Budget friendly laptop to play Minecraft

paigel

Great
Sep 25, 2018
11
0
60
I'm looking for a budget friendly laptop for my daughter to do school work on and play Minecraft without lagging. Help!
 
Solution
It is actually a good deal. I did a bit of Googling and that Dell laptop you have selected seems to be the least expensive 17.3" laptop with the specification it comes with. Then again it is on sale.

Below is a review in case you want to know a little bit more about that specific laptop before making a purchase. It is probably a bit too much information (and likely a bit too technical), but you can scroll down to read the verdict. The only "con" that you need to be concerned about is the "high temperature under load".

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-G3-17-3779-i5-8300H-GTX-1050-SSD-IPS-Laptop-Review.317678.0.html


I recommend you purchase a cooling pad for the laptop since excess heat can cause electronics to fail prematurely...
[strike]If you can afford $500, then buy the following Acer laptop (which is currently on sale, normally $630) with a quad core i5-8250u and dedicated nvidia mx150 GPU which should have no problems running Minecraft. It had a 1080p screen and 256GB SSD as well. It states the laptop has 12GB of RAM, though I suspect it is a typo and it is probably 8GB of RAM. Regardless, it is the best performance you can get for $500 because laptops that are normally priced below $600 (meaning not on sale) has integrated graphics. The mx150 represent a huge performance difference compared to the Intel UHD 620 graphics core even though the mx150 is not considered a "gaming GPU".

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-Computer-i5-8250U-3-40GHz/dp/B07GWP41M2/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1537901574&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=mx150%20laptop&psc=1&tag=tomshardware_forum_vgl-20[/strike]

After a closer look, this is actually not a good deal. While it is listed for $500 on Amazon, that price is actually for laptop with only 4GB of RAM and it does not come with any storage (hard drive or SSD) which means it does not have Windows 10 either.

With 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, the actual price is $669.
 
If you are working with a smaller budget, then the following $380 Acer laptop would be easier on your bank account. It has a dual core i3-8130u, 6GB of RAM, a 1080p screen, and relies on the Intel UHD 620 graphics core. Minecraft should be able to run fine at 1080p resolution and medium settings. There is a huge performance difference between the Intel UHD 620 and mx150 so if you daughter wants to play more graphically demanding games in the future, then this laptop may not be up to the task.

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-i3-8130U-Memory-E5-576-392H/dp/B079TGL2BZ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1537906541&sr=8-3&keywords=i3-8130u+laptop

For schoolwork either laptop should be fine.

Because this less expensive laptop has a traditional hard drive, it will feel rather sluggish compared to a laptop with a SSD (solid state drive) such as the $500 Acer. For example, while a it may take a laptop with a hard drive around 90 seconds to boot up and get into Windows (this can vary depending on the laptop), a laptop with a SSD can generally do the same in about 20 seconds or less. SSDs have much higher read / write speeds than hard drives which can affect how responsive a laptop can be.
 

paigel

Great
Sep 25, 2018
11
0
60


 


For the price it is pretty good and definitely more than capable of play Minecraft without any issues at all.... "Overkill" would a good descriptor since the GTX 1050 is more powerful than the mx150.

Does your daughter plan on carrying that laptop around with her? Or will it stay at home / her dorm? A 17.3" laptop is pretty heavy; Dell's website state it weighs in at 7.2lbs.

==============================================

Forget the $500 Acer laptop I recommended. It turns out not to be a deal at all because the "$500 version" only has 4GB of RAM and no storage whatsoever which also means it does not have Windows 10 installed.
 

paigel

Great
Sep 25, 2018
11
0
60
She is only 9 so it will stay at home. I liked the bigger screen because she will watches Netflix and videos on it. It looked like a good deal but I don't have a clue.
 
It is actually a good deal. I did a bit of Googling and that Dell laptop you have selected seems to be the least expensive 17.3" laptop with the specification it comes with. Then again it is on sale.

Below is a review in case you want to know a little bit more about that specific laptop before making a purchase. It is probably a bit too much information (and likely a bit too technical), but you can scroll down to read the verdict. The only "con" that you need to be concerned about is the "high temperature under load".

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Dell-G3-17-3779-i5-8300H-GTX-1050-SSD-IPS-Laptop-Review.317678.0.html


I recommend you purchase a cooling pad for the laptop since excess heat can cause electronics to fail prematurely. Below is a link to a cooling pad that is suitable for 17.3" laptop. It is not very expensive at $30 and it has a 84 reviews; 74 are 5 stars, 8 are 4 stars, and apparently only two disgruntled people who gave it a 1 or 2 star rating.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Thermaltake-Massive-14-Laptop-Cooler/34405972
 
Solution