Gaming Laptops Under £650 ($1000)

[Wislan]

Hey,

In a few months, I will begin a year of study abroad in California. Obviously it is impractical to take my desktop PC 5,000 miles across the Atlantic so I am looking to substitute it with a gaming laptop. The rub is that I have a rather limited budget of around £650 ($1000). Of course, I don't expect amazing feats of performance at his budget, but I would like to be able to (for example) play Fallout 4 at a decent frame rate and decent graphics settings when it comes out. The laptop will be used for gaming as well as watching films, word processing, and calculations (i.e. programs such as MS Word, LaTex, Mathematica etc) but I would have thought that this would not place any additional constraints (anything that can run games well should be able to do the latter things well, right?). Battery life is not a primary concern as I should usually have access to a power outlet. Hard drive-wise, 1tb is of course preferable but dropping to 500gb is not a great concern for me; my desktop PC has 500gb HDD and 250gb SSD and I have no problems with that (so far).

P.S. I am willing to buy the laptop once I get to America if there would be a significant saving (which I suspect there would be). The budget would be the same. How would a U.S. bought laptop behave in the U.K.? For example we have a higher mains voltage here, and DVDs are region 2 rather than region 1.

P.P.S. I found this list (http/gytech.co.uk/best-gaming-laptops-under-500/) but as far as I can tell most of those have integrated graphics cards which, as far as I am aware, aren't quite up to snuff.

Thanks,
Will

 

[1shado1]

I wonder if you could get a better deal here in the States, rather than where you are now. Hmmm.

http/www.amazon.com/GL551JW-DS71-15-6-Inch-GeForce-Discrete-Graphics/dp/B00T7XRH2A/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1434987896&sr=1-2&keywords=gaming+laptop

http/www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-VN7-591G-70RT-15-6-Inch-Gaming/dp/B00WJSQRNK/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1434988011&sr=1-1&keywords=gaming+laptop&refinements=p_n_size_browse-bin%3A2423841011%2Cp_n_feature_seven_browse-bin%3A3012497011%2Cp_36%3A85000-105000

http/www.amazon.com/Lenovo-15-6-Inch-Touchscreen-Gaming-Windows/dp/B00K6ZIFFG/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1434988011&sr=1-2&keywords=gaming+laptop&refinements=p_n_size_browse-bin%3A2423841011%2Cp_n_feature_seven_browse-bin%3A3012497011%2Cp_36%3A85000-105000

http/www.amazon.com/MSI-GP60-Leopard-Pro-825-15-6-Inch/dp/B00TI6TAJ4/ref=sr_1_5?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1434988011&sr=1-5&keywords=gaming+laptop&refinements=p_n_size_browse-bin%3A2423841011%2Cp_n_feature_seven_browse-bin%3A3012497011%2Cp_36%3A85000-105000

 

[Wislan]

I had a similar thought. I am willing to buy the laptop once I get to America if there would be a significant saving (which I suspect there would be). The budget would be the same.

 

[1shado1]

I had a similar thought. I am willing to buy the laptop once I get to America if there would be a significant saving (which I suspect there would be). The budget would be the same.

I added 4 possibilities to my other post. You didn't give a whole lot of info to go on, so I just winged it.

Looked at the link in your original post. All I can say is ewwww.

 

[Wislan]

Thanks for the suggestions! They are certainly better value for money than in the U.K.! I have added a smattering of additional information to the original post, including querying the behaviour of a U.S. bought laptop in the U.K.

 

[1shado1]

Thanks for the suggestions! They are certainly better value for money than in the U.K.! I have added a smattering of additional information to the original post, including querying the behaviour of a U.S. bought laptop in the U.K.

Yeah, I looked at a few prices on Amazon UK, and saw that our prices seemed better. Do you have to pay VAT in addition to the prices given on places like Amazon UK? I have no clue how your taxes work. I think that sales tax in California is near 10%, depending on where you are. I probably should have given you laptop examples that came to $1000 including the tax. But it's more fun to get someone to overspend for something a little nicer.

Most laptops, to the best of my knowledge and personal experience have ac adapters that accept a wide range of voltage (110-240V), so that most likely won't be an issue. Of course you'll still need an adapter plug once you get home to match your mains wall socket. Or you could just replace that cord instead for a few pounds.

For the dvd drive, if memory serves, you are allowed to change the region 5 times during the life of the drive.

As for a gaming laptop being good at calculations, I have no clue. Such things would be more cpu intensive, as opposed to gpu intensive, correct? While the cpu's in the models I linked to aren't i7 quad core powerhouses, I would think they would be up to the tasks at hand. Maybe someone else will chime in about that.

P.S. Also wanted to mention, the layout of US and UK keyboards are slightly different. But you probably knew that.

 

[Wislan]

Thanks for the suggestions! They are certainly better value for money than in the U.K.! I have added a smattering of additional information to the original post, including querying the behaviour of a U.S. bought laptop in the U.K.

Yeah, I looked at a few prices on Amazon UK, and saw that our prices seemed better. Do you have to pay VAT in addition to the prices given on places like Amazon UK?

No, the prices listed on Amazon U.K. inclde V.A.T.

I have no clue how your taxes work. I think that sales tax in California is near 10%, depending on where you are. I probably should have given you laptop examples that came to $1000 including the tax. But it's more fun to get someone to overspend for something a little nicer.

So the true price would be what's listed on Amazon.com +10%?

Most laptops, to the best of my knowledge and personal experience have ac adapters that accept a wide range of voltage (110-240V), so that most likely won't be an issue. Of course you'll still need an adapter plug once you get home to match your mains wall socket. Or you could just replace that cord instead for a few pounds.

For the dvd drive, if memory serves, you are allowed to change the region 5 times during the life of the drive.

As for a gaming laptop being good at calculations, I have no clue. Such things would be more cpu intensive, as opposed to gpu intensive, correct? While the cpu's in the models I linked to aren't i7 quad core powerhouses, I would think they would be up to the tasks at hand. Maybe someone else will chime in about that.

P.S. Also wanted to mention, the layout of US and UK keyboards are slightly different. But you probably knew that.

Surprisingly, I have heard that GPU can affect calculation time since apparently a lot gets put through the GPU as the way the computer does these calculation is similar to the way graphics data is handled....or something like that. I don't think it matters a great deal, any of the four you suggested should be more than sufficient in this regard.