Budget laptop for gaming as well as Android development 2020

isaac_alizai666

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Jul 15, 2014
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Hi, I have been searching for some OP laptops for gaming as well as Android development but the websites keep suggesting me gaming laptops that cost more than 600$.
I am looking for a cheap yet powerful laptop and my budget is between 240$-310$.
I know that you can find pretty decent laptops at that rate now a days but it's been quite some time (years) and I didn't check the markets.
A year ago, I bought my friend a Core i7 5th gen laptop under 350$.
I just wanna be sure and I wanna buy the right stuff, the stuff that can smoothly run Android Studio and softwares like Substance Painter etc.
 

Riuzaki

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Aug 23, 2020
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On this budget. It's impossible to find a gaming "Laptop".

Why you need a laptop for gaming tho? Because you can build a pretty decent gaming and developing PC under $350.

In the gaming market, The demand of laptop for gaming is ultra rare because laptop is very costly for gaming.

I am not saying that laptops are not made for gaming but gaming laptops are too much costly then a high end gaming PC.
 
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isaac_alizai666

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Jul 15, 2014
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On this budget. It's impossible to find a gaming "Laptop".

Why you need a laptop for gaming tho? Because you can build a pretty decent gaming and developing PC under $350.

In the gaming market, The demand of laptop for gaming is ultra rare because laptop is very costly for gaming.

I am not saying that laptops are not made for gaming but gaming laptops are too much costly then a high end gaming PC.
Well, I actually need it for my university because I have an Android course and my current laptop hangs over a simple "hello world" app.
Forget I even said the word "gaming".
I just need a good laptop to process complex Android code smoothly and run the app.

Thank you for your reply!
 

Seaweed Monster

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Jun 7, 2014
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Realistically, that budget isn't going to get your anything good for new, the used market might serve you better.

Used Lenovo Thinkpads are something to look at, many pick these up as cheap coding PC's, essentially because they are pretty good little units, but obviously it will be older hardware so do not expect top-level performance. Something like this would be something to look out for:
Just have a search around on eBay etc... Something with at least an i7/i5 quad-core, 8GB's RAM and an SSD, and maybe even a dedicated graphics card is the least I'd look for. Anything with an HDD isn't really worth considering, unless you swap out the HDD for an SSD.
 
Sep 3, 2020
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Hi there,

At this range, you are going to have to settle for something with integrated graphics. Hence I'd recommend something with AMD Ryzen graphics which provide great bang for the buck (IMO).

I'd recommend checking out here - https://www.shopperbytes.com/ . They got an article covering gaming laptops for under $500.

From the looks of it, I'd say something like the ASUS VivoBook 15 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QQB7552/

A little over your budget but will get the job done and provides decent gaming performance with Radeon Vega 8 Graphics, though you'd be only playing older titles or graphically light ones like LoL. Overwatch is possible though.

Good luck with your search!
 
Jul 14, 2020
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(If you can) wait until black friday/cyber monday or prime day next week and then try to scoop up a good one thatll mostly have last generation hardware (9th gen intel, ryzen 3000). They'll probably go on sale for good prices to make room for the newer laptops coming using the newer hardware. If your just coding and running android apps there really isn't much that the latest gen hardware brings to the table over the last generation or 2.