Laptop for playing MineCraft

[KiraRN]

Hello!
My son is asking for a "gaming laptop" for Christmas. He's only 9 and will only be using it to play minecraft. Looking to spend around $600 or less. I want it to be able to play minecraft without any issues. I really don't know a whole lot about dedicated graphics cards vs integrated etc so any help would be much appreciated!!!! Would this be ok?

Hp pavilion AMD A10 8700P
1TB HDD
8GB RAM
AMD Radeon R6 graphics

 

[Spaniard United]

Yes that should be just fine. Minecraft is a slightly more CPU intensive game, but it does also rely on the graphics chip as well. The A series is a good choice for this in my opinion as you get a multi core chip (not as good as say an i5 but still quite good for this purpose) but you also get much better integrated graphics than you would with an Intel chip.

Buying an entire laptop for Minecraft though.... seems excessive. He can play MC with a $40 Raspberry Pi and some peripherals (monitor or tv, keyboard, mouse, maybe a USB WiFi dongle) which still should come out less expensive. Laptop implies a need for portability, which only brings a few scenarios to mind as to why he would need a laptop vs a desktop. It might be too personal, but if you don't mind my asking ... why a laptop?

 

[KiraRN]

Yes that should be just fine. Minecraft is a slightly more CPU intensive game, but it does also rely on the graphics chip as well. The A series is a good choice for this in my opinion as you get a multi core chip (not as good as say an i5 but still quite good for this purpose) but you also get much better integrated graphics than you would with an Intel chip.

Buying an entire laptop for Minecraft though.... seems excessive. He can play MC with a $40 Raspberry Pi and some peripherals (monitor or tv, keyboard, mouse, maybe a USB WiFi dongle) which still should come out less expensive. Laptop implies a need for portability, which only brings a few scenarios to mind as to why he would need a laptop vs a desktop. It might be too personal, but if you don't mind my asking ... why a laptop?

That's exactly it! he needs the portability factor because we travel a lot the laptop I listed is just one that is on sale right now in my area. I am certainly open to other suggestions if you have them! Its the only thing on his Christmas list and he is at that age where he will soon be needing a computer for school work as well. He has even been saving all his money in an attempt to buy it on his own.. so any help/suggestions will be gladly accepted!! He also likes to watch the youtube videos that give tips on gameplay so I am guessing he will soon be wanting to be able to record his gameplay soon as well to make these types of videos.. so it would be helpful if the laptop is capable of this as well

 

[Spaniard United]

Playing Minecraft on the above laptop is doable. Playing Minecraft AND recording it ... you would really want a dedicated card at that point. If you're wanting for him to be able to do that, you're going to want to look for i5 or i7 with a dedicated card, at which point you're buying an actual gaming laptop and spending well over $600 and more in the $1200+ range.

 

[KiraRN]

Playing Minecraft on the above laptop is doable. Playing Minecraft AND recording it ... you would really want a dedicated card at that point. If you're wanting for him to be able to do that, you're going to want to look for i5 or i7 with a dedicated card, at which point you're buying an actual gaming laptop and spending well over $600 and more in the $1200+ range.

how about this? from newegg...
• NVIDIA GeForce 920M 2 GB
• 4th Generation Intel Core i5 4210M (2.6 GHz)
• 8 GB Memory 750 GB HDD
• 15.6" 1366 x 768
• 15.08" x 9.82" x 1.27"-1.48" 5.29 lbs.
• DVD Super Multi

 

[Spaniard United]

The GeForce 920M 2GB is fairly on par with the A10's R6 8700P, which means you might be gaining a little on the CPU side, but not the graphics side, and probably not enough. If you're wanting to go that route, you're probably going to want a GeForce GTX 950M or higher.

 

[jaguarskx]

Acer Aspire E E5-573G-52G3 for $490. It will give you much better performance than the laptop with the A10-8700P APU.

- Core i5-5200u
- nVidia 940m
- 1080p screen
- 1TB HDD
- 8GB of RAM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834315131&cm_re=acer_940m-_-34-315-131-_-Product