Buying A Laptop

JackTC

I'm looking for a laptop which is i5 . The only game I play is football manager which needs the following specs,

Football Manager 2019 PC system requirements
-OS: Windows 7 (SP1), 8/8.1, 10 (1803/April 2018 Update) – 64-bit or 32-bit
-Processor: Intel Pentium 4, Intel Core or AMD Athlon – 2.2 GHz +
-Memory: 2GB RAM
-Graphics: Intel GMA X4500, Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT or AMD/ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 – 256MB VRAM
-DirectX: Version 9.0c
-Storage: 7GB available space

I'm a student so my budget is limited, looking for between €400 - €600

K.O.Kiki

Football Manager is pretty easy to run so don't worry about spec in that regards.

New:
Anything with a 1920x1080 screen & Intel i5 / Ryzen 5
e.g.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DPC4SKV?creative=22110&creativeASIN=B07DPC4SKV&linkCode=df0&tag=geizhals07-21
https://www.dell.com/en-ie/shop/laptops/inspiron-15-5000/spd/inspiron-15-5570-laptop/cn57057

Used:
Most any ThinkPad with an i7 (read the Buyer's Guide)
https://www.adverts.ie/for-sale/q_thinkpad+i7/price_0-600/

JackTC

Thanks, that one from Amazon looks good.

Only thing is it's 2 GHz speed where football manager needs 2.2GHz. Is this a big deal?

jebidiah

JackTC wrote: »

Thanks, that one from Amazon looks good.

Only thing is it's 2 GHz speed where football manager needs 2.2GHz. Is this a big deal?

That's just base. It will boost higher when needed

K.O.Kiki

JackTC wrote: »

Thanks, that one from Amazon looks good.

Only thing is it's 2 GHz speed where football manager needs 2.2GHz. Is this a big deal?

As above, don't worry about the CPU speed.

Only issue I can see with any new laptop at this price is that they'll only have a mechanical HDD and they can be painfully slow for daily use because of that.

So I'd rather buy a good used machine with an SSD tbh
(e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T430-Certified-Refurbished/dp/B01C6WNEL6/ref=sr_1_5?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1545412219&sr=1-5&keywords=ssd+laptop or the machines on Adverts)

JackTC

OK so this is the one I'm looking at.This will definitely run Football Manager 2019 smoothly ?

HP Notebook - 15-da0038na 15.6 Inch
Intel Core i5 8250U processor.
Quad core processor.
1.6GHz processor speed.
8GB RAM DDR4.
1TB HDD storage.
Intel HD Graphics 620 graphics card.
Shared graphics card.

K.O.Kiki

It should, i5-8250U boosts to 3.4GHz

Again just be aware that it has no SSD.

JackTC

I see what you mean, this one looks good but it says "integrated graphics". Would this do?

HP 250 G6 Core i5-7200U 8GB 256GB 15.6 Inch Windows 10 Laptop

Key Specification
Screen size 15.6in
Processor manufacturer Intel
Processor Model Intel Core i5
Processor Number 7200u
RAM Memory 8GB
Storage 256GB
Screen Resolution 1920 x 1080
Operating System Windows 10
Optical Drive No optical drive
Touchscreen Non Touch
Warranty 1 year warranty
Display and Keyboard
Screen size 15.6in
Screen Resolution 1920 x 1080
Touchscreen Non Touch
Convertible Device
Back lit keyboard
Physical
Colour Black
Processor
Processor Model Intel Core i5
Processor Number 7200u
Clock Speed 2.5GHz
Turbo Speed 3.1GHz
Number of Cores 2
HyperThreading Support
Memory RAM
Capacity 8GB
Form factor SO-DIMM
Total Slots 2
Free Slots 1
Storage
SSD Capacity 256GB
Optical Drive No optical drive
Graphics
Graphic Type Integrated
Graphics Manufacturer Intel

TerrorFirmer

That's way slower CPU wise.

I would take the i5-8250U + HDD over the i5-7200U + SSD.

Something like this has both and within your budget.

JackTC

In what way does the ITB HDD make it slow? Besides browsing the web, watching Netflix and playing FM, I don't really do much else.

TerrorFirmer

Windows boots up and runs way faster with an SSD and progammes load twice as fast too. Hard to go back when you're used to an SSD though obviously it's entirely fine without, just not as fast.

JackTC

I decided to go with this one

HP 250 G6 Core i5-7200U 8GB 256GB SSD 15.6 Inch Windows 10 Laptop

I'll probably have to turn down the graphics on the game but otherwise i think it will do me just fine. For €500 I'm quite happy.

Thanks for the help folks!

JackTC

sugarman wrote: »

Why bother asking for advice then go completely against it?

That processor is a generation older and its dual core vs the 8th gen quad core i5 / Ryzen 5 suggestions made.

Its integrated graphics are also poorer.

I mean it'll still run the game fine, but theres far better bang for buck that'd give you much better performance overall.

How did I go against their advice?

-One person suggested an i5 or Ryzen 5 , so I bought an i5
-Another person suggested SSD over HDD, so I went with SSD
-I was told at the start of the thread it was an easy game to run, so I didn't pay much attention to graphics or other specs

I searched many websites and this was the best I could find within my budget that satisfied the criteria listed by the users above.

OldMrBrennan83

I'd be happy with the one he's got. Booting Windows at all on a HDD machine is horrible once you've tried an SSD.

OldMrBrennan83

sugarman wrote: »

The one TerrorFirmer linked has an SSD on top of 8250U.

Never seen that initially. Links are hard to see when they're edited that way.

I'm only after buying near identical to that myself (ThinkPad E580).

JackTC

sugarman wrote: »

The one TerrorFirmer linked has an SSD on top of 8250U.

**** I missed the link,I scrolled through the posts too fast. That one looks better.

The other one is on it's way from Laptops Direct now so there's nothing I can do.

Skerries

I've just had to buy a new laptop from PCSpecialst as I broke my screen somehow the other night when I came in from the pub :eek:
I had been considering doing it anyway as my current one is 5 years old and the power connector was flaky anyway

So I went with an 8th gen Intel, 16Gb Ram, 256gb M.2 drive and there is room for a standard SATA drive so I will swap in one from the old laptop and I removed windows to save money so it came out to €650 delivered with a slightly better warranty