Best laptop for work and light gaming?

[ww1superstar]

I have a gaming desktop, and I would like to do some coding work and hopefully some gaming on easy-to-run games, like CS:GO, away from home. I dont want some $1,000 laptop that can run The Witcher 3 at 60 FPS. I just want something that is pretty fast for web browsing, and can run low load games. I also would like it to have Windows 10, but I dont know why that would be a problem. Assuming basic features are included like a minimum of 2 USB ports and a headphone/microphone jack, those are all the things I would like it to run. I would prefer the price to stay under $500, but if I can't get a laptop like that with $500 then so be it. Any suggestions?

 

[boosted1g]

For $500 and under price tag all you can get is AMD APU laptops. They will suffice for low end gaming but you will notice a massive performance wall with these CPUs for other tasks (like coding). Budget more along the line of $700 should get you a laptop with a Q serries i5 and 1050/950 NVIDIA GPU or better which spec wise is right where you should be looking at.

 

[jaguarskx]

Playing the Witcher 3 is not considered "light gaming". You need a pretty power graphics chip to get 60 FPS even at 1024 x 768 resolution. The following Acer laptop for $507 is basically the best you can hope for with a Core i5-6200u, nVidia 940mx and a 1080p screen. You are generally going to get about 30 FPS in the Witcher 3 at 1024 x 768.


https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Laptop-E5-575G-52RJ-GeForce-Windows/dp/B01IHAHGI8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1484341237&sr=8-3&keywords=940mx

See following link for some 940mx benchmarks.

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

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The best topic is the one that **you** select each component, tailored to your specific needs. So why not do the same for your lappie ? Most every laptop vendor who you would recognize actiually doesn't "manufacturer" a single laptop, they just slap their logo onto what the buy from on ODM. Why not cut out the middleman and go direct to a Clevo Distributor and have your laptop made for you.

That laptop that does 60 fps in W3 is prolly closer to $1750. As for $500, that presents a problem. That $1,750 lappie I just mentioned has about $250 (or more) in soft costs (warehousing, shipping, administration, support, accounting, advertising, packaging, etc). That still leaves 85% or so of the cost to be applied towards the quality of the components. On a $500 laptop, well you're down to 50% of the cost doing absolutely nothing for you.

I think of it like cutting a restaurant coupon outta the paper for $20 and then when arriving at the restaurant, it covers the table, napkins, silver wear usage and then you have $2 left for food ... can't expect much

 

[boosted1g]

@Jaguarskx & JackNaylorPE: The OP said that he does NOT need a laptop that can play Witcher 3 at 60fps, only one that can do low load games.

 

[jaguarskx]

@Jaguarskx & JackNaylorPE: The OP said that he does NOT need a laptop that can play Witcher 3 at 60fps, only one that can do low load games.

And that is why I recommended a laptop that is close to his budget of less than $500.