I need a new laptop for when I move!!

Hey gang!!

I hope everyone's well in this extremely turbulent time for the human race? I'd say I'm at about....an 8/9 out of ten. I hope you're equally as good :)

So anyway, if you're about on the forums with some regularity, you'll know I'm hoping to move soon. To Japan no less!!

So, as part of my "Kick my life into chapter 2", I'm dropping a lot of stuff before I leave. Now, obviously, I can't get my PC setup over there. It's a big gaming PC, with two BIG monitors. It's just...not feasible. Plus...I wanna get away from spending my whole life at my computer, like I did my twenties.

I'm looking for a laptop to take with me! Ideally, I need something pretty compact so I can take it around for if I visit friends and stuff, but I'd also like...well, obviously, to get some bang for my buck.

My budget is anywhere between £300-350 I think. I'd like something that I can do my work on (Planning/blogging etc) and also do some Netflix and MAYBE some really simple gaming. Stuff like Stardew Valley and Dwarf Fortress (When is that coming out on PC, my GOD)

I've also heard about these "Chromebooks", but I actually don't know much about them! I feel that if I bought something like that, I'd be limited by the OS or something?

If anyone has any ideas, UK based, please hook me up :)

Thanks!!

Chrome books are browser based laptops with limited to no operating system which is fine for how lots of people use pc’s but not gamers. There was a push at one time to get some games running on these things but other than emulators there just isn’t a lot available and your right they don’t run straight Windows 10 so you’re limited to what is made specifically for them. I don’t know what is available for you but last time I checked there was a sweet spot in gaming laptops of a portable 1070 card with a 15’ 1440p screen being not horribly expensive but I’m a year out of the market and it’s possible you could do better. But that is what to look for in a gaming laptop: video card and screen resolution. The other components should scale to match.

A Chromebook is essentially a machine that only runs the Chrome web browser. I mean, it's more than that, it's got a few more bells and whistles, but if you expect to do any computer work outside of a web browser then you should go for a Windows or Mac machine. Or Linux, as there are some manufacturers of Linux laptops!

I'm American, so I don't have a good sense of what 300-350 pounds will get you compared to what $300-350 will get you... but it doesn't sound like much. After a quick perusal of Amazon's under $500 laptop list, I would strongly recommend that you avoid anything with less than 8GB of RAM like the plague. 8GB RAM is the standard these days and 4GB is a rather paltry amount for a computer in 2020.

Also, a lot of laptops in this price range come with a 128GB or 256GB SSD, which is fine if you're using your laptop as a Facebook/Youtube/Spotify/word processing machine, but not if you're planning on actually storing stuff on the laptop. See how easy it is to upgrade the SSD before you buy.

Do some research of your own first, but at first glance this seems like a good deal for a laptop that can play games and should be powerful enough to last you a while.

Another important note - how often do you plan on carrying this thing around with you? If it's going to be on your back all the time, you might be better off getting the lightest reliable laptop in your price range and buying a Switch for games instead. In fact, I think you should strongly consider purchasing a Switch. I don't think you'll find a gaming laptop in your price range that can run some of the things a Switch can run as well as a Switch can run them (games like Doom Eternal come to mind here), plus a Switch is light, portable, and can be used at either a TV or while you're out and about and waiting on something.

I paid around $370 for a Samsung Chromebook Plus in 2017. I still think it's a great little machine. In fact I'm using it right now! I use it all the time for media consumption and I do a fair bit of writing on it as well.

EDIT: I just checked and I can buy Stardew Valley on the Google Play Store. It's 7.99 USD.

If you ever have any intention of playing games at that level, you want something with an AMD ryzen 3 or 5 processor. If you were willing to go up to the $500~ mark I'd recommend you go for a ryzen 5, but i doubt you can do that at the $350 range. Some variation of this without windows S (get full version). Honestly, scratch that, I don't understand why anyone would buy an Intel processor at anywhere near this price range, as AMD will likely be a better value and is running all over them the past few years. I also can't understand the logic behind a chromebook at all (other than battery life, that's pretty rad), I don't get how they compete with budget windows laptops. Ryzen just brings too much value.

*edit* - I see you are probably looking at around $450 or so after conversion, missed that. You might be able to find a ryzen 5 at that range.