Need help finding a suitable laptop - Occasional gaming!

[sqwerl]

Hi everyone,
I need to purchase a new laptop and I don't know what anything means (regarding technical terms), or what I might need for my use. The only thing I know is that the higher the number, the better the product. However, I don't want to buy something that I don't necessarily need, so I need help figuring out what I need in terms of the processor, RAM, etc.

1. What is your budget? Max: $1000 CAD

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 17" +/- 1 or 2 inches.

3. What screen resolution do you want? 1280x800 - This is what I have now, I'm assuming it needs to be bigger than that since I am using a 15" laptop.

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

5. How much battery life do you need? Laptop will be plugged in most of the time.

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)? The games I play are the Sims 3, Harry Potter, and some online games (miniclip.com/newgrounds.com/etc.).

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) Checking emails, browsing, streaming, downloading movies and music. I rarely play music from my computer, but I do download it. I watch and stream a lot.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? I'm not too sure. I have 4GB of RAM right now, which seems to work well, however, it is starting to get full on the C and Recovery drives, I'm not sure if those are included in this.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. I haven't considered any sites yet - If you know of any decent sites, please share!

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? More than 3 years.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc? I don't need any but preferably 2 or more USB slots.

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. I had an Acer in 2007 but it only lasted 1 year and it stopped working after the warranty was over, so I prefer not to get an Acer. Since then, I have had a Dell for 5 years, which has worked smoothly. I'm open to any other brands!

13. What country do you live in? Canada (Ontario).

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed. Nothing else that I can think of. Just that thank you for replying, in advance!

 

[IInuyasha74]

Hello I have been shopping for laptops all day and up to $750 USD, this is the best laptop for gaming.
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314119

It has a pretty good processor and great graphics. I personally am planning to buy extra RAM to install in it, which anyone you know with a little technical experience could do, even knowing nothing about computers you could probably figure it out. Its pretty simple.

The best option other than this would be to wait until Janurary when a better version of pretty much the same laptop will be out. Its really tempting to wait but I am not even sure if I want to or not, I don't think iwill in honest. This thing will still perform amazing.

Anything more expensive may perform better in general, but they won't have anything you really need if you will just watch videos, occasionally game, watch shows and other fairly basic stuff.

 

[IInuyasha74]

The Acer that was just recommended was a good option but I found Acer Aspire V5-552G-X414 http/www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DKFFLMY/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00DKFFLMY&linkCode=as2&tag=b0b929-20 which is cheaper and even better.

Nearly $100 more expensive and its out of stock.

If you want to wait for them to have more and buy that one, the price for performance follows through pretty much the same. It has a bigger hard drive, an extra 2GB RAM, and a faster CPU.

If you stick with the one I linked earlier though you aren't really losing much performance, but if you go with this one it also has good performance. All depends how much you want to pay.

 

[IInuyasha74]

I still wouldn't advise getting that laptop. It is actually worse for more money.

The CPU is from the Trinity family, while the laptop I first posted has a CPU that comes from the Richland Family. Richland performs on average %20-40 better than Trinity. While that laptop may have an a10 while the one I listed is only an a8 they are very close in clock speed and will probably perform almost the same while the a8 will use a very small amount less power.

The graphics are also significantly worse. The graphics in the one I listed comes from the AMD 7000 series of graphics. While the one you listed has graphics that come from the old AMD 5000 series. Both systems have crossfire, but the one I listed is just simply more up to date. At the very worst the one I listed will perform the same, and at the very best it will perform a little bit better.