Just been employed again so looking for a new laptop that's good for general usage but also some gaming (medium settings would be nice). I'm also getting a PS4 so I want a new TV. Looking at 32 inches and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations.

TV budget is £400 max. Laptop is about £600-800.

I would prefer not to put the laptop together myself but could if need be.

 

Are you in the UK?

 

Yes, sorry. Should have said. Glasgow, specifically.

 

Since I don't really know any UK retailers, I'm going to stick to amazon for now. As always for laptops, I recommend notebookcheck if you want to see some game benchmarks for the GPUs (simply search for the GPU there - quite a bit down on the GPUs page they've got benchmarks). Now, this Asus looks to be the best you can get under 800. It's got an i7 and a 860M, so it should allow for medium in most games at least (or even high in some).

The next best option amazon has to offer seems to be this Lenovo laptop. CPU and GPU are both a bit weaker, but should still be enough, and it has two 500GB HDDs, so it offers 250GB more than the Asus. Additionally, you can buy an SSD with it to give it quite a speedboost, but you'd have to remove one of the 500GB HDD's for that. In the end you'll have to decide if you want the most performance, or little less but things like an SSD, since I don't think that there are any models who come with one (and a decent GPU) in that price range.

Some general advice for laptops: If possible, grab one with an i7, since the mobile i5's are just dual cores. Also, it should have 8GB RAM and the display should be 1920x1080 - for GPUs I already pointed out notebookcheck.

 

Thanks man. I'm gonna have a gander at it. It seems like a good laptop. I haven't been following updates to hardware the past few years so I'm in the dark in that regard.

 

Sorry to jump in but for the price that Lenovo laptop really is very decent. Wish I'd saw that before I bought this.

 

If you get the Lenovo, do a clean install. They have factory-installed spy/adware on the computer which is supposed to "enhance" your browsing experience.

 

I think choosing new TV is simple. There are not that many factors around it:

power consumption - One has to make calculations about how often that TV will be used. This article seems to be good.

resolution - This is very important. Not many people would enjoy looking at big pixels. "Full HD" was a best one a few years ago. I don't know which one is best now. Just pick higher number.

diagonal - Can't help with this.

 

Anything less than 1080p is unacceptable.

 

Looking at a 32 inch Full HD Smart TV for 400. It's got netflix built in, internet cable, wifi, three HDMI ports and a scart port. And a usb port. No recording from USB which sucks a little.

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-KDL32W...d=1431342041&sr=8-3&keywords=Sony+KDL-32HX753

This has wifi, four HD ports, and two usb ports and supports recording onto an external HDD, for £300.

 

I was advised by a friend to go for a tv with a high hertz because a low hertz will affect motion in games and some movies. Is that true?

P.S. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

Do you mean refresh rate? Most of TVs (also laptops and computer screens) have 60 Hz. Human eye won't notice the difference between 60 Hz and 120 Hz. If you have a computer and play games on it, did you have problems with refresh rate (did you see the screen quickly flickering)? If not, then it shouldn't be a problem.

 

It says hertz on the reviews. Usually it's 50-100, but some have been 200-400. I'm not sure if they're the same thing.

 

TVs and computer screens work by showing many images in quick succession (60 Hz = 60 images per second). It tricks human eyes , because brain translates these images into motion. 400 Hz is far too much.

I don't think refresh rate has any impact on motion. If you placed two TVs (one with 60 Hz and other with 400 Hz) next to each other, you wouldn't notice any difference between them. I think motion and such are handled by that gaming device (playstation?) you use. TV just shows what that PS will send in.

edit: I've just read an article about it:

So it has impact on motion. I was wrong. I don't think it is worth the money, though.

 

The human eye can see the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz, the problem is that there is no content that runs at that speed (the only common one is gaming, and then, only if you have the screen and computing horsepower to do it). There isn't much literature on 240Hz, but in the best case scenario, US Air Force pilots could go as high as 220fps (though this seems suspect as I cannot find the source on this - it all points to this article from 2001 about how we can see beyond 30fps).

Here's where it gets tricky though - TVs often advertise beyond 60Hz refresh rate, as high as 480Hz. They're all lying of course. They're interpolating a 60Hz signal into a 480Hz one and then displaying that. Interpolation has a whole host of issues that means it isn't as good as a native solution (for example, playing games >120fps) primarily because there isn't enough data in the source material (as it's usually 30fps) and it's processing intensive (causing input lag).

TL;DR Don't buy a TV because it has high refresh rate, because they typically don't as they're lying. That said, don't go for one that can only output 30Hz either, that way you can game on it or interpolate content higher.

 

So if I were buying a television so I could play ps4 games and maybe hook up my laptop on the odd game what would you recommend?

I was looking up some guides that suggest that plasma TVs (42 inch and up) give better depth and quality. Is this true?