Cant seem to find a laptop for my sister...

C

chockomonkey

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Oct 11, 2003
Messages
8,328
She's on a tight budget and looking for gaming/school.

Everything I find has some silly flaw, like only 2gb of ram, a crappy 5400 rpm hdd, i7, or a poorly laid out keyboard. But then they'll waste money on an i7 for a gaming branded laptop. Just weird, unless I'm missing something.

Basically what I think she'd like is something like this:
-i5 with good clock speed
-GTX 850m or better. Honestly I think shed be happy with something as old as a 500 series, but i cant find these anymore.
-6+ GB ram, ddr3. Why waste money on ddr4?
-7200 rpm hdd, hybrid ssd or standalone would be cool but I dont think itd fit in her budget.
-ips display, 1080p, at about 15". I hear ips displays are the ones to get
-standard keyboard layout that has some kind of tactile feedback. So many laptops nowadays have paper thin keyboards which are a pain to use.

She's looking to spend no more than 1000 usd.

I swear it should be possible, but all the manufacturers seem to waste money on one thing or another.
 
Don't buy something with a dedicated GPU for school (if your budget is under 1000).
XPS 13 is slightly over budget but will last forever. Also comes with SSD.
 
Henri108 said:
Don't buy something with a dedicated GPU for school (if your budget is under 1000).
XPS 13 is slightly over budget but will last forever. Also comes with SSD.
Click to expand...

Problem is that she doesn't have a gaming computer but loves to game. She's okay with the weight trade off. Why else are you saying not to do this? Just because of the price?
 
Maybe look at the Lenovo Ideapad Y series, I know the 14" Y40 definitely starts below $1000, the 15" Y50 might be a bit more than that. They're a reasonable product for the price with a GeForce 860M or Radeon M275x I believe. You have to make sacrifices for the performance, mainly heat and battery life, but they're a reasonable compromise for a low-price gaming laptop.
 
Quix said:
Maybe look at the Lenovo Ideapad Y series, I know the 14" Y40 definitely starts below $1000, the 15" Y50 might be a bit more than that. They're a reasonable product for the price with a GeForce 860M or Radeon M275x I believe. You have to make sacrifices for the performance, mainly heat and battery life, but they're a reasonable compromise for a low-price gaming laptop.
Click to expand...

Thanks. That was actually one of the ones we were looking into, the Y50 that is. And one of the sources of frustration which caused me to make this thread.

Even the most expensive Y50 has a 5400 rpm hdd. And their cheapest model still uses an i7, when a cheaper i5 would definitely be better for gaming. And it's a gaming-branded laptop. Just seemed to me that they could shift a few components around and have an overall better experience for gaming.
 
That's actually quite the list of expectations for any price, let alone $1k. First off, laptops with IPS screens are few and far between to begin with, but totally worth it.

If you find the rest of the stuff, and the laptop is easily upgradable, you can get an 8gb sodimm kit and 256gb ssd for less than $200. I recently upgraded a four year old MacBook Pro for a client and it performs as fast as a new one out of the box.
 
Even though she likes to game will see travel with this laptop? My brother has a Sager and I could not even imagine trying to move it around.
 
Decibel said:
That's actually quite the list of expectations for any price, let alone $1k. First off, laptops with IPS screens are few and far between to begin with, but totally worth it.

If you find the rest of the stuff, and the laptop is easily upgradable, you can get an 8gb sodimm kit and 256gb ssd for less than $200. I recently upgraded a four year old MacBook Pro for a client and it performs as fast as a new one out of the box.
Click to expand...
That's actually a really good idea. I'll keep that in mind, thanks. And I agree it does seem like a pretty rigid set of expectations, but so many laptops i've seen are ALMOST there, if they'd just give on one thing (like i7 > i5, or DDR4 > DDR3) and add that part of the budget to another (like 5400 > 7200 rpm)
piker28 said:
Even though she likes to game will see travel with this laptop? My brother has a Sager and I could not even imagine trying to move it around.
Click to expand...
I believe taking it to class is the most travelling she'll be doing. Perhaps she can chime in here with more details as where she'll be taking it.
 
Having done this in the past, carrying around a heavy laptop to classes turns into a complete pain in the ass after about 2 weeks. I would focus on getting some portable with good battery life and good CPU performance over getting a laptop with a GTX Xm chip in it for gaming.

And this is often why tons of kids have MacBooks now...
 
Yeah mainly school will be where i'm taking it. It's not going to be something i'll take with me everywhere, but it'd be nice if it was light enough to where when I have to commute, it won't kill me.
 
Ii had a previous lenovo ideapad that I would lug around with me everywhere, and it wasn't that big of a deal since most of my school books are now online. I believe it weighed around 5lbs (comparing to the y50, which is 5.29lbs). Wasn't that difficult to take with me.
 
kwoodstock said:
Ii had a previous lenovo ideapad that I would lug around with me everywhere, and it wasn't that big of a deal since most of my school books are now online. I believe it weighed around 5lbs (comparing to the y50, which is 5.29lbs). Wasn't that difficult to take with me.
Click to expand...

Ahh the lack of books is a good point. Not to mention that she's old enough to have had the burden of carrying around a whole backpack of books before.
 
A 5400 rpm hdd isn't that bad. The performance penalty is minor, and it uses less electricity and produces less heat.
 
Get an alienware 13 or hop on xotic pc and check out the Lenovo or sager (8651) sections and see what you can get. Lots of offerings either right at or just above your price point.
 
michaelvvang said:
yeah. From what I have seen about the XPS 13, it is awesome.
Click to expand...

I'd heard good things too. It just doesn't have the power in the gpu department though.

BladeVenom said:
A 5400 rpm hdd isn't that bad. The performance penalty is minor, and it uses less electricity and produces less heat.
Click to expand...

Good to know. I hadn't thought about the heat/electricity before.. Makes sense when you're on a battery.

Climber said:
Get an alienware 13 or hop on xotic pc and check out the Lenovo or sager (8651) sections and see what you can get. Lots of offerings either right at or just above your price point.
Click to expand...

Very cool, thanks. I've never seen this site before.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top