Laptop for Minecraft

[LauraR]

Hi,

I am looking for a laptop for my daughter - one that will run Minecraft reasonably well. It's also for school work etc and as she spends time at her Dad's as well as at home it does need to be a laptop rather than a desktop.

Anyway, I had originally narrowed it down to this one:
http/www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-15-ab269sa-15-6-laptop-white-10137876-pdt.html

But now I am wondering whether this would be better:
http/www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-f5-571-15-6-laptop-black-10137492-pdt.html

or this as the resolution is better:
http/www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/toshiba-satellite-l50-c-22l-15-6-laptop-white-10137862-pdt.html

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Many Thanks,

Laura

 

[jaguarskx]

The Acer and Toshiba laptops basically have the same hardware except for the screen resolution. The Toshiba has a 1920x1080 resolution while the Acer has a 1366x768 resolution screen. The Toshiba can display more information on the screen at one time due to the higher resolution (such as when surfing the web), but when playing games at higher resolution it is more stressful and results in lower performance. The solution would be to lower the resolution when playing games. The Toshiba also has longer claimed battery life which generally means it has a larger capacity battery.

Both of those laptops use the i5-5200u CPU (2.7GHz) with the integrated Intel HD 5500 graphics core. The Intel HD 5500 should be fine for playing Minecraft at 1920x1080 resolution when using the Optifine mod. There are now basically two version of Minecraft... there is "old" Minecraft and Minecraft Windows 10 version (Microsoft bought the company that developed the game). The Optifine mod only works with the older version of Minecraft.

The HP has a Core i3-5157u CPU (2.5GHz) with the integrated Intel Iris 6100 graphics core and a 1366x768 resolution screen. The difference in performance between the Core i3 and Core i5 CPUs is relatively small; only 0.2GHz or 200MHz. That is not going to make much of a difference when playing games. On the other hand the Intel Iris 6100 is reasonably more powerful than the Intel HD 5500 so it will provide a little better performance in games.


It basically boils down the Toshiba and the HP laptops.

Toshiba
+ Higher resolution screen (can be decreased if necessary, but text will look a little less sharp)
+ Slightly faster CPU (negligible affect in games)
- Slightly weaker graphics core


HP
+ Reasonably better graphics core (which will provide better game performance)
- Slightly slower CPU (negligible for games and offset by the better graphics core)
- Only a 1366x768 resolution screen.


The screen is a matter of personal preference. For myself I only consider laptops with 1080p screens because I like to see a lot of information on the screen at once whether I am surfing the web or doing work.