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Laptop Recommedation Required

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alanc

I'm looking for a laptop recommendation for my daughter. Should be capable of playing games, but not a chunky, macho 'gaming' laptop. Not a Mac either. Any suggestions?
 
I saw the Pro 3 ad the other day. I do like the look of the new ones. I do miss a keyboard with my tablet at the mo.

It depends on what kind of games your daughter plays too - check a game that has just come out that she would want and check the system specifications required. I've been looking at a few ultrabooks which are nice and slick, but you do pay a fair bit more for the portability.
 
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I wouldn't recommend the surface, there too expensive for what they are!

What price range are you looking at? then i will be able to give you some good suggestions! Just don't go to PC World, they like to add 100% to all there prices:-)
 
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For £450 you can get fairly decent laptops from places like (yes) PCWorld or other places like amazon, play.com, john lewis.

Just make sure its a Quad Core, plenty of ram (8GB or more) and big hard drive. If your budget can afford it. Look for laptops with SSDs. They make the whole thing so much faster. A lot of people believe that a computer/laptop is slow because of the processor, when in reality its the speed of the hard drive. SSDs run upto 20 times faster than a conventional laptop hard drive.

For £600 you can get laptops with a dedicated graphics card which is ideal for heavy gaming.

Tell us more and we can help.
 
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Thanks for all the replies. I was trying to replace a Dell with an i7/8Gb and a 2Gb nVidia card. I went with an Asus in the end. It was a similar spec. for just under £700

Only problem now is that my daughter hates the Windows 8 it came with...
 
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Aloha Telecom said:
A lot of people believe that a computer/laptop is slow because of the processor, when in reality its the speed of the hard drive. SSDs run upto 20 times faster than a conventional laptop hard drive.
Click to expand...

Absolutely want to vouch for this. Having just installed an SSD in my ageing 4 year old iMac at home, it's almost like a brand new machine now.

SSD's are pretty cheap now so shouldent have too much of an overall impact on price.
 
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How much are you looking to spend?
It depends on what kind of games your daughter plays too - check a game that has just come out that she would want and check the system specifications required.
 
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I feel basic spec should be

Latest generation i5
At least 8gb ram
And yes a ssd drive. I would get at least a 256gb size. I know I have a 128gb and it gets full quickly with just windows, iTunes with my music and Office

Windows 8 is not a big issue is just download the free classicshell to return it to windows 7 look.

Going into the whole PC vs MAC

I Use pc and have done for many many years. I am now starting to see mac as a better option. I can't count the number if times I have had to re-install windows on my own and staff's laptops/pc. As far as I am aware with macs you do not have this issue.

Another point to think about is tablet vs laptop. Tablets have really hit the laptop market hard. You can get great keyboards and mouse for tablets and with apps there are so many games. Plus battery life is much better than laptops.
 
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Damn lol.
Saw the title and decided I would come in and recommend a Mac but then you said not a mac :(

Windows 8 leaves a lot to desire unfortunately. Definitely put Windows 7 on it.
 
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That's interesting, as back in the day serious gamers were all about PC as a more powerful machine. With consoles now I know that the are often sold at a loss (PS4) and cash made up from the licensing of games so perhaps that's the way forward for the OP.
 
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I recommend the HP Spectre Ultrabook, i got one a few months ago and im so happy with it, affordable in price, powerful enough, it has an i5 processor, very light ! awesome for travelling and moving around but enough to do most work wherever you are, love it :)
 
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Is there anybody that does not hate windows 8? :)

I am not much of a gamer girl, but it would be a helpful advice for you to have dust on you mind.
Most of PC laptops I have seen are "dust friendly" /Mac's are really hard to get dust stuffed/. I remember when my brother took his Toshiba laptop apart and the amount of dirt was......
 
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CharlineCaisse said:
Is there anybody that does not hate windows 8? :)

I am not much of a gamer girl, but it would be a helpful advice for you to have dust on you mind.
Most of PC laptops I have seen are "dust friendly" /Mac's are really hard to get dust stuffed/. I remember when my brother took his Toshiba laptop apart and the amount of dirt was......
Click to expand...
I like Windows 8. I feel people hate it because it's new and different. I really like it and have had no issues this far.
 
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PC is still the biggest gaming platform to date. It has more users than Xbox and PlayStation put together. If your daughter is wanting a gaming laptop I suggest anything with either the equivalent or better;

8 GB RAM
500 GB HDD
i5 Processor
Radeon Graphics Card or GTX Graphics Card
16-24 Inch screen.

For all that you could probably get it around a price of £400-800 depending on where you look. Hope this helps!
 
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Until recently i'd have said HP but having bought and sold a number of the Probooks recently I'd go with Dell as there been multiple issues with Wireless controllers among other things with HP?
 
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There are methods that will allow you to run Windows 7 instead. I personally don't find Windows 8 to be so terrible, I never use the app style window and just have it on regularly desktop style settings. Most places should allow you to choose which operating system you want installed before you purchase the laptop though, perhaps you missed that option. Maybe you can ask them to do a reinstall, unless you have a windows 7 copy, in which case you can always do it yourself.
 
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leeparsons said:
There are methods that will allow you to run Windows 7 instead. I personally don't find Windows 8 to be so terrible, I never use the app style window and just have it on regularly desktop style settings. Most places should allow you to choose which operating system you want installed before you purchase the laptop though, perhaps you missed that option. Maybe you can ask them to do a reinstall, unless you have a windows 7 copy, in which case you can always do it yourself.
Click to expand...
But that depends if the laptop manufacturer has designed the drivers just for Windows 8.
 
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I'm a big fan of the HP Pavilion series. Great computers, robust and use friendly. The key advantage of these is the long lasting life, I've had one for about 4 years now and it still works fine.
 
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MacBook Air is still the standard for me though now's not a great time to buy. I expect in mid to late 2015 new machines with better processors and screen technology.
 
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In my opinion one of the important things for a new laptop is the display resolution. The mass of cheaper laptops are with resolution 1280x768. Try finding one with HD display...
 
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jenferrer said:
I love Acer laptops. They are cheap and strong.
Click to expand...

I loathe Acer. I spent some time on the support line talking to a customer support technician who was brutally, brutally honest with me about Acer. I was under the impression he was being made redundant and had nothing to lose by telling me the truth about them.

My advice is to stay well away from Acer.
 
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