Budget Portable Gaming Laptop

O hEidin

Hi.

Long story short, my brother has a new job where he travels a lot, we used to play fortnite for a social for an hour twice a week (both on xbox).

I’d like to get him a portable(ish) laptop that he can play fortnite on with the rest of us while he’s travelling (he won’t get his first payslip for 5 weeks).

Any suggestions? Budget, as low as possible but enough to give a decent gaming experience.

He will be plugging in his xbox controller via USB.

Thanks in advance

budget-end and gaming laptops are sort of mutually exclusive.
what is your max budget?

here's an option for 580 sterling. has nvidia mx150 graphics which will run fortnite fine.
8gb ram and 128gb ssd (with 1tb hd also). 15.6 full hd ips.
i5 but 7th gen instead of 4-core 8th gen.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Aspire-15-6-Inch-Notebook-Processor/dp/B074HC2Z6W/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1527543260&sr=8-11&keywords=mx150

this probably a better deal at £550 + shipping (£10 i think)

https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/NX.GQNEK.001-Acer-Swift-3-SF314-52G-530Q_2140682.html

bigger ssd, more portable. also with mx150. same cpu. all-metal chassis

good site that many here have used before.

you could buy a laptop with only integrated graphics but the framerates will be low at even 720p so you'd be at a disadvantage to other players.
would still be talking about 550 to 600 for an i5 8250u laptop though (with no dedicated graphics as mentioned)

O hEidin

glasso wrote: »

you could buy a laptop with only integrated graphics but the framerates will be low at even 720p so you'd be at a disadvantage to other players.
would still be talking about 550 to 600 for an i5 8250u laptop though (with no dedicated graphics as mentioned)

Something to play at a stable 45-60 frames, much like the xbox does. I was thinking about an ex corporate machine with a few minor upgrades at handy money

corporate machines won't normally have a dedicated gpu (some may but rare and then likely to be a very heavy machine) and you can't add a graphics card to a laptop. also if it's an older cpu the integrated graphics will be even worse as it will be an older generation.

you won't get decent perf on a laptop on fortnite without a decent gpu unless you want to play at really low resolution (800x600) with low details. so it won't look anywhere near as good as the xbox. you'd probably have to turn down the draw distance also which mean that you can't see distant enemies but they can see you and shoot you.

I'd recommend the 14 inch metal acer with the mx150 that I linked for 550 sterling. it will play 1080p medium details at 45 fps.

O hEidin

glasso wrote: »

corporate machines won't normally have a dedicated gpu (some may but rare and then likely to be a very heavy machine) and you can't add a graphics card to a laptop. also if it's an older cpu the integrated graphics will be even worse as it will be an older generation.

you won't get decent perf on a laptop on fortnite without a decent gpu unless you want to play at really low resolution (800x600) with low details. so it won't look anywhere near as good as the xbox. you'd probably have to turn down the draw distance also which mean that you can't see distant enemies but they can see you and shoot you.

I'd recommend the 14 inch metal acer with the mx150 that I linked for 550 sterling. it will play 1080p medium details at 45 fps.

Thanks for that.

Is there a compromise to be had with something relatively new with integrated graphics card?

Is the intel 4000 any good.

Sorry i’m really not up on laptop/notebook hardware

TerrorFirmer

Not really. You'd have to spend about €450 on a new laptop to get one with current gen Intel integrated graphics, so you might as well spend the €600 odd and get a basic gaming laptop like this and play the game at decent levels.

Fortnite on a HD4000 wouldn't work. Well...it would work, but horribly. Think lowest possible settings/resolution at very low/choppy framerate.

If you got a new laptop for about €450 with Intel HD 620 it would run well enough at low settings/resolution, but not much else. Would also only be a fraction the speed of the one I linked above for £499.

O hEidin

Thats a bummer.

I was hoping that something like an E6430 with the nVidia NVS 5200 GPU might just have got me by. - can get them for 250ish

It was meant to be a token/congratulations. I think it will have to be left for now.

Thanks for all your feedback

TerrorFirmer

Afraid not. That's a very low end card and six-ish years old, even back then it would've been very weak for games, let alone in 2018!

If you upped the budget to €400 you would get something half capable 2nd hand on Ebay with a warranty (that'd run the game at 1080p low-medium at decent framerate). Like this.

But €250 unfortunately just won't cut it for modern games unless you trawl the web pretty intensively for a rare 2nd hand bargain/win a good bid on ebay.

get him a second-hand ipad for cheap and you can play fortnite there instead. get a bluetooth controller for better experience.

or coming on android soon.

O hEidin

glasso wrote: »

get him a second-hand ipad for cheap and you can play fortnite there instead. get a bluetooth controller for better experience.

or coming on android soon.

iOS devices do not support controllers otherwise it would be done. Looked at that first

Thanks

O hEidin

O hEidin wrote: »

iOS devices do not support controllers otherwise it would be done. Looked at that first

Thanks

with bluetooth controller
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x16M4t7hOUw

prob have to jailbreak ios device.

O hEidin

glasso wrote: »

with bluetooth controller
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x16M4t7hOUw

prob have to jailbreak ios device.

Thats interesting, thanks

O hEidin

back again. Only because this was brought to my attention.

Would something like this work?

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F183258085650

Or could it be upgraded so that it would work?

O hEidin

Panic over.

Apparently it just launched on the switch.

That’ll work.

Thanks for all the help.