To think I can get a decent gaming laptop for DD's Christmas present for under £800?

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Sorry, I know there is a gaming board but I know there is more traffic on here.

All DD really wants for Christmas is a gaming laptop, she is massively into Roblox and The Sims 4 and she really wants to be able to play 'proper' PC games via Steam too. Her poor old second-hand ex-business laptop really isn't up to scratch graphics-wise (or anything-else-wise, really). It'll run Roblox at the lowest resolution and it just about copes with The Sims. It can't do anything that requires a graphics card.

We need to do this on as small a budget as possible, but I'm also aware that getting the absolute cheapest machine may come back to bite us when it's obsolete and will no longer run newer games a year from now.

Any gaming experts out there? What do we need in terms of RAM (16GB?) and particular in terms of graphics? Any recommendations for particular machines/sellers?

Wanting laptop rather than desktop as, although she'll dock it with an external screen and keyboard etc at home, she'll want to sometimes take it to her grandparents' house or a friend's house.

All advice gratefully received; I would normally get on a mad research mission myself but I'm not very well and swamped with other life admin to do at the moment as DD is having an awful time trying to settle into high school and you wouldn't believe how much work that creates in terms of emailing, meetings and form-filling. (Plus of course the impact on all of our stress levels and mental health, especially DD - which is why we want to try and give her a really good Christmas present that will also help her keep in touch with her handful of friends via gaming, given she's not really seeing them at school.)

I would seriously think/discuss with her how often 'sometimes' is/how important taking it to grandparents/friends is because you will get a lot better performance-wise for your money with a desktop than a laptop - desktops have massive advantages in terms of cooling that allow for higher performance and the bigger form factor means parts are generally cheaper so you can go a lot better in terms of graphics cards etc and with a desktop she can upgrade individual parts if in a few years she wants a better graphics card or something whereas laptops are at best difficult and at worst imossible to work on.

It might be worth finding out a couple of games she's interested and checking out the recommendations on www.systemrequirementslab.com

I agree complete with @nosyupnorth.

My DS has a gaming PC which was about £750 - he has since swapped out the graphics card for a new fancy one. His mate has a similar spec laptop which cost over £2k.

Agree - if you want gaming then a desktop is the way to go especially if you want to spend under £1000.

Could she take the old laptop when she wants to move it around? Or a tablet?

That said, neither Roblox or Sims 4 are graphics intensive games. She would definitely benefit from a dedicated graphics card, rather than integrated graphics, but it doesn't need to be the latest and greatest.

Have a look at the steamdeck it’s handheld and can be hooked up to a monitor etc aswell. I have just bought my son one for Xmas at the advice of my partners gamer friends, I went for the one with the highest memory. There is a steamdeck Facebook page where you will be able to pick peoples brains with any questions you have ( they will probably know more than me lol) x

Do you really really need it to be a laptop?

You can get a decent gaming pc for 800, laptop will be a trade off.

If you are dead set on laptop, then you are probably looking at an i5 or amd equivalent, 8gb ram and an nvidia 3060 graphics card - but it will suffer with battery life, might not have a great screen, the chassis might be a bit plasticky and cheap

16gb is nice - and achievable in a desktop - it if you go for a 16gb laptop you will be trading down on another component

Like others have said, good quality gaming laptop will cost a good couple of thousand, whereas you can get gaming PC's for less than half that.

I really really wouldn't recommend a laptop. I know she wants something portable but they're expensive and are prone to overheating if not used properly. You also don't want her taking it somewhere, dropping it and smashing it.

Our local independent computer shop will build computers to suit your budget and requirements - if you have one local to you I would highly recommend asking them.

Yes - independent computer shop is a great idea. Maybe tell them your budget is 700 and what games she wants to play - see what they come up with and if they say "You can upgrade the ram to X for an extra £50" or whatever, then you have wiggle room.

I'm sure my kids played roblox on ipad before they got bored of it, is it really worth spending that amount if money before they out grow it

PCs use 5x more electricity than laptops.

