Opinion about a Laptop

[Ru_Kun]

I didn't really know where else to post this thing in the forum so I am posting this under the PC Gaming section.

So I have about two months of summer vacations right now and I have been planning to buy a laptop which would replace the old one which I have been using for years and years xD. It's slowing down a lot so I decided to buy another laptop.

I visited this Lenovo shop and I found a laptop which is in my price range, about 25k INR.

It's configuration is,

AMD A6 Processor
4 GB RAM
500 GB HDD
AMD Radeon R5 Graphics [I am assuming it's the M230 since the price range is low]

Is that a good enough laptop for casual gaming like Mafia 2, CoD 4 etc? I am not really the hardcore type of gamer wanting to play all the latest games, I prefer the older titles like Just Cause 2 more so would it be enough for those games? It's the best laptop I could find in that price range.

Oh and I live in a place where it's kind of hot all year round so I am wondering on how to cool the laptop. And a noob question, I am not really well versed with these laptop stuff so here goes!

Is it okay to play games when charging the laptop >_>? I am wondering if it would drain the life out of the battery and that it would be safe if only I play games when it's not charging.

Thank you

 

[jaguarskx]

If it does not state the graphics chip, then it will be using the integrated graphics core of the A6 APU. I assume it is either the A6-6310 or A6-7310 both of which have the same integrated graphics core; the Radeon R4 (Beema).


It is a very weak graphics core that is not really suitable for playing games. It is less powerful than the Intel HD 4000 graphics core which was released back in 2012 in Intel's 3rd generation "Ivy Bridge" CPUs. See link below for some game benchmarks. Can it play Mafia 2? Probably at the lowest settings and you might get 30 FPS. COD4 is an older game so I would guess you can get pretty decent performance at the lowest settings.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-R4-Beema.115399.0.html


Yes, you can play games while the battery is charging.

Keeping a laptop cool in hot weather is pretty hard unless you are in an air conditioned room. The warmer the air around the laptop is the less effective cooling will be. A laptop cooler is simply going to blow warm air into the laptop.

 

[Ru_Kun]

If it does not state the graphics chip, then it will be using the integrated graphics core of the A6 APU. I assume it is either the A6-6310 or A6-7310 both of which have the same integrated graphics core; the Radeon R4 (Beema).


It is a very weak graphics core that is not really suitable for playing games. It is less powerful than the Intel HD 4000 graphics core which was released back in 2012 in Intel's 3rd generation "Ivy Bridge" CPUs. See link below for some game benchmarks. Can it play Mafia 2? Probably at the lowest settings and you might get 30 FPS. COD4 is an older game so I would guess you can get pretty decent performance at the lowest settings.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-R4-Beema.115399.0.html


Yes, you can play games while the battery is charging.

Keeping a laptop cool in hot weather is pretty hard unless you are in an air conditioned room. The warmer the air around the laptop is the less effective cooling will be. A laptop cooler is simply going to blow warm air into the laptop.

Well, I asked the guy a few times and he kept mentioning that it was an R5 and not R3 or R4.

What if it's an R5 M230? Because I have seen a few laptops online which have A6 APU and they have an R5 M230 along with it. So is it fine in that case?

 

[jaguarskx]

Can you provide a link to the laptop you are interested in buying?

 

[Ru_Kun]

Can you provide a link to the laptop you are interested in buying?

You are right, it turned out to be a R4 instead of the R5 which he had been claiming it was. So I dropped out of that laptop and instead went on a search for another one. I ended up with one choice which costs about 33k INR and here is the model name and the specification.

Acer Aspire E15 E5-575G-31YC

Intel i3-6006U @2.0 Ghz, 3MB L3 Cache
NVIDIA Geforce 940MX 2GB GDDR5
4 GB DDR4 RAM
1 TB HDD

It's an Acer brand. I was surprised to see that it has a 940 MX dedicated GPU in it. Is it a good enough laptop?

 

[jaguarskx]

That is a much better laptop if you plan on playing games. See link below for some game benchmarks of the 940mx. Beware that FPS results are with a laptop that has a Core i5 or Core i7 CPU; you can click the FPS results to see some of the laptop's details. With a Core i3 CPU you will get a bit lower performance especially if the game really depends on the CPU.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-940MX.156033.0.html

 

[Ru_Kun]

That is a much better laptop if you plan on playing games. See link below for some game benchmarks of the 940mx. Beware that FPS results are with a laptop that has a Core i5 or Core i7 CPU; you can click the FPS results to see some of the laptop's details. With a Core i3 CPU you will get a bit lower performance especially if the game really depends on the CPU.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-940MX.156033.0.html

I suppose that's a good enough laptop considering that I don't really plan to play any latest games at all. Just games which are sort of not so new like the ones I mentioned in my first post. I heard from some people that the Acer laptop build doesn't usually last long but I guess this laptop is worth it though. I have only seen laptops which only have Intel HD Graphics or AMD R5 series which pales in comparison to the 940 MX in that price range.

I will go for that laptop. Thanks for the help!