Posted: 9/21/2025 1:55:24 PM EDT
[Last Edit: SchizoPathica][Edited]
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It's time for a new laptop for the house. My work computer gets a lot more use but I like having another machine for personal stuff. My son has a pretty decent dedicated gaming PC at his mom's house but it's not very portable. I don't want a "gaming" laptop but would like to find something he'd be able to play some games with. Any suggestions regarding minimum specs? I was looking in the $1K range for a standard windows machine and I realize higher specs will require a higher budget. He's typically playing Fortnite, Cities Skylines, Roblox and Minecraft. Thanks in advance. |
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Since no replies yet, I ran across this on Slickdeals today. It is for an Alienware laptop, and I think that brand is aimed at gaming. I think it’s owned by Dell. Maybe also check out Dell Refurbished for any deals. I like their Latitude line- solid builds, IME. I have two of the refurbished ones and they have been solid. Look at the comments- a few comments and other leads as well. I’m not a gamer, so can’t help with the minimum requirements, but maybe the comments will help. Alienware Aurora 16 in. Laptop Intel Core 7 $899 |
“War is a racket….”
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Dell has turned Alienware into garbage. Lenovo legion will probably be the highest spec you'll find for the price range. Yes, it's a gaming machine. They are not real flashy. I have an older Asus TUF gaming laptop. Not real powerful but mostly gets the job done. An I5 and a 1650TI. It struggles and eventually thermals playing Stalker 2 on low spec at 1080p. Nothing not aimed at gaming will have a decent GPU for gaming. Especially under $1k. |
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Gracias, I do like Lenovo. $1K is a bit of a starting point and expect to go above that as components like the GPU are considered. Thanks for the Alienware link. The comments had a good point about waiting for Black Friday deals. I'll try to do my homework up until then and hopefully willl be able to spot a decent deal. |
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My usual approach is to bring up Best Buy's webpage and filter Windows laptops on "clearance". Then I see what comes up, focusing on HP, Lenovo and Asus. And, watch to be sure there's an independent video card rather than "integrated". It's been surprisingly effective, although I do better with it in spring than in this time of year. Between back-to-school and the Christmas run-up, it's not a great time to buy. But following that approach, I did find one candidate. I know it says "gaming", but it doesn't have "that look". I'd also recommend dropping the make and model into YouTube to see how to upgrade the RAM and bumping it up to 32GB. It should be cheap and easy to do. Laptops don't typically get properly spec'd RAM in this price range. But you might try the above process yourself. Being local to somewhere else, you might get a different result. Also, watch for HP's Victus line. Good stuff for the price can be found. |
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HP is junk. Cheaply built with poor parts. Dedicated graphics is usually what they will call it. Seems to be more Nvidia then AMD in laptops. Saw a few today with 5060s that best buy wanted wayyyyy too much money for. That said, best buy did have 3x 5080s for $1400 and even 5070s for $550. On the shelf. I was quite impressed at both having GPUs and the MSRP prices. Anyways, I'm off topic now. |
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^ That guy can be safely ignored. All the major makers that supply large businesses with their laptops and servers are buying the same parts from the same vendors for the lowest possible prices due to the volumes they're moving. There's not a hair's breadth of difference among them. Lenovo, HP, Dell. Just look at the specs vs price. After them, you can do ok with an Asus because they make most of the internals anyway. You go downhill fast after that as the rest can't keep up on cost. Once you're spending, say, $1500 and up, things become much nicer. But most people don't need to live in that space. Take a $700 MSRP laptop from any of the big 3 and it'll be essentially the same machine. Watch the specs and buy on sale. A person with a $1000 budget is buying a commodity. If you talk like it's something else, you're showing your fanboi card. |
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Originally Posted By Leadlined: ^ That guy can be safely ignored. All the major makers that supply large businesses with their laptops and servers are buying the same parts from the same vendors for the lowest possible prices due to the volumes they're moving. There's not a hair's breadth of difference among them. Lenovo, HP, Dell. Just look at the specs vs price. After them, you can do ok with an Asus because they make most of the internals anyway. You go downhill fast after that as the rest can't keep up on cost. Once you're spending, say, $1500 and up, things become much nicer. But most people don't need to live in that space. Take a $700 MSRP laptop from any of the big 3 and it'll be essentially the same machine. Watch the specs and buy on sale. A person with a $1000 budget is buying a commodity. If you talk like it's something else, you're showing your fanboi card. Ahh yes, many words and no content. Support business. Yes. There is massive difference between a machine for business and a consumer machine. We all note it every time someone says "Dell Outlet". The HP you get from best buy or similar is a POS. The Dell you guy from best buy or similar is a POS. An Inspiron is garbage. A latitude may be OK. XPS is decent. Looks like Dell has changed their naming again though. Basically everyone's consumer machines are junk. Asus, Dell, HP, everyone. They are built to a price point. I'm an Asus fan for sure. Would I buy one of their $1000 or less laptops today? Hell no! I made that mistake. Build quality is mediocre. The case is very cheap/plastic feeling. The cooling solution is utter garbage. Ever see a modern laptop hit 95c? Even a repaste does nothing. A single heat pipe for both CPU and GPU. Add to that a horrible fan curve that is locked and waits until the thing is over 60c to turn on the fans so it runs quieter but can never get ahead of heat. Useless for much more than very mild gaming and office work. Even my old i7 malibal with a GTX560 never could touch that and pulled nearly 200w. My Asus has good specs. Specs only tell half the story. Great specs with a shit design that let it, and me, down at every turn. I was recently asked to spec a machine for my wife by her boss. I gave my recommendation. Her boss spent more money than my recommendation and got a Dell Inspiron, not even a Dell outlet purchase. That machine is garbage. Build sucks, cooling sucks, performance is miserable even just running a spreadsheet on an external 1440p display is a struggle. You won't be walking into a store with $1000 and grabbing a laptop off the shelf with a dedicated GPU. You will be shopping online, Dell outlet, BH Photo, etc. Best bang for the buck has been Lenovo. I have not owned a Lenovo in over a decade. I've actually been going towards Framework but that will but a good chunk more money. Unlike most framework is offering an AMD GPU in a laptop. |
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Thanks fellas. Yeah, seeing some Asus machines with good specs in the $1,500 range. Will definitely look for some black Friday deals. Trying not not be swayed by the Dell and HP laptops we have at work. Major durability issues with the Dells but as mentioned, they're cheap computers for huge corporate orders. |
| We have an ASUS, was $1100 when we got it 2 year ago, has a 3060 for a graphics card, plays mostly everything very well. The kids use it for school, and it doubles for games. It has a very nice 16" screen, and it pretty sturdy - gets hauled to school in a backpack and seems to do fine. |
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That situation is screaming to get a handheld portable like an ROG Ally X, Steam Deck, or iPad. Forget the 'gaming laptop'. The first two have i/o to where you can make him a gaming desk to hook up a monitor and mouse/keyboard so it's like playing on a desktop. He can play in the backseat of a car on long trips with the built in controls or with a console controller. They can run desktop apps so he could use it for school doing word processing or whatever he needs in a browser just like a desktop PC. They are 'handheld PC's' with a ton of flexibility. iPads also support controllers over bluetooth so a PS5 controller works with them. They are much cheaper so you could use the extra budget you have on a desk/monitor/keyboard(mechanical only please)/mouse/speakers. The highest end Steam Deck is the 1TB OLED model which is $649. The dock is $79. |
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