Budget: $1,000 max, ideally around $800 or less
Country: USA
Screen size: 15.6 inch
Display: Don’t care
Thermals?: As long as it doesn’t crash, I don’t care. My current computer seems to work fine when I prop the back on some foam blocks.
Fan sound?: Don’t care
Mux Switch/ Optimus/ Advanced Optimus?: Don’t know what the impact of these is. Probably don’t care.
Build Quality?: As long as it doesn’t fall apart, it does not matter
Audio Quality?: Don’t care
Camera?: Don’t care
Weight: Don’t care
Main purpose of laptop: Web browsing, text editing, light coding, gaming. I do not really play AAA games, and always lower graphics settings as much as possible when gaming.
Battery life: Don’t care
Other notes:
I know very little about computer hardware or laptops. My current computer is a Lenovo IdeaPad 3 (15IML05) with an i5-10210U CPU @ 1.60 GHz (2.11 GHz), 12 GB RAM, Intel(R) UHD Graphics, and a 1 TB SSD that I installed myself in an attempt to speed it up (I think it did help a bit, but the computer is still pretty slow, even when playing something like EU4).
I would like to buy a new laptop, but I do not know which ones are good and what features I should look for. I currently don’t play very high-end games, and don’t care about graphics at all.
I have read that processor performance is more important than RAM. Is this true? What processors should I look for? 14th generation Intel processors should be good, but what about 13th generation? And is there a system from comparing between Intel’s standard processor generations and Ryzen, Intel Core, and Intel Core Ultra processors?
How important is RAM, anyways? Would having 32 GB of RAM make a significant difference over 16? Is a machine with a 14th generation Intel processor but 16 GB of RAM better than a machine with a 13th generation Intel processor and 32 GB of RAM? And do I need to worry about the different types of RAM?
Is a graphics card important for gaming? I currently don’t play super demanding games, but maybe I would want to if I had a better computer. Do AAA games on minimum graphical settings still require a dedicated GPU to run well (and if so, why?). Would older/less performance intensive games perform better if a dedicated GPU was present? I have never used a computer with a GPU, other than briefly running a local embedding model on an EC2 instance provided by my employer, so I don’t know how helpful they are.
Also, is there a big difference between different graphics cards? Is any graphics card fine, or is a 4050 going to offer large improvements over a 3050 (in terms of having the game run smoothly on minimum graphics)?
I always hear about FPS. I know that it means “frames per second”, but have never paid attention to what FPS I have or if it is good or not. Is this affected by what GPU you have? Can you get good FPS with an integrated or older GPU, if you set graphics settings to minimum? Does FPS affect gameplay, or only the visuals?
Is there a best time of year for buying computers? I think Labor Day sales are on right now, so is buying now good? Would waiting for Black Friday be better? Would delaying lead to increased prices due to tariffs and inventory running out? I don’t need a new computer super urgently, but I do find the current one sluggish, and my mother is waiting for me to finish using my current one so that she can use it (her laptop was bought in 2016 and was not great when we first got it).
Is there a best platform for buying computers? Like, Amazon, Walmart, Costco, the manufacturer, etc.?
Also, why do a lot of gaming laptops have so few reviews? I’ve looked at:
Amazon for $789: HP Victus Gaming Laptop | 15.6″ FHD 144Hz | 13th Gen Intel 8 Cores i5-13420H Up to 4.60 GHz | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6GB | 32GB RAM | 1TB PCIe SSD | Backlit | Wi-Fi 6 |Webcam |Type-C |Windows 11 Home
Amazon for $984: HP Victus RTX 4050 AI Gaming Laptop with Copilot, 15.6 FHD 144Hz, AMD Ryzen 7 7445HS(Beats Intel i7-13700), NVIDIA RTX 4050, 32GB DDR5 RAM, 1TB SSD, Backlit KB, Bundle with PCO Laptop Cooler
Costco for $1000: HP OmniBook 5 16″ 2K Touchscreen Laptop – Intel Core Ultra 9 285H – 1920 x 1200 – 32GB Memory – 1TB SSD – Windows 11 Home
These all look fine (but I have no experience with evaluating laptops), but not one has even 100 reviews. I looked on reddit for some things, and saw that, for instance, the HP Victus is a decent mid-range gaming laptop, and that it may have some screen wobble which might have been fixed in later versions, but don’t know what applies to which version of HP Victus. How are you supposed to know what is good and what is not, when there are so many different typed of laptop out there, and many different configurations for each?
Does anyone have any suggestions on what laptop I should buy, with a “good” processor (whatever “good” means), “sufficient” RAM (whatever “sufficient” means), a graphics card of whatever version is necessary for smooth gaming with minimum graphics, 1 TB of storage, and which will be future proof for the next ~5 years? I don’t care about screen quality, weight, battery life, audio, the computer’s appearance, or any of that stuff. All I want is something that can handle day to day use and minimum-graphics gaming.
As an aside, the links in the wiki are all dead and the FAQ links to a bunch of stuff that seems out of date.