Can anybody help with regards on picking up a laptop for my GF. She will mostly just be browsing not really a gaming person ( though she might push playing sims on it). Budget is just around £300 and she kinda likes it slim 13"-15" screen. Suggestions will be much appreciated. Btw we live in UK.
Thanks,
Atobe
What Sims are you talking about 3 or 4? A quick read through the Sims Forums tells me that an i5 with integrated graphics will run both at low to medium settings. But there is incompatibility with some addons (pets for example). Better read up on that first. Although that price will hardly get you anything with dedicated graphics.
300 Bucks should get you somewhere near a 15 inch Laptop with an i5 without SSD and similiar stuff. You might be interested in a refurbished or used Laptop.
Alternatively you could get a Laptop with an A6 or A8 APU, I've seen those in a similar pricerange as well.
Cool2 thnx man this helps alot. I presume it should be sims 4
I'm having 2nd thoughts about refurb stuff. Are they any good you recon??
I own a pre-owned Lenovo Thinkpad T420 (14 inch, i5 2520M), as did three of my roommates (similar lenovos from the same seller). I can only speak for used thinkpads: they are very well built and generally get a new keyboard before they are resold. Most of the units retailed for around 1000-1500$. So I'm talking good laptops here. In Germany you have some legal protection against faulty hardware if it's from a professional seller, so I'm not too worried. I would not buy a second hand laptop from a private person though. A good seller will offer some warranty (at least 6 months because it might be the law according to the European Union).
I have not found any good online shops that have a lot of laptops. Your budget will probably only give you i3-based laptops (in terms of intel). I'm no expert on budget-laptops, any AMD APU will be enough for desktop needs and the Intel i3s as well, Pentiums won't be that gaming capable. i would create a spreadsheet and then search trough some online shops, noting the laptop models and prices. The tests from notebookcheck.net are very thorough and I find them very helpful.
I was looking around and stumble upon this. http://www.johnlewis.com/lenovo-g50-45-laptop-amd-a8-8gb-ram-1tb-15-6-black/p1759617#tabinfo-ratings what do u think?? Good enough?
Looks okay. Can't say much about build quality. Battery life won't be stellar (the quoted up to 4hrs will turn out to be just two with normal use but that"s alright for the price). Gaming performance will be okay, I've read GTA V on low and BF4 on medium (although she will probably be playing neither of those but this shows that the machine is gaming capable). The screen resolution could be higher, BUT it's only 15 inches and I found 1366x768 adequate for working. HD at 15 inch (I'm running 1600x900 on my 14 inch laptop) produces somewhat small writing.
What you can do now is take the specs and then search on and compare any laptop you find next that is in the same price range. Use it as your baseline. Always check the viewing angle of the laptop on notebookcheck test (unless you two watch streamed video via TV then it does not really matter).
All the laptops for that price will be plastic so, they won't be the sturdiest, buy that's okay for what I belive will be desktop-replacing home use?
Damn was going to suggest Lenovo U31 but doesnt look like its in the UK yet
its a $500-$600 USD, ultraportable 13-inch laptop. Its Lenovo's cheaper 13-inch option that doesn't weight a ton (3.31 lbs) and looks pretty on the eyes, plus thin and all that (0.76-inch thick)
eg for $599 you can get core i5 broadwell, full hd, 8GB ram, 500 gb hdd + 8gb sshd
maybe wait for it to be in UK market and buy from third party retailer that will probably be cheaper than lenovo?
only con of this is probably meh battery life - what with a 2 cell battery and all.
I'm in the US, but I was thinking about getting my girlfriend a HP elitebook 740. They're like $500-$600 tho. They have a metal undercarriage and are 14". nothing else too fancy at all. I'm in the same boat as you right now as far as budget. That's why I'm just saving up a few more months for it.