Low-budget all-round laptop?

[Muithil]

My old HP is dying as it can't even play a twitch stream or old school runescape without turning it into a slideshow. So that's why I'm planning to buy a new laptop, but I have no idea where to look. I've tried numerous quizzes and comparison bullsh*t but they don't really work with me.

Besides my cheap laptop I also have a high-end gaming PC which I recently upgraded with a GTX 780, so I don't really have much money left for a new laptop.

I will be using the laptop for the following things:

School: Word/Excel, notepad and that kind of stuff
Gaming: Not crysis on ultra graphics, but it would be nice to be able to play games like Garry's Mod and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with high graphics and no lag. I'm also planning to play Old School Runescape but I don't think that this will be a problem to run.
Videos: I like watching Twitch streams and Youtube videos every now and then.

Other things:
- I don't care about a webcam or build-in microphone
- I don't really care about battery life because I'm able to use cable 95% of the time
- For size I would like a minimum of 15 inch, everything above is okay with me as long as it doesn't raise the price too much
- For storage I would like to have 250GB, everything up to 500GB is probably useless.
- For OS, Windows

So, I don't really know if it's possible to get all this in my price range... but €200 - €300 would be great. (£150 - £225 for English people)

 

[darkbreeze]

What euro country are you in?

 

[Muithil]

What euro country are you in?

the Netherlands

 

[darkbreeze]

Yeah, it's just not going to happen at that price. For 300 euros about the best you can expect is a low speed atom or Celeron processor, or AMD A-series processor and very low end integrated graphics, barely capable of playing pogo and facebook games, but able to to watch HD video. I'd revise my plan to include the necessity to save a while longer and expect to pay at least 500euros for a unit capable of the expectations you outlined. For 500 euros you can likely get a unit with at least an A-series processor that has somewhat better graphics, or a Pentium or i3 processor, which would be preferable to the AMD platform, and one of the higher performing Intel HD graphics versions.

Games really don't play well on any of the Intel HD graphics nor on any of the AMD APUs with graphics lower than the R7 versions, but something with R6 graphics might be enough for you, maybe. I think expecting to play Counter Strike at high settings on any unit less than 600 euros is unrealistic. Maybe medium settings at the 400-500 mark.