New Laptop (General Use/Low-End Gaming)

Sicklo

Estimable
Oct 21, 2015
6
0
4,510
1. What is your budget?
- £250 (I can go over, but not by too much)

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
- I don't care to be honest. As long as its not miniature.

3. What screen resolution do you want?
- 1366 x 768 (Standard laptop resolution)

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
- Portable Laptop, I already have a great desktop computer.

5. How much battery life do you need?
- It will generally always be plugged in. This doesn't matter.

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
- League of Legends (Whatever quality, Low-High) LoL isn't too hard to max out so I'm guessing a low-end laptop could run it on high.
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Low-Med, I always play this game on lowest on my desktop anyway. I don't care about graphics too much.)

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
- Multi-Tasking (aka using chrome when I'm gaming. So if I'm playing LoL I can tab out and listen to music)

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
- 500GB-1TB

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
- Amazon.co.uk
- Gumtree.com (Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK)
- Ebay.co.uk

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
- Well, quite a long time hopefully :D

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
- Just a standard reader so I can watch DVDs and install games.

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
- I have never really owned my own laptop in my older years so I don't really care for any brands. But my mums current Lenovo laptop's USB ports broke when I plugged a cameras wire into them. But other than that. It seems like a solid brand.

13. What country do you live in?
- United Kingdom, Northern Ireland

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
- I need it to be able to have about 4 USB ports. And be able to charge multiple devices at once. (This isn't overly important but I need to atleast be able to charge my iPhone)
- Mouse as well
 
Very likely about the BEST you can get (specs).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PegMKrldsZw

Above video shows Skyrim on "medium" at 30-60FPS. If you play that game I'd recommend NOT adding the official HD Texture pack or any graphically demanding mods. Also, probably want to force off VSYNC or you'll get stuttering.

RadeonPro has a useful "Dynamic VSYNC" option. Look up NVidia's "Adaptive VSYNC" option to see how that works but basically:

VSYNC ON - no screen tear (adds some "lag")

VSYNC ON, if you can't get at least the target refresh rate of 60FPS on 60Hz monitor
- stutter

VSYNC OFF - screen tearing, less lag than VSYNC ON

Adaptive/Dynamic VSYNC - VSYNC is automatically toggled on or off (depending on whether you can achieve 60FPS or not)