My daughter has placed a request for one of these on her (long) list for Santa. She is not a hardcore gamer by any means, but wants the possibility that at least some newish ones can run ok on the laptop.
I am not going to be buying in the $2000-3000 range, but wondered if anybody could recommend a fairly inexpensive, but reliable one that is great for general use and can also run relatively low power games fairly efficiently. Refurbished or gently used is an option.
Thank you.
We got the boy a reconditioned HP from a dealer which is good. Fast, decent screen.
I can dig out the spec.
Ta. Some searching found this Acer also as a possibility:
In my day, we were happy if our stocking came with a tin soldier and – if times at t’pit were good and
we were very., very lucky – an orange
I can remember asking for a Chopper bike for Christmas one year probably around 1975 or so. They cost about 40 pounds, my dad (a steelworker) said that’s nearly a week’s wages ….
“I were right about that saddle though…..”
Aye…and a penny wrapped in silver paper so we thought it was a half-crown…
Reconditioned is good, not least because you can probably harvest the previous owner’s bank details and/or blackmail them with nudies. Merry Christmas!
I bought a pair of reconditioned Dell Precision 5520 in the summer (for the Offsprings) for £550 each. Both are significantly better than my laptop, desktop, or the laptop provided by my employer.
The seller is a firm my employer sends their old hardware to, they then wipe the drive and clean it up to Near Mint condition.
Slight warning: Offspring The Younger used to have an older laptop but sold it because some games (e.g. Fifa) won’t run on laptop built-in graphics units.
I have yet to find any hardware which won’t run Tetris, which is the closest I come to gaming…
Get with it daddio, it’s all Minesweeper these days.
A few years ago, I played “online” Battleships with Offspring the Younger. He sat in his bedroom while I was downstairs. I emailed him “A3”, he’d email “miss” by return, and so on…
If you want to buy a “pre-owned” Windows laptop, check whether it can be upgraded for Windows 11. Not very many machines more than a couple of years old can, it seems, and support for Windows 10 is going to end in 2025.
Prices for medium-spec new Windows machines are currently higher than in previous years, or so it seems to me.
Does it need to be a laptop? You get significantly more bang for the buck going desktop. We were in a similar position a couple of years back and my kids bullied me into getting a laptop, which has since never left the desk it was initially put on. For the same money, we could have bought a kick-ass desktop. Another advantage of a desktop is that you can upgrade memory, graphics cards etc quite easily.
I am thinking that as it will also be for school she needs it to be portable
Simple, buy her a bigger rucksack.
There’s a reason school kids and students favour Chromebooks – they’re brill. And they are cheap.
Chromebooks are not for serious (i.e. obsessed) gamers but these days play all the popular stuff and with a bit of fiddling retro as well.
https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/acer-spin-11-6-touchscreen-2-in-1-chromebook-silver-mediatek-m8183-64gb-emmc-4gb-ram-chrome-os/14742355
She already has one of those
Cheers
Got my son one from Costco. They start at about £659 and then go way beyond. They are good value in general but also have some good deals cycling through.
I’m not sure where £659 came from. I’ve checked and they start about £750 which ain’t cheap but is decent for a gaming laptop.
Which?