I need a budget gaming notebook....any ideas?

posted on August 7th, 2010, 5:45 am

AVOID acer at all costs! unless you dont want to have it any longer than the warranty, and expect to send it back to get fixed a couple times...
i would recommend asus, they tend to have really good gpus for their prices, and high quality components.
i have an n80vn i got for $800 a while back, is capable enough for me (geforce 9650, runs crysis on medium, fallout 3 on high).
looks like the are a couple new ones in that range with pretty nice geforce cards too.

posted on August 7th, 2010, 11:24 pm

I like HP prolly mostly because my dad works for them (on the enterprise end not consumer) anyway. If you are buying a laptop id get one with a 16:10 aspect ratio as opposed to 16:9. My mother and I have 15 inch laptops but hers is a 16:9 and mine is a 16:10 and her screen is way smaller than mine. Mine is much better for displaying web pages and for gaming. Also i wouldnt go smaller than a 15 inch i have a hard time typing on this one the way it is.

[Brother Gabriel]

posted on August 8th, 2010, 11:23 am

Last edited by Brother Gabriel on August 8th, 2010, 11:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

always when i read the words "gaming" and "notebook" combined i feel myself forced to laugh ...
but yes, bigger than 15" is a must. Also make sure you get one that is well cooled.
Cooling is general notebook problem. Most of em tend to collect more dust than a vacuum cleaner. So make sure its well cooled and easy to clean.

posted on August 8th, 2010, 3:19 pm

Gmaing laptops dont exactly come under the catagory of budget, they are overpriced overheating peices of junk, if you want a machine to use at home just get a desktop they are way cheaper and way more reliable, i bought a sweet gaming pc off ebay recently for £190.

Specs are
Amd 635 quad core 2.9Ghz
4gb ram
500gb hdd
nvidia 8200 graphics card intigrated on an 8200 mother board 1gb graphics with sli

my old gaming laptop which is dead due to over heating cost me £300 died in a year.

Laptops lack airflow.

posted on August 8th, 2010, 9:48 pm

Another thing to be aware of, is that the advertised battery life may not be accurate during gaming. My friend has a laptop that last something like 6 hours in normal use but during intense gaming the full potential of his Geforce GO 7800GTX ruins the battery life to a measly 30mins before needing to be plugged in. Then his battery packed in altogether; presumably due to the overbearing work required of it.

posted on August 8th, 2010, 10:40 pm

External Laptop fans are a must.

[Anonymous]

posted on August 8th, 2010, 11:17 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on August 8th, 2010, 11:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If you don't mind a 15 inch scree, this is a good deal.

http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/490956/HP-Pavilion-dv6-3010us-156-LED/

Just picked one up for my mom in fact.  Seems like a great PC

HP Pavilion dv6-3010us

$450 (with $50 rebate)

Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 Graphics with 128MB sideport memory and up to 2045MB total graphics memory

Ports: 3 USB 2.0; 1 eSATA/USB 2.0; 1 HDMI; 1 Ethernet; 1 VGA 15-pin D-sub

Has Webcam, Microphone, 5 in 1 card reader, bluetooth, and cd-labeler.

RAM: 4GB DDR3

HDD: 320GB, 2.3 GHz

OS: Win 7 Home Premium, 64 bit.

Battery: ~5Hr.


All in all, a pretty good PC.

posted on August 17th, 2010, 9:40 pm

Not sure if you're still looking for a laptop, but for gaming either the ASUS U30Jc or the MacBook are your best bets. The only catch is, with the Macbook, you also need to buy a copy of Windows if you plan to play a lot of games on it. Both have around 7 hour battery life, although the Mac gets drastically shorter battery life when running Windows as opposed to OS X.

posted on August 17th, 2010, 9:51 pm

Hehm for gaming, I would not recommend a Mac, even with windows installed.  It is just not made for it.

posted on August 17th, 2010, 9:59 pm

What do you mean? It has a great processor and video card, and it runs Crysis on medium settings... how is it not meant for gaming?

posted on August 17th, 2010, 10:07 pm

What do you mean? It has a great processor and video card, and it runs Crysis on medium settings... how is it not meant for gaming?

a pc would be cheaper, and run more games with better compatibility with better settings.

macs arent for gaming.

more money = more games (if u obey the law)

posted on August 17th, 2010, 10:16 pm

Yeah, true, but Macs have the exact same guts as PCs. Just a different operating system and an Apple logo on the lid, otherwise they're more or less identical. And for some games (Counterstrike, Half Life 2) you don't even need Windows, they run on Mac OS X.

Ignore these naysayers, Macs are just fine for gaming :p

posted on August 17th, 2010, 10:33 pm

macs aren't fine for gaming, the hardware may be equally capable, but an equivalent pc will be a lot cheaper. plus games run natively on windows, very few games are designed to run on macs.

so if u want to spend more money buying a mac, and more time getting it working with windows games, its your money and time to waste lol.

macs are a different beast to pcs, dont expect to use them for similar things, use macs for what macs are for, and pcs for what pcs are for.

posted on August 18th, 2010, 8:51 am

Mac's are more for multimedia type stuff. Video/Photo editing and stuff. However, as mentioned you pay a lot more for the equivalent hardware. I saw a pretty mediocre mac for around £1000 the other day. For a £1000 I could build a MONSTER pc.

posted on August 18th, 2010, 11:50 am

Mac's are more for multimedia type stuff. Video/Photo editing and stuff. However, as mentioned you pay a lot more for the equivalent hardware. I saw a pretty mediocre mac for around £1000 the other day. For a £1000 I could build a MONSTER pc.

thats the main reason i wouldnt get a mac unless i found out i was bill gates' long lost son and sole heir.

the cheapest macs are rather unimpressive, but cost more than a good gaming computer.