Please suggest me a laptop to buy

[Ojomojoyolo]

Hi, I live in London, and I am starting my A-levels this September. I am excited to start my Computer science course, and that brings up the question of buying the right laptop. I am aware that it doesn't need to be too powerful for a CS course, but I'm not gonna lie, I am still gonna use it to play csgo and Overwatch when I have the free time.

My ideal budget would be 450pounds/581dollars but if necassary I could squeeze out 480pounds/620dollars. Thanks in advance!

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The entry point for a lappie capable of playing games is about $850 US. As for the coursework, id consult with the IT department at university and ask about coursework needs thru obtaining a degree as you don't want to have to replace next year.

I would also recommend having a custom laptop build to the necessary specification as a less expensive and higher quality alternative to store / e-tailer bought options where you have no idea whoa ctually built the laptop. Of all the brands you migfht recognize, MSI is the only brand that actually **makes** a laptop.

The vast majority of laptops on the market (94% in 2011) are manufactured by a small handful of Taiwan-based Original Design Manufacturers (ODM), although their production bases are located mostly in mainland China. Major relationships include:

Quanta sells to (among others) HP, Lenovo, Apple, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, Sony, Fujitsu and NEC
Compal sells to (among others) Acer, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo and HP/Compaq
Wistron (former manufacturing & design division of Acer) sells to Dell, Acer, Lenovo and HP
Inventec sells to Toshiba, HP, Dell and Lenovo
Pegatron sells to Asus, Toshiba, Apple, Dell and Acer
Foxconn sells to Asus, Dell, HP and Apple
Flextronics (former Arima Computer Corporation notebook division) sells to HP

 

[jaslion]

Hi, I live in London, and I am starting my A-levels this September. I am excited to start my Computer science course, and that brings up the question of buying the right laptop. I am aware that it doesn't need to be too powerful for a CS course, but I'm not gonna lie, I am still gonna use it to play csgo and Overwatch when I have the free time.

My ideal budget would be 450pounds/581dollars but if necassary I could squeeze out 480pounds/620dollars. Thanks in advance!

Cheapest capable laptop is 750 pounds. So save up a bit I would say or see if you can get a student discount.

 

[jaguarskx]

CSGO has pretty low requirements. Overwatch is more demanding, but being an MMO it is not as demanding as GTA 5 or worse, the Witcher 3.

With your budget, I am pretty sure you will only be able to afford a laptop with integrated graphics.The least expensive laptop with a nVidia 940mx on Amazon's UK site sells for £575. It is decent enough to play Overwatch at 1366x768 resolution with medium settings. You should be able to play at 1600x900 or maybe even 1080p with low settings. See links below for the laptop and benchmarks for the 940mx

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-VivoBook-K556UQ-DM1023T-Notebook-Processor/dp/B01N32SX8G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502581794&sr=8-1&keywords=940mx

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



Nvidia recently released the MX150 which is the successor to the 940mx. It's performance is between the GTX 950m and GTX 960m, but so laptops that have the MX150 are relatively expensive. The cheapest one £950. It is the same situation in the US where the least expensive laptop with the MX150 sells for $800; but they have quad core Intel CPUs. The one exception in the US so far is the Acer Aspire 5 A515-51G-52R1 which is exclusively being sold at Microcenter for $600 (currently out of stock) and has a dual core i5-7200u.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dcomputers&field-keywords=mx150

https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-MX150-Benchmark-and-Specs-of-the-GT-1030-for-Laptops.223530.0.html