Help with buying a gaming laptop

[Alex5]

Hey Folks

I have not played my Xbox one in about 7 months which leads to me wanting to sell it and buying a cheap and cheerful gaming laptop.
Budget wise i want to spend about £350 and i want to be able to play games such as Dota 2, Battlefield Badcompany 2 etc.
So not massive spec but good enough so i don't have lag to worry about.
I havent been in the pc/laptop game for many years so i really don't have a clue about specifications, can anyone advise me on what to get in terms of ram/cpu/graphics etc.

Many thanks

 

[Sargara]

Basically you need to up your budget ideally to around <£500 if you want to use it for gaming. The biggest obsticle is to avoid anything without a dedicated graphics card (GPU). So if ever the laptop you look at says "on-board graphics card" or "Intel HD graphics" etc disregard it.

Id have a browse of the Dell outlet for a cheap laptop. The stock updates daily:
http://www.dell.com/uk/dfh/p/

 

[Alex5]

Basically you need to up your budget ideally to around <£500 if you want to use it for gaming. The biggest obsticle you is to avoid anything without a dedicated graphics card (GPU). So if ever the laptop you look at says "on-board graphics card" or "Intel HD graphics" etc disregard it.

Id have a browse of the Dell outlet for a cheap laptop. The stock updates daily:
http://www.dell.com/uk/dfh/p/

thanks for the help, trouble is i don't want to go up to £500. I want to sell my Xbox and put in minimal cash to get to £350.
What about second hand from ebay?
Also i always thought Dell were considered rubbish, is this still the case?

 

[Sargara]

Not sure what/where you are basing the Dell comment on, they are one of the biggest out there for a reason. Dells outlet would give you the opertunity of buying a nearly new device with some kind of warranty/reassurance = cheaper prices.

If you go the 2nd hand route just bare in mind if it dies the following day you're essentially stuck. Aim for an i3, i5 etc and avoid any of the older generation Core2Duo processors and the likes.

 

[Lal B3N]

You might get something older/used on ebay like a DellXPS/Alienware but the spec of them gets old fast and upgrading them isn't easy compared to a desktop gaming machine.

And they aren't really a laptop anyway when you get into higher spec gaming ones, the battery lasts about 1 hour if you are lucky. I think my mates old i7 Alienware was about 30 minutes off charge when gaming, so it always had to be plugged in on charge anyway. And they aren't exactly portable, they weigh a tonne!

 

[Sargara]

You might get something older/used on ebay like a DellXPS/Alienware but the spec of them gets old fast and upgrading them isn't easy compared to a desktop gaming machine.

And they aren't really a laptop anyway when you get into higher spec gaming ones, the battery lasts about 1 hour if you are lucky. I think my mates old i7 Alienware was about 30 minutes off charge when gaming, so it always had to be plugged in on charge anyway. And they aren't exactly portable, they weigh a tonne!

Id echo any of this. Im on my 5th "gaming" laptop and I quickly learned to avoid anything 17" due to size/bulk. I now stick to 15".

I dont use them out of choice its purely so I can transport it with me when im away and when im home I just sit on the sofa with it on my lap without the need for carrying a monitor, tower, periphels etc.

 

[Alex5]

okay ill check out the dell refurb website and see what their is. I agree on the practicality of the laptop rather than whole pc setup, i dont really have the space either.
Ill stick to 15'' and keeping it plugged is is no worries, i wont really be taking it elsewhere to game other than my flat.

 

[Alex5]

what about this
http://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/....aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dfh&cs=ukdfh1&puid=934b1d77

are are the Intel HD Graphics 4200 rubbish?

or go crazy and get something like this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Alienware...t=UK_Computing_Laptops_EH&hash=item418f320a9c

 

[Sargara]

@Alex5 Have a look at:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-4200.93336.0.html

To give you an idea of how it stacks up against the competition. That website will categorise graphic cards into "classes" and that one you have found is the 15th up from the bottom of Class 3. You can see from how far you have to scroll down theres alot of better ones out there :tongueout:

 

[Alex5]

@Alex5 Have a look at:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-4200.93336.0.html

To give you an idea of how it stacks up against the competition. That website will categorise graphic cards into "classes" and that one you have found is the 15th up from the bottom of Class 3. You can see from how far you have to scroll down theres alot of better ones out there :tongueout:

Ah that helps, many thanks for that ill check it out.

Ever heard of a company called Chillblast? any good?
http://www.chillblast.com/Chillblast-Akira-14-Gaming-Laptop.html

 

[Sargara]

Cant say I have but from the looks of that they are a Clevo reseller. Basically theres a Chinese/HK company that produce bare-bone laptops that resellers then configure to their desire and sell on. You get good hardware spec for the money but the build quality is often lacking. What you've linked is £600!

This Lenovo seems good value, but not sure if the graphics card would be up to it. Only you can make that call:
http://shop.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/lenovo/z-series/z50/?sb=:000001D4:00038EE7:
And its Graphics card:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-820M.108477.0.html

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

To be honest, Haswell HD graphics will be enough for MOBAs, I'd avoid playing FPS on one all together if I were you.

 

[Alex5]

What do you guys think of this
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00LXZ1NJ8/?tag=cliospnet01-21

Trouble is the warrenty doesnt transfer so i would be with out it as im buying second hand