Help with Christmas Prezzie Budget €400 or less if poss!

Claregirl

Hey Guys, my 16 year old is looking for a laptop for Christmas / Birthday. Wouldn't normally consider it but the family one is getting on in years and is used to skype his sister so we thought it might be good to have a back up one!

Budget is very limited and I've read through the threads on which ones to avoid. He uses his x-box for games but wants to be able to use flight simulator on the laptop.

Also where is the best place to buy? Online or I can have it picked up in the Uk...!

Would be extremely grateful for any suggestions. Thanks

Simi

The best advice I can offer you is ask again in two weeks. By then most shops, both online and bricks and mortar, will have applied their Christmas discounts.

Specifications wise you should be looking for something like this Lenovo IdeaPad G580 i3-2370 4GB 320GB DVDRW 15.6" W7HP Bronze.

You should aim for at least a 2nd gen core i3, it'll look something like whats above i.e. i3-2xxx = 2nd gen. A dedicated graphics card would help with gaming, but it's not worth getting anything less than a 630m which will add at least €200 to your budget. The intel hd 3000/4000 should handle flight simulator X ok.

Claregirl

Thanks very much for the advice Simi.

Is Lnovo a reliable brand?

RUCKING FETARD

Simi wrote: »

The best advice I can offer you is ask again in two weeks. By then most shops, both online and bricks and mortar, will have applied their Christmas discounts.

Would prices not be going the other way for xmas?

RUCKING FETARD

Claregirl wrote: »

Is Lnovo a reliable brand?

Yea, them or Asus, can't go wrong.

H3llR4iser

Simi wrote: »

...The intel hd 3000/4000 should handle flight simulator X ok...

Watch out, this is not really true. I have an old Core2 Duo with a GeForce 9600 M-GT, which in benchmarks is more or less comparable to the Intel HD 4000 chipset, and I can only run Flight Simulator 2004 - not a chance to use FSX, tried many times. Of course Flight Simulator is also CPU-intensive, so the extra power from the Core i3 would help a bit.

Claregirl, does your son use the laptop screen while playing Flight Simulator or an external screen? Do you know if he uses add-ons, like the PMDG, Level-D etc.?

In case he plays "vanilla" FSX on the laptop screen (1366x768) the Lenovo should be ok, otherwise I feel it would fall short in performance - and quite a bit at that. It would be useful to know exactly how it handles Flight Simulator...best bet, I'd ask on the Flight Sim forum

For all other tasks, it's a nice laptop!

Simi

Claregirl wrote: »

Thanks very much for the advice Simi.

Is Lnovo a reliable brand?

It's hard to recommend one brand over another, sometimes laptops are just poorly built.

I would definitely avoid Advent or any other cheap own brand store laptops. My sister got one for Christmas 2 years ago, it's in bits at this stage. They have terrible build quality.

I'd add Acer to the list of recommended brands above. I bought a cheap €300 Acer Aspire in Tesco about 5 years ago, it's still going strong.

As for the graphics card debate, If you can find a laptop within your budget with an "Nvidia Geforce 630m" or better within your budget then all the better. Anything less than that isn't worth the money.

Claregirl

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Claregirl, does your son use the laptop screen while playing Flight Simulator or an external screen? Do you know if he uses add-ons, like the PMDG, Level-D etc.?

Thanks a mill for the advice! Sorry for the delay in getting back got sidetracked with a bit of decorating

He doesn't know what PMDG Level D is (neither do I for that matter) so I'm assuming he doesn't use it

Would this be any good? http://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/5088388/c_1/1%7Ccategory_root%7COffice%2C+PCs+and+phones%7C19780850/c_2/3%7C19780850%7CLaptops+and+netbooks%7C14419039/c_3/4%7Ccat_14419039%7CLaptops%7C14419040.htm

H3llR4iser

Claregirl wrote: »

Thanks a mill for the advice! Sorry for the delay in getting back got sidetracked with a bit of decorating

