Just ok gaming Laptop (Canadian buyer)

angerbeaver

Looking to get my step sister a gaming laptop. She really doesn't play a lot of games, Mario stuff on Switch and Wii, Yoshi, Luigi's Mansion, D3 on PS4. I wouldn't expect games to be the primary use anyways, but I'd want to get her something she can use it if she gets a game. 

Other uses would be youtube, social media, and her work. So other than basic gaming there is nothing special to worry about.

I am in Canada so I would probably focus on amazon.ca or Walmart etc...i just don't know for laptops what is good enough for gaming or what is good price wise. I'm also not sure if there would be good deals to be had with Black Friday coming up and if I should actually hold out for that and Cyber Monday.

Suggestions? Advice?

Thanks in advance,

Vrika

Personally I'd suggest just forgetting gaming and buying something that's good to carry around + do work + surf the net with. You can get a laptop that's good at all three at about 500 USD.

If you also want it to be good at gaming you should spend closer to $1 000, and gaming laptops are usually heavier and have worse battery life than other laptops.

Kyleran

I'm also looking for a gaming laptop with about a $1K budget.  It's for a 10 yr old who mostly plays Fortnite and Minecraft.

His mother would like it to be useful for 3 or 4 years. 

Perhaps wishful thinking but would appreciate any suggestions. US buyer here.

Quizzical

What I personally have is basically an older generation of this:

https://store.hp.com/us/en/ConfigureView?catalogId=10051&langId=-1&storeId=10151&urlLangId=&catEntryId=3074457345619203818&quantity=1

Among the configuration options, you should spend an extra $40 for the monitor upgrade.  Nothing else is all that essential. That gets you a 256 GB NVMe SSD, 16 GB of memory with properly matched channels, a decently powerful CPU, a very nice integrated GPU, and all in a low-power package that makes it easy to cool in a lightweight laptop.  You can upgrade the APU for $100, which might add another 10% or so to your performance.

That laptop does use an integrated GPU rather than a discrete card.  But still, it will be about double the performance of a Nintendo Switch, and maybe half that of an Xbox One, so it's not the integrated GPUs that could barely do anything from years ago.  That's enough that nearly any games will run pretty well, though in a lot of games, you'll have to turn some settings way down.  It's actually above the recommended specs for Minecraft.  For Fortnite, it's above the recommended specs on the CPU, but the GPU is maybe 1/3 of recommended, but still far above the minimum required.  So expect the game to run well if you turn some settings down.

You can get considerably higher GPU performance in a laptop with a discrete card, but it comes at the expense of spending a lot more money and having a much heavier laptop in order to cool the extra heat output.  That's what you want if your main use is playing demanding games from a hotel room when you travel.  It's not what I'd recommend for only light gaming.

Cleffy

If you get the HP, you definitely want some type of SSD. I just recently picked up a $300 used HP laptop with an AMD Ryzen CPU. Swapping the HDD to an SSD made a night and day difference.

Quizzical

Cleffy said:

If you get the HP, you definitely want some type of SSD. I just recently picked up a $300 used HP laptop with an AMD Ryzen CPU. Swapping the HDD to an SSD made a night and day difference.

All of the storage options for the laptop I linked include an SSD.  The differences are how large, and whether it also includes a hard drive.

I didn't see an analogous deal available from HP's Canadian site.  I'm not sure what you can get in Canada, but that's about the specs you'd like if you want to go with an integrated GPU.  If you want a discrete video card for higher performance, that's a different category of product entirely.

Vrika

Quizzical said:

What I personally have is basically an older generation of this:

https://store.hp.com/us/en/ConfigureView?catalogId=10051&langId=-1&storeId=10151&urlLangId=&catEntryId=3074457345619203818&quantity=1

Among the configuration options, you should spend an extra $40 for the monitor upgrade.  Nothing else is all that essential. That gets you a 256 GB NVMe SSD, 16 GB of memory with properly matched channels, a decently powerful CPU, a very nice integrated GPU, and all in a low-power package that makes it easy to cool in a lightweight laptop.  You can upgrade the APU for $100, which might add another 10% or so to your performance.

If you're going to get that you should also spend extra $10 for the WiFi that supports 802.11ac. ac is newer and better wifi protocol than the other three.

hellden

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Predator-i7-9750H-Keyboard-PH315-52-78VL/dp/B07QXLFLXT/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3FQLXNMSZ4KEP&keywords=acer+predator+helios+300&qid=1573853967&sprefix=acer,aps,155&sr=8-3

Its loud but with a headset who cares. I haven't found anything i cant play with it.

Amathe

I have had good experiences with ibuypower.com.

Here are some gaming laptops they make: https://www.ibuypower.com/Site/Computer/Laptops
Several under $1,000.

Not a Cray Supercomputer, but decent.