Gaming laptop under £800 ($1300) - can you find a better one than this

[Bangell]

I'm off to uni soon, and I can't keep taking my desktop to and from the place during the holidays, of course. I therefore need a gaming laptop that's going to run modern games on high settings. I've got my sights set on this one: MEDIONshop UK: MEDION® AKOYA® P6815 15.6" Laptop (MD98059)

But I'll see what you guys recommend.

1. What is your budget?

£800, definitely no more than £900.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

15.6 inch (17 inch would be fine, but of course that would be more expensive.)

3. What screen resolution do you want?

Full HD isn't necessary; 1366x768 and above are just fine.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?

Desktop replacement.

5. How much battery life do you need?

Doesn't matter, it'll be plugged in.

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)?

As high as possible on all the modern FPS/RTS games. I want to be able to run Rome 2 Total War well when it comes out.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

Nothing particularly specialised.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?

500GB should be enough.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?

3 years minimum.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?

DVD is fine.

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.

No opinions.

13. What country do you live in?

UK

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

 

[Bangell]

...Bump...

 

[Brett928S2]

Hi

Sorry but that laptop you mentioned isnt going to play your games on high or anywhere near high....

Low maybe , some on medium,,,,

For a GAMING laptop you need to be spending around £1000 MORE than your budget.... or preferably get a gaming pc...

All the best Brett

 

[JSmith9201]

To give you a more reasonable reply to your question, a good laptop for this price range is the Samsung 550P7C. I say this because I recieved mine yesterday, and it is awesome. The whole laptop is a very good package, but the gaming performance is very good for a laptop in this price range. I haven't played anything really advanced, but I tried CoD:MW2 for a bit online and did not see an FPS below ~85, all settings on their highest value, 4x AA at 1600x900, which I'd say is fairly good performance. From the reviews I read, the system can run Skyrim in the same resolution in medium settings at about 45fps. This says the system can run Anno 2070, a demanding modern game, at 40fps on high which is pretty impressive.

For our price range thats about as good as its going to get for a laptop, but I think its pretty dam good. Hope this helps a bit more.

An alternative that I was considering was this MSI which I was also looking at. I'm sure there are other options out there that other people know of but I hope this helps for now

 

[Bangell]

To give you a more reasonable reply to your question, a good laptop for this price range is the Samsung 550P7C. I say this because I recieved mine yesterday, and it is awesome. The whole laptop is a very good package, but the gaming performance is very good for a laptop in this price range. I haven't played anything really advanced, but I tried CoD:MW2 for a bit online and did not see an FPS below ~85, all settings on their highest value, 4x AA at 1600x900, which I'd say is fairly good performance. From the reviews I read, the system can run Skyrim in the same resolution in medium settings at about 45fps. This says the system can run Anno 2070, a demanding modern game, at 40fps on high which is pretty impressive.

For our price range thats about as good as its going to get for a laptop, but I think its pretty dam good. Hope this helps a bit more.

An alternative that I was considering was this MSI which I was also looking at. I'm sure there are other options out there that other people know of but I hope this helps for now

Thank you for the suggestions. If I may, can I ask why you chose the Samsung over the MSI? Doesn't the MSI have a better CPU and GPU?

 

[JSmith9201]

I went for the Samsung for several reasons; I prefer having a larger screen, although this isn't a dealbreaker. I was swayed mainly by the processor, the i7 is only 100mhz slower with its base clock speed, which isn't much of a difference (besides, the i7 has a 100mhz higher turbo clock than the i5, so swings and roundabouts) but the i7 is quad core, and also a 3rd gen so has some tweaked internal architecture. I thought the 560 would be a more powerful card, but when looking at the charts here when comparing the scores with the games benchmarks, the 650 and 560 outpace each other depending on the game and crucially, CPU. So I decided the i7 & GT650 made a stronger overall system than the i5 & GTX560.

Also, I don't like the fact that the MSI is covered in red LED's, but thats personal preference.

On a side note, it turns out my Samsung has a slot for an additional hard drive, which means I can stick an SSD in there along with the 1TB hard drive, which should speed it up even more. I didn't know this at the time of purchase however so it didn't factor into my decision at the time.