I’m aware there are a great many laptop threads but as laptops change and improve so rapidly, I think it’s better to simply start a new thread. If mods do not agree feel free to move this.
I’ve decided that, instead of just purchasing Microsoft Office, I’m going to buy a laptop that’s already got it installed. I need a new one anyway; my Macbook is great if I need to take a computer around to different places but it’s just not very practical for…literally anything else.
I’d like to be able to run games on my laptop but it’s not necessary as we’ve already got another computer for that. It would just be a nice bonus if I could. And I know it’s infuriating, but I haven’t really decided on my price range. Something reasonable, I guess. Throw out some suggestions and I’ll narrow it down from there.
Per the title of the topic, I do not have a credit card, so I’m wondering how paying for such an expensive item is gonna work. Will it be okay for me to go to the computer section at Guanghua, tell somebody “I want dat one” and then pull out a fat stack of bills?
The vendors pay something called Credit Card Processing Fee (CCPF). Normally around 1-3% of the transaction. Don’t know if Taiwanese people do it but cash sales are also easier to avoid paying sales tax on.
I think the MSI looks like a good pick. And not because it’s the one at the top of the list. I’d avoid AMD Ryzen because of the USB issues I’ve heard about.
For something a bit more expensive, I’d consider the
Lenovo Legion Y540. But you might not like the webcam placement. And the offset keyboard takes some getting used to.
The Dell G3 15 Gaming Laptop also looks not bad.
I’m not sure about the HP Omen though. I’ve not had good experiences with HP computers in the past.
Do you prefer 15.6" for the larger monitor, or 13.3/14" for the better portability?
Cpu: if you don’t need to do photo/video editing or heavy gaming, any of the recent i5/i7 from Intel or Ryzen from AMD will do fine. While shopping keep in mind that Intel cpus that end with a U are less powerful in order to increase battery life. If it has an H it’s high performance, and battery life becomes a meme
Ram: avoid 4gb, get 8gb (possibly expandable). If you get a laptop with 4gb ram, upgrade to 8gb as soon as possible.
Hdd/ssd: if a laptop has hdd only, avoid it like the plague. If it has ssd or ssd+hdd that’s the way to go
Graphic card: the best graphic cards are reserved for gaming laptops that for the most part are heavy, expensive and with low battery life. There’s a lot of cheap graphic cards, like MX230/250, that are commonly found in consumer laptops and work perfectly fine for occasional gaming
An Asus with i5/i7, 8gb ram, 512gb ssd and dedicated memory card can range between 23k and 33k depending on size and other specs. For Acer you can usually take Asus price and reduce it by 5/10% .
I have an Asus Vivobook Pro, if I had to buy another laptop it would probably be one of their 14" Vivobooks (non pro), like this one:
No dedicated graphic card, for that it takes a bit of extra $$$ or moving to 15.6". It needs a ram upgrade. I purchased my laptop at the Asus store in Taipei and I upgraded from 8 to 16gb of ram directly in store, they gave me a very good price. I used cash and they were very happy about it.
I’m most likely going to keep it at home so weight and battery life aren’t issues. If I need to carry something around with me I can always take my stupid Mac that weighs nearly nothing.
The gaming computer we already have is also a big heavy motherfucker with shitty battery life, actually. But there’s always something wrong with it and I don’t know why…
Sometimes I struggle to make certain programs, emulators, etc. run on it. Steam games sometimes don’t run at all, but I don’t know if that’s an issue with the computer or an issue with Steam. Just as an example, I can’t get Hotline Miami to load for some reason.
Your current PC sounds like it might be a 17” notebook from a few years back. What brand is it? And what model? Do you know the details of the specs? What OS do you have installed?
Ok, so it’s not an ancient computer. Has Win10 Home installed. But Hotline Miami is an ancient game (relatively speaking). It was created way before Windows 10 and relies heavily on DirectX 9.0c. Steam may not have all of the correct DirectX 9.0c files you need to run that game. There have been other games with similar issues. You may need to replace the DirectX files.
