Laptop advice

[MineMineMineMineMine]

I really don't know what I'm looking for. Like at all.

The girls are secondary age and need to be able to run

• Teams which I know from my computer gobbled whatever it is it gobble. Memory? Ram? My work computer is unusable and I have another one I use that's my husband's old one but it's much higher spec

• Sims. They love sims.

I don't know what it is I'm looking for or what the minimum spec I need is.

We aren't high income at all so I can't go for all singing. It really needs to be minimum that will work and 'm happy to go refurbished if it helps.

If anyone could point me in the right direction that would be amazing.

These are Microsoft’s published requirements for teams

New Teams for Windows PC desktop 4.0 GB RAM. 3.0 GB of available disk space. 1024 x 768 or higher resolution. Graphics hardware acceleration requires DirectX 9 or later, with WDDM 2.0 or higher for Windows 10 (or WDDM 1.3 or higher for Windows 10 Fall Creators Update).27 Sept 2024

Any thoughts on this?

You’ll need quite high spec for most big games. I play The Sims and have recently bought a gaming laptop as my old laptop overheated when playing it despite having more than enough spec.

I would look for something with minimum 8gb Ram 16 recommended really), at least an i7 Intel (but I suspect i5 would be ok) and ideally a dedicated graphics card (opposed to a shared one). Dedicated cards often have their own cooling fan (so less chance of overheating like my old laptop).

Persoanlly, I’d recommend Acer - the Acer Nitro are good and if money isn’t an issue, you could follow in my footsteps and go for the Acer Predator. I also believe that Asus computers/laptops are good too often a bit cheaper too.

This kind of thing you could confidently get as a good Black Friday deal. Also, look on things like TopCashBack - Acer often offer 5 to 7% cashback.

looked at your screen shot - looks like enough RAM, screen is quite small (for games). I came unstuck when I had a laptop with a small SSD (I went for 1T SSD this time around). Basically, depending on the set up the SSD can fill up quite quickly and then things like windows updates fail (I’d like to think manufacturers are wise to this now though).

At the end of the day it depends how much you want to spend. Technology is never future proof though so get the best spec you can for the money you want to spend.

I3 is the minimum for Sims 4 but i5 recommended with 8 Gb ram. 51 Gb of free space needed on the hard drive so a laptop with 256 Gb is going to struggle unless Sims and Teams is all you use it for.

https://www.pcgamesn.com/sims-4/system-requirements

Yes, I’d agree with you - my old Acer Nitro is an i3 (i think) and my son still plays the Sims on it along with Fortnite and a couple of others. But it does have a dedicated graphics card and we upgraded the SSD recently.

Thankyou. Id noticed it had 16gb of Ram and was i7 (these are all just numbers and acronyms to me so I don't know exactly what I'm looking at) and being a refurbished dell was getting "more for my money". Also from googling attitude was their more sturdy one (one child broke the hinge in their laptop before and the other child doesn't have one hence this dash)

But I didn't know to look for more than 256gb of drive. Tbf it probably will just be SIMS, teams and the Internet it gets used for based on her last year's usage and the other child it may not even be SIMS but I want the laptop to last a few years.

It was about the most we could pay too so we might have to compromise somewhere I just don't want to get something that becomes useless 😬.

I don't understand the graphics card /upgrading SSD. I'm not going to be able to upgrade anything myself unless it's plug and play or obvious.

If sims is the only game she plays is this something she needs. We had a free laptop from family fund before so it was a stone acer but I don't know the spec (ni9ci) but it's starting to randomly shut down on her and the hinge is broken.

Im really appreciating help as I'm clueless and scared of getting it wrong. I'd really like each one to be under 400 as this is probably the biggest expense we've had all year. And it's hard to know which bit it's okay to compromise on when I don't "get" computers.

That DELL looks good for the price and the spec should work. I’ve had DELL latitudes from my office and they’ve been decent workhorses. One thing to consider with a refurbished laptop is possibly reduced battery life. Are you likely to use it lots where there may not be power sockets, eg on transport, cafes and restaurants? In which case I’d check what they say about battery performance

No it's 99% at home.

I'm concerned pp said it doesn't have enough hard drive though? They'll be saving work and things as well as SIMS and teams.

Google had said attitudes were more sturdy which appealed.

Even with Google I don't know what upgrading an ssd is.

If I bought the laptop above could I upgrade it's "ssd" if the hard drive wasn't enough in a few years?

I know we can't afford a gaming computer and she is only really playing sins we aren't a gaming family as such. (they have a switch but it rarely gets used)

Better to buy one with adequate size to start with. Not all laptops can be upgraded.

How about this?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/276738014797

I really can't afford to buy from ebay as its too much of a risk - hence looking at Dell refurbished.

It really is only sims 4 she plays - other than that it's used for school work.

Its such a stretch for us to get these it's so frustrating how money affects every area of your life. 😬. We were so lucky to get the previous one on family fund before.

So 256 definitely not enough?

It needs to be sturdy too as hinge broke on the one she had from family fund.

Do you have a local computer repair shop near you?
Our local one sells reconditioned laptops and they staff are so knowledgeable, I recently spent £379 on a laptop from Argos which turned out to be useless and wouldn't run what I needed to, the guy in the repair shop told me it had nowhere near the memory and power I needed so I returned it and bought one from him for £400.
He did explain all the differences to me but I have no idea what he was on about! I do know that it easily runs photoshop and the games I wanted.
It was less than a year old and would've been £1200 new, he said a lot of companies lease laptops for their staff and trade them in after a year, he buys them, wipes and cleans them, checks they work and sells them on.

I'd avoid the Chromebooks too, again we made a mistake buying them for our kids because they were cheaper, they don't run Windows which is what they use on the computers at school.

Oh wow that's a good deal.

I'm just nervous if anything went wrong as we can't fix anything ourselves.

My husband bought a new Dell laptop from eBay a couple of months ago and it came with a three year on-site Dell warranty. However, I understand your nervousness.

Buying locally may be your best option.