size do you want? 15.6" or 17.3"? I'm just going to list some of both size for the moment.

First the one linked above but a little cheaper on Amazon
Here's another one (no 1080p - only 900p, but if you don't care about that it's worth a look)
Another 900p one with the worst GPU so far (It'll run TF2 fine, but modern games not so much), but in exchange it has a quadcore CPU so it's better suited for things outside of gaming.

Apart from those, you have the option of configuring one yourself - for example here. I just did a quick configuration of their "Cosmos II", and you can get a pretty decent one with a 1080p display for about £680. (Specs for that: i5-4310M, Nvidia GT 740M, 8GB RAM and a 1TB HDD).

For GPU-Benchmarks you can look here. Just hit ctrl+f and type in the GPU name to search for it in the list, and then on the GPU page scroll down until you get to the game benchmarks.

 

You really dont need to look for a gaming laptop with discreet rather than integrated graphics with those requirements those requirements (mirrors edge, source).

Any just about Modern laptop with integrated graphics will be capable of it. Look for something with at least Intel HD 4600 graphics on it. AMD laptops tend to have slightly better integrated graphics.

Recall that these games were built for hardware thats about a decade old.

 

I've been looking as well - I like the Acer Aspire S3-392G - a small (13") package with a dedicated graphics processor. A reasonably priced ultrabook at 999€.

 

Heat and noise kills any serious gaming interest on laptops for me. I played through Diablo 3 on a macbook pro back then and it was a pain. I even use the internal NV GPU over the discrete one for noise/heat reasons in normal operation.

So even if you get one with a bigger GPU you might not like the experience at all.