Laptop advice needed (1 Viewer)

[Cold Dead Hands]

I am looking to purchase a new laptop. I do moderate gaming, and the kids use it for school stuff. I found this Laptop: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/inspiron-15-5559-laptop/pd?oc=smi155w7ph2372&model_id=inspiron-15-5559-laptop&dgc=BF&cid=22740&lid=4279737&acd=12309198376456750&ven1=12255013-227502-goo_dealdetail_Dell Small Business_0101_70492&ven3=101403005097539026

Screen isn't great. 5400 hard drive is less than desirable. Is this thing worth $587 shipped? If not, any advice on better deals? I am fairly unschooled in laptops.

 

[Cold Dead Hands]

Specs:

6th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-6500U Processor (4MB Cache, up to 3.10 GHz)

8GB, 1600MHz, DDR3L

1TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive

AMD Radeon R5 M335 4GB DDR3

15.6-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-Glare LED-Backlit Display

1 HDMI™ 1.4a1 USB 3.0 2 USB 2.0 1 Kensington lock slot1 Media Card (SD, SDHC, SDXC)1 10/100 RJ-45 Ethernet network

 

[captain_amazing]

Not terrible.  You want a SSD instead of HDD, particularly for gaming.  Check out NewEgg - I highly do not recommend buying directly from an OEM, you're always going to pay more that way.  

 

[Cold Dead Hands]

I looked on Newegg and haven't seen anything comparable for the price. I will look again.

 

[Cold Dead Hands]

Found this on Amazon for $550

Acer Aspire E5-575G-57D4 comes with these high level specs: 7th Generation Intel Core i5-7200U Processor 2.5GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 3.1GHz (3MB L3 cache), Windows 10 Home, 15.6" Full HD Widescreen Comfy View LED-backlit Display supporting Acer Color Blast technology, NVIDIA GeForce 940MX with 2 GB of DDR5 VRAM, 8GB DDR4 Memory, 256GB SSD

 

[captain_amazing]

Ugh I personally hate Acers.  Have worked on many and they all suck, but I know others like them.  The specs are pretty good.  What kind of gaming?  Thing with laptops is that you cannot easily upgrade the GPU (often integrated with the CPU) so you want to ensure your GPU specs meet the requirements for the highest end game you'd want to run in the laptop.

 

[Cold Dead Hands]

Ugh I personally hate Acers.  Have worked on many and they all suck, but I know others like them.  The specs are pretty good.  What kind of gaming?  Thing with laptops is that you cannot easily upgrade the GPU (often integrated with the CPU) so you want to ensure your GPU specs meet the requirements for the highest end game you'd want to run in the laptop.

Civ 6. I would like to try Battlefield 1 or No Mans Sky

 

[Ministry of Pain]

@cstu always had these figured out...I miss that welcher

 

[Cold Dead Hands]

I would let him come back for this one.

 

[captain_amazing]

Civ 6. I would like to try Battlefield 1 or No Mans Sky

Civ6 and NMS - that Acer will run those OK/well, but it won't run BF1 too well (it'll run, but you'll have to use lower graphic settings).    

 

[captain_amazing]

This is more expensive but if you want to do gaming and run things well, something like this would work well.  Above the price point you were looking at, but it would perform much better for what you're looking for.

If you don't need to pull the trigger now, check newegg's refurbs periodically.  There are absolute gems that popup in there from time to time that are steals and I've never bough a bad refurb from newegg.

 

[Cold Dead Hands]

This is more expensive but if you want to do gaming and run things well, something like this would work well.  Above the price point you were looking at, but it would perform much better for what you're looking for.

If you don't need to pull the trigger now, check newegg's refurbs periodically.  There are absolute gems that popup in there from time to time that are steals and I've never bough a bad refurb from newegg.

Some things to think about. I am computerless right now and my kids will use the laptop. Don't want too much in it when the Gremlins are using it for schoolwork. Thinking about getting them a cheap, low end i3.

 

[captain_amazing]

Some things to think about. I am computerless right now and my kids will use the laptop. Don't want too much in it when the Gremlins are using it for schoolwork. Thinking about getting them a cheap, low end i3.

Depending on your situation: get a cheap cheap laptop for school work and web stuff and spend about 5-600 on a desktop gaming rig.  About 8-900 total.  At least you can then let them use the laptop for all of their school stuff and other low-resource stuff and the gaming rig for mostly just gaming.  That way too, if a new game comes out and your GPU doesn't support it well, you'll like be able to just get a new one and upgrade, extending the life of your desktop.  

 

[matuski]

Found this on Amazon for $550

Acer Aspire E5-575G-57D4 comes with these high level specs: 7th Generation Intel Core i5-7200U Processor 2.5GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 3.1GHz (3MB L3 cache), Windows 10 Home, 15.6" Full HD Widescreen Comfy View LED-backlit Display supporting Acer Color Blast technology, NVIDIA GeForce 940MX with 2 GB of DDR5 VRAM, 8GB DDR4 Memory, 256GB SSD

This has great reviews around the web and is usually the first recommendation for entry level gaming.

 

[JoeSteeler]

check out slickdeals.net if you haven't yet

 

[Caesar]

 

[Cold Dead Hands]

Found this on Amazon for $550

Acer Aspire E5-575G-57D4 comes with these high level specs: 7th Generation Intel Core i5-7200U Processor 2.5GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 3.1GHz (3MB L3 cache), Windows 10 Home, 15.6" Full HD Widescreen Comfy View LED-backlit Display supporting Acer Color Blast technology, NVIDIA GeForce 940MX with 2 GB of DDR5 VRAM, 8GB DDR4 Memory, 256GB SSD

Ended up going with this one and will grab a cheapy for the kids to drag around. 

$582. Miss the days of no tax on Amazon. Will arrive Wednesday.

 

[Caesar]

Black dotted this because I am also looking for a laptop for exactly the same reason.  If you can post and let me know how it runs civ6 and in general, that would be great.

 

[JoeSteeler]

thoughts on this laptop? Mostly for browsing but do need one I can load office on. Thanks.

Must have for me: backlit keyboard, long battery life, relatively light weight (this one is 3.3 lbs)

https://www.amazon.com/HP-13-ab016nr-Notebook-i5-7200U-Windows/dp/B01LZKY7RB/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1489764286&sr=8-1&keywords=HP+ENVY+13-ab016nr

•  A thin and light, all-metal laptop with booming audio and processing power to handle all of your tasks on the go.
  
• Processor: 7th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7200U Processor, Dual-Core, 2.5GHz up to 3.1GHz; Fast, responsive performance and more natural, intuitive interactions with your PC.
  
• Display: 13.3-inch diagonal Full HD (1920x1080) IPS eDP BrightView WLED-backlit; 2.07 million pixels for crystal-clear visuals and vibrant images.
  
• Memory: 8GB LPDDR3 SDRAM; Use multiple applications at the same time without slowing down.
  
• Solid-state drive: 256 GB PCIe NVMe M.2; Up to 17x faster performance than a traditional notebook hard drive.
  
• More productive. Windows 10 is the best for bringing ideas forward and getting things done.
  
• Battery life: Up to 14 hours; Take on the day without worrying about recharging.
  
• Intel, Pentium, Intel Core, Celeron, Intel logo and the Intel Inside logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.