Is it possible to get a gaming laptop for around £500

[mumwantingtogetittogether]

Or any laptop capable of playing sims 4 on?

I'm posting on behalf of my sister as she doesn't have an account but she could really do with some advice. (She's almost as computer illiterate as me 🤣)

She is looking to get a laptop for my lovely niece who would like to play sims, and also maybe Minecraft. But having looked online is feeling like it might not be in her budget?

She normally doesn't go for big purchases but has saved specially for this and considering she will probably have to buy a cd drive too, can't really go over the £500 mark (I will be buying the game itself).

I don't want anyone to think my niece is spoilt or demanding. She lost her dad around her last birthday and has had a really tough year but through it all has been so loving and supportive of her mum. I really am super proud of her. So her mum was hoping to surprise her with something she'd really love to have (hence saving as much as she could) but can obviously only do that within her means 😅 so any help would be so much appreciated!!

She really doesn't have a clue about all the technical jargon on computer websites so doesn't understand the requirements needed for playing sims so if you play sims yourself that would be really helpful! I am definitely no help to her 😅

Wow thank you guys so much for the responses! Especially the top tip about setting up a steam account! That's a brilliant price, I'll do that this evening.

I have spoken with my mum and we are going to chip in a little more so she can afford a slightly better one and shop around to see if we can find a refurbished one.
The link you posted @EthelbertTheTiger is so helpful and we'll be able to check the specifications easily using that!

Now. I have an embarrassing question please don't judge me 🫣 so say Minecraft needs 8gb of RAM (I think I'm using that right) and sims needs 8gb of RAM. If we find a laptop with 8gb of RAM will we only be able to buy one of those games as it's using up all the RAM? And we'd need to find a 16gb RAM laptop if we wanted both games? Or would the 8gb laptop be ok for both as only one would be used at a time?

(Sorry that is not very well written, I didn't know how to word it)

I know the answer to the second question: yes if you've got 8gb of ram you can play two games which each require 8gb.

Ha thank you @CredibilityProblem I'm so glad you could even understand my question, it was worded so badly 🤣

That's great to hear, I feel a lot less overwhelmed after this thread so thank you all! My sister will be over the moon with all this advice ❤️

In very simple terms, RAM is the working memory. It's what is needed while the game is on, but that's it.

You can buy 30 games and they'll all work as long as their requirements are 8GB or less.

Storage is the HDD or SSD. That's how much the laptop can hold. SSD is much better for gaming but more expensive. HDD will work fine too.

If you've got 228GB of SSD then you can download and store 228GB at a time. Games will usually say they require available memory of XGB. Some games are 5GB, others are 50GB. So that's the storage needed.
You can buy games on steam and download them, then uninstall them if she stops playing them to free up space. The games will still be in her library available to download again.

That is so clearly written, thank you!

I can't believe I now know about SSD and RAM 😆 I've tried reading so many online articles but my little brain just gets so overwhelmed, I don't take any of the information in. I'm really getting an understanding of what we're looking for now!

That is also great to hear about steam, I'd actually never heard of it until starting this thread!