Hi there, Im in need of some help because I've never had to buy a pc or anything for myself before, until now. What im after like the title says is a decent gaming laptop for around that budget. Now I've been looking at refurbished Alienware M11x's, but i don't know what to expect if I did get one. Any help would be greatly appreciated on what to buy and what to stay away from. p.s. sorry if this is in the wrong place.
Just been looking at their website, they do have some brilliant deals and options, but looked at some reviews for them and they're pretty terrible. Has anyone ever dealt with them?
All I can say is you simply won't get a quality gaming laptop for that budget, unless 2nd hand etc. If you can up the budget to under £1000, then I would recommend you have a look at the MSI GX740 or GX660.
Dell Studio 1558, Core i5-520, Radeon HD5470 - £600inc It's the same as my missus' laptop - plays Alien Swarm at 1366x768 with all the bells and whistles on. Probably the best you'll do on that budget.
As someone who didn't understand PC's very well. I bought a laptop to game with and now 18 months down the line I really regret it. I spent £1000 on my laptop, don't get me wrong - I love it, but now I'm in a position where to game I need to upgrade, and I will be upgrading to a desktop. I would suggest reconsider, if you really want a laptop to game with, go for it. If not, get a desktop and just buy a cheap laptop for browsing/writing etc. Desktops are more powerful for the money, and you can upgrade them way more easily!
Thanks for the advice, ive been looking at this: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/optimus/ and with a couple of upgrades/downgrades in some area's I could stretch my budget to afford it. Would any of you bother with that sort or would you just get a standard set up?
This is one im looking at on PCSPECIALIST.co.uk Optimus: 17.3" HD+ LED Backlit Widescreen (1600x900) Super Clear Glossy Intel® Core™i5 Mobile Processor i5-460M (2.53GHz) 3MB Cache 4GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 2GB) nVIDIA® GeForce® GT 425M - 1GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11 500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm) 4x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 8x DVD ±R/±RW INTEGRATED GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N CARD (AS STANDARD) 3 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD INTEGRATED BLUETOOTH ADAPTER (£6) StyleNote Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (4,000 mAh) 1 x UK Power Lead & 90W AC Adaptor £767.00 That's basically everything that it says on the quote I have
Screen is glossy, could be annoying. If I wanted a laptop for gaming, I would definitely look for a matte display. Glare sucks. CPU is alright, even the lower end of the i3 line won't be bottlenecking most mobile graphics chips. RAM is alright. GPU is alright to play modern games at low-medium. You'll definitely want a faster hard drive, 5400RPM won't cut it. Go for the 7200RPM option if it's there. Drop blu-ray if you already have a player, or consider buying one and dropping down to a DVD drive. Watching blu-rays on that screen won't be the best experience IMO.
Thanks buddy I'll tinker around with it when I get back in from work, I'll drop the blu ray drive and see about getting a better gpu and hard drive. Would you recommend getting win7 64 bit pre installed for £74 or doing it with a copy I have?
do you REALLY need to be able to take the laptop to another location on a regular base? desktop will be a lot faster and cheaper, if you are just going to move around less than 5 times a year, a desktop is the way forward. (i was moving my desktop 6 times every year for 3 years cos of university) only way a gaming laptop "brick" can be of use to anyone is for people who wants stuff to do when on business trips in hotel rooms. any other use that can be replaced by desktop SHOULD buy a desktop. i recommend have a look at Bit-tech's system guide on desktops, and compare the performance you'll get with the laptop in your price range. then imagine 1 year later, upgrade graphics card of it for £100 (on top of selling old graphics card) compared to the dated laptop.
Only thing with buying a desktop is I already have one that my dad put together for me a while back, unless I upgraded that. How easy would it be to do myself? And were would I start?
As said above won't get much portable wise on that budget. As the old adage goes fast potable and cheap when building buying pc you can choose two. Saying that it would also depend on what you plan to be playing.
what is the full specification of your old desktop? it could very well be a case of buying new graphics card.
I'll have to ask my dad when I get in, he might be able to remember what's in it, I would like to give it a total overhaul if that's what I'm gonna do.
Desktop wise, £600 budget you can build a decent i5 760 build with a GTX460 1GB/6850 (excluding Windows, monitor, speakers keyboard/mouse etc).
I've already got a pretty nice lookin case that I'm happy with as long as every fits ok. So from that respect if I replace all the major gubbins, how much would be for a good gamer?
It would help if you knew the spec, you may be able to reuse some other parts based on how new that PC is. Check out the month's hardware guide too, adjust the budget build t your needs.
Depending on if you need to replace the PSU. If you PSU is a quality one and up for the job not need replacing, and don't need a new case, then around £500 I would say.
