Budget Laptop for College

Jonathan Tyer · Aug 27, 2014

I am getting a degree in game design and I need a laptop for and wondering what I should get. Budget max of $650

LostAlone · Aug 27, 2014

That's a tough question honestly.

On a fundamental level you don't need much power to actually write code with, but you do need more to compile and test. What engines are you going to be working in?

Jonathan Tyer · Aug 27, 2014

LostAlone :

Do not know yet, prof. has yet to say.

shortstuff_mt · Aug 27, 2014

This laptop has pretty good specs for the price. It has an i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, 1TB HDD, & 1080p screen.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314533

Teemi · Aug 27, 2014

With laptops, I would focus on brand first because they are hard to fix by yourself if something goes wrong with the hardware. Stick with Lenovo, Asus, HP, and Dell.

Here's one from Dell. It's $699 but you can get $50 dollars off from the deal on the top of the page. I've always had a good experience with Dell's customer service (but then I've always purchased from their business or gaming lines).

http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15-5547-laptop/pd?oc=fndom2612b&model_id=inspiron-15-5547-laptop

Jonathan Tyer · Aug 27, 2014

shortstuff_mt :

You think the iGPU can handle it?

shortstuff_mt · Aug 27, 2014

Jonathan Tyer :

Sure, as long as you won't be gaming on it. You haven't really given us an idea of what type of work you will be doing with the system other than "game design" which wouldn't require a strong GPU. When I hear "game design" I just think of compiling code which would be more dependent on a decent CPU.

Jonathan Tyer · Aug 27, 2014

Include some gaming, mostly Minecraft, and some graphic design for the game designing

shortstuff_mt · Aug 27, 2014

You're not going to get much better in that price range. You will be able to play Minecraft at lower detail settings. My daughter plays Minecraft on the integrated GPU in my i7-2600K which is considerably weaker than the newer Intel iGPUs.

Teemi · Aug 27, 2014

The dell I showed you is probably the best you can get for $650 unless you want to buy a used system. Even the cheapest gaming laptops from bargain sellers like cyberpower and ibuypower go for at least a $1000. Maybe you should consider buying used gaming laptops.

Teemi · Aug 27, 2014

How do you feel about building a desktop instead?

Jonathan Tyer · Aug 27, 2014

Teemi :

I know, its such a better price/performance ratio, but since this is for college, laptop is the best bet

Jonathan Tyer · Aug 27, 2014

Teemi :

I found a used laptop with an i7, 8gb RAM, 1TB HDD, and a GTX 660m for $600, think its a really good deal.

Teemi · Aug 27, 2014

Or maybe something refurbished from Ebay like this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-17-Gaming-Laptop-Core-i5-3-20GHz-Turbo-8GB-1TB-HD-1080p-WiFi-/201155200802?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item2ed5c8c722

Jonathan Tyer · Aug 27, 2014

Also found another with the same specs except it has a GT 640m, same price but better condition

Teemi · Aug 27, 2014

Well good luck hunting. I would get one that's still on warranty though. Laptops are really hard to fix on your own.

Jonathan Tyer · Aug 27, 2014

What about this, a $300 laptop for college and a $350-$400 home built desktop for gaming/game design/graphic design?

Teemi · Aug 27, 2014

The issue with that is that you will have to pay for two OS, and a monitor, keyboard and mouse. That doesn't leave a lot of room for quality cpus and gpus

Jonathan Tyer · Aug 27, 2014

Teemi :

Except laptop comes with OS, Linux is free, and I already have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse

Teemi · Aug 27, 2014

Well do you REALLY need a laptop? Even if you just spend $400 on the desktop hardware and not the OS or peripherals, it's still not going to be a very powerful system. Here's a build I made for someone with a max budget of $380 and who can only use newegg. You can try tweaking it to see if you can get more out of it. I would upgrade the card to a r260x and maybe add a dvd player.

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/eivuwan/saved/pnBG3C

CPU Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core $59.00
Motherboard MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 $49.99
Memory G.Skill AEGIS 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 $38.70
Storage Toshiba 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM $44.98
Video Card MSI Radeon R7 250X 1GB $99.99
Case Antec VSK-4000 ATX Mid Tower $29.98
Power Supply Corsair 430W ATX12V $43.33
Total: $365.97

Jonathan Tyer · Aug 27, 2014

Like I told you already, with college a laptop is a better choice.

Teemi · Aug 27, 2014

I went to college too. It doesn't seem like such a big deal now to have a laptop. If I go back now, I would just get a cheap tablet for class at most. Are you required to bring your own computers to programing class? Don't they have computer labs?

edit: anyway, if you want to split your money between a desktop and a laptop, you likely can't do too much better than the build I posted.

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