Another vote for a pc - you can set it up for under your budget but upgrade elements over time. The old laptop is fine for travel

Keep eye on ASUS TUF/ROG laptops, great gaming laptops I am sure have seen some for 800ish. My husband bought one last month from Mesh computer for 750- 16GB,1TB, 3060 graphics card, ASUS TUF with lit keyboard. Funnily enough that deal got taken down before Black Friday.

My DD, 25 has just replaced her last gaming laptop with this
www.argos.co.uk/product/2002484

She is into the Sims and steam. Previously she had a £2k laptop but didn't really need it. She can play everything she wants on this.

Just to add, she did a lot of research before she bought it. The ability to buy accidental damage etc cover swayed her from a similar one in curries to this.

The electricity used by a desktop will depend on the power supply (PSU) and CPU - some of the modern ones are really energy efficient and only draw higher power when needed.

A lower energy use is worth factoring in but depending on the actual price difference.

I am going to go against the grain here and say a laptop. We have a gaming pc, both my boys will only game on their MacBooks in their rooms. Even if they come downstairs,they will bring their MacBooks and visiting friends will use the gaming pc 🙄

That said, they mainly play Roblox and Minecraft, and old Nintendo games they manage to download off the internet. The older one also does video editing and programming so he has a MacBook Pro while the younger one has a MacBook air.

I find laptops are just more versatile and used more, for homework, for online classes during COVID, for travel, etc.

I don't think you will find anything marketed as a 'gaming laptop' for that price but does it need to be? As long as it can handle the games, that is all you need.

www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/asus-tuf-intel-core-i5-11400h-16gb-512gb-ssd-geforce-rtx-3060-17.3-inch-win-fx706hm-hx031w/version.asp?wgu=272145_116019_1669538843738_105017b121&wgexpiry=1701074843&utm_source=digidip%20GmbH&utm_medium=webgains&refsource=webgains

Is about the best I can find.

But, agree with the others above, we got a laptop for my son two years ago, and he'd stopped using it as it was too slow a year later... Ended up getting a proper PC last Christmas, and this year, upgrades are on the wish list (more hdd, better mouse)

That's not completely true - but you are right it could be closer to 2x. Gaming laptops often have a 180w power supply - with a pc having something around 500w.

However - it is only drawing the electricity it is using and it is directly proportional to how hard it is working. So when gaming is likely to be much higher as the biggest power draw nowadays is the graphics processor.

Laptops do use more energy efficient components but the trade off is performance - which as this purchase is about gaming, is an important consideration. A 500w pc going full whack rendering 3d scenes might cost you 15p/hr - though in real life including Web browsing etc it will be less than this

Asus website gaming laptops energu usage 180W-ish , Dell Alienware gaming PCs 850W. massive difference in energy use with current prices,especially with gaming when you run the thing for hours.

Gaming PCs are not always cheaper either, spent more last year on a gaming PC than I did this year on a gaming laptop with slightly better specs. We are moving away from desktop PCs to laptops, easy to move around the house, can take along on holiday etc.

You get a lot of laptop for your money with this one www.lenovo.com/gb/en/p/laptops/legion-laptops/legion-5-series/legion-5i-gen-7-(15-inch-intel)/82rb0010uk. You can also register for an additional 10% off, it just over your budget, but it’s got an i5 processor, 16GB Ram and a great display. Good luck with your hunt!

Go for a steam deck. It's honestly more powerful than a lot of laptops. Can be docked and easy to move about DH just got one as an early Christmas present and is very impressed with it.

This is good to know my son has one for his Christmas, he’s only 6 but a major gamer, I thought it would be good to start off with this

Not quite 5x, more like 2x. But the trade off is that the PC is faster, more powerful and less likely to overheat.

In my experience, laptops slow down considerably after 6-12 months as well.

Thanks so much everyone, I think we're leaning towards a tower then rather than a laptop... please link me to any brilliant bargains you've seen online! I will also speak to our local computer shop.

I bought my DS an brilliant gaming HP laptop for just under that from JL a couple of years ago. It has a gaming chip and graphics chip in it.

He uses it daily and it's still going strong.

Not sure if it was advertised as a specific gaming laptop but still had the graphics card and chips you need for gaming

Anyway it's brilliant

It has a Ryzen processor for gaming