He doesn't know what PMDG Level D is (neither do I for that matter) so I'm assuming he doesn't use it

Would this be any good? http://www.argos.ie/static/Product/partNumber/5088388/c_1/1%7Ccategory_root%7COffice%2C+PCs+and+phones%7C19780850/c_2/3%7C19780850%7CLaptops+and+netbooks%7C14419039/c_3/4%7Ccat_14419039%7CLaptops%7C14419040.htm

Afraid not; The Intel 3000 chipset is kind of slow - if you get a laptop with integrated graphics, you shouldn't get anything other than one with the GMA4500HD; Much better it would be, like Simi suggested, to look form something that has a "Geforce GT" card (or a Radeon, but I wouldn't want to complicate things).

I am also afraid that it's not really easy to find such a configuration in the 400-600 Euro budget range; Sometimes, however, by walking in a store (such as Curry, HN or Soundstore) you might stumble upon a laptop that, while still definitely current and sporting good specs, is sold at a lowish price simply because a newer model has been released.

Now, how to spot a good one is really tricky if you are not really familiar with PCs and their quirks; Graphics cards are even more confusing. Let's see if I can help a bit, take a look at this:

http://tinyurl.com/cuha32j

It's a list of all graphics processing units used on current laptops. I ordered it alphabetically for convenience. The number on the far left is how the unit ranks - the lower, the better. As you can see, the "Intel HD Graphics 4000" ranks at 209; The "Nvidia GeForce 630M" Simi suggested is at 142 - significantly better. You could print this list out, go around shopping and check the laptop's specifications - read under "graphics" and you'll find it either says "integrated" (no good), "nVidia something" or "Radeon something". Check the name/code against the data you have, if the rank is less than 160 - and you like the price - you found your son's laptop
I know it's a lot of hassle, I went though it myself when looking around for my own laptop years ago - the fact that I'll soon be looking for a new one sends shivers down my spine; However, buying a laptop is a significant expense that is worth some investigation in order to get your money worth of machinery. Lots of dreadful stuff out there, big CPUs and horrible specifications about all the rest.

Plus, I wouldn't your son - a fellow flight sim enthusiast - to be disappointed

Claregirl

Thanks very much for the reply you certainly put a lot of thought & work into it - much appreciated.

Unfortunately the budget has been stretched (much further than it should be) and I think I'm coming to the realisation that he'll have to forgo flight sim on the new laptop and continue on the crappy desktop either that or end up with nothing.

I am really struggling to find anything with dedicated (decent) graphics that's less than €500. Will print off the list tho and hit a few more shops over the week-end and see if I get lucky

imitation

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Watch out, this is not really true. I have an old Core2 Duo with a GeForce 9600 M-GT, which in benchmarks is more or less comparable to the Intel HD 4000 chipset, and I can only run Flight Simulator 2004 - not a chance to use FSX, tried many times. Of course Flight Simulator is also CPU-intensive, so the extra power from the Core i3 would help a bit.
!

Given the choice in the bracket I would take an i3 over say something like an AMD A6/A8 with dedicated graphics for flight sim, my feeling there is more going on in the CPU than there is in the graphics card.

H3llR4iser

imitation wrote: »

Given the choice in the bracket I would take an i3 over say something like an AMD A6/A8 with dedicated graphics for flight sim, my feeling there is more going on in the CPU than there is in the graphics card.

You have a very valid point there, Flight Simulator is definitely CPU hungry. However, lots of people underestimate the role of the graphics card; I was running FS2004 on a P4 940 + GF8600GT; Upgraded the CPU to a Core2D, thinking it would boost the performance more than a GPU update and truth be told, nothing changed - not even a single additional FPS.

Claregirl, I might have a suggestion - why don't you hop over the Flight Simulation forum here on Boards and ask if anybody tried playing FSX on an Intel HD Graphics 4000? It might actually be feasible - I'm basing my assumptions on my old and battered Core2Duo