Good gaming/school laptop for <$1000

My niece asked for help in getting a gaming (normal teenage boy games FPS, and some RPGs) laptop that would also work for school projects for a bright 14 year-old. They are on tight budget, so $800 but rich uncle may help out a bit so call it $1000.

It looks like the last time this question was asked was in 2013. So I’m pretty sure the universe has changed.

Edit Actually, the top budget is $800 even after Uncle throws in $300.

I don’t have any specific models to point you to but I have had really good luck buying from the Dell official outlet online store. Gotten some good laptops for cheap

There are lots of gaming laptops that are pretty good now around $800. So many it’s kind of pointless to list them all, and i haven’t tried to look (since i’m not in the market).

The main thing is to get either a 1050 or 1050ti level graphics card, from whatever vendor you prefer. ti of course is better. If you can find a refurb 1060 for around $800 the more the merrier.

Cool I’ll start looking for that. I was trying to convince myself that Intel HD or UHD was sufficient but past experiences is that Intel integrated graphics just doesn’t cut it for games.

You’ve gotten some good advice. And yeah, while integrated have improved, they haven’t improved as much as needed for someone who’s interested in that level of gaming. I’ll also throw a random thought out there; finding one with a Thunderbolt 3 port could help to future-proof a little bit. This is a list from April, but it may give some ideas (especially if you can find one of the better refurbished models):

edit - as an aside, the variance in cost in laptops is insane

I can’t recommend dell’s 7577 or new G5/G7 laptops enough. $900 for a 1060 with a 15 inch laptop , 8 GB RAM, and a new i5. If you get a 7577 instead of the new intel’s in the g5, you can get it to $800.

I’d look at the Acer Nitro 5 Spin. It’ll give you gaming performance (Core i5-8250U, 8GB RAM, 256 HDD + 1TB SSD, GTX 1050), in a manageable slim/light chassis. Most gaming laptops will prove to be too heavy to carry around for a whole school day.

I’ve been really happy with my Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (7577) with a 1060 - picked it up at Costco for about $800 and it has been a pretty nice little machine. It has held up well and it fast enough and comfortable enough that it has become my go to machine.

Mostly I bought it for travel since my Alienware 17” (which I love) is a beast and nearly impossible to use on airplane seats. Value vs the $2.5k I spent on my Alienware 17 with Nvidia 1080 is substantial.

You just want any decent laptop with a 1050 or better. Dell are fine, I’ve also seen Lenovo Yogas with 1050s or better for less than 900 on a discount.

Here’s a current deal that looks good, although I think I’d prefer it without the 4k screen to be honest:

If you cut everything else down a 1050 can be had for $650 right now:

I’d splurge for a little better screen or an SSD at least though. It’s a dim TN display. Fine if you’re hooking it up to an external monitor though.

The 4K screen on these dells is legendary. Why would you want it without that? (Unless trying to save money, obviously)

Overkill at 15 inches, and on Windows many apps still don’t properly scale with DPI, especially when you have to really turn it up like you do on a 15 inch 4k. Games can’t run at 4k on a 1050 etc so for gaming it’s not great.

My preference is for 1440p on laptops.

If it were literally the same cost with no other downsides I’d take a 4k probably anyway, but it’s the last thing I would upgrade.

1440p is probably a bit better, but the Dell 4K’s have incredible color accuracy, and text/websites are much easier to read for me. Hard to go back to the 1080ps for sure.

Their 4k screens eat more battery, IIRC.

Definitely does, but a 7577 with a 1060 is going to have about the same battery life as a 1050 with a 4K display (3-4 hours)

How do you figure? When not actively gaming the 1060 vs 1050 power consumption should be irrelevant, and thus the screen power consumption matters much more. While gaming you’ll have terrible battery life regardless of 4k vs 1440p.

It’s a couple factors – the battery size on the 7577 is a 56W battery (down from the 2016 model); many of the the 4K panel’s ship with a 97W battery. Also, that 1060 will be used even when not gaming, which draws a decent amount of power. I own both a 7577 and a slim XPS with a 4K panel/1050, and they each last about 4 hours (I’d say the 7577 is about 4:30 and the XPS is about 4).

If you’re not averse to financing, you can use a Dell Preferred Account to get one year no interest for paying it off. I do that with every PC purchase I make anymore.

Many thanks for the good concrete suggestions. I pointed my niece to refurbished 7000, with a 1060, 15" screen (not 4K) and a 128G SSD and 1 terra hard drive for $850. I hope she gets it.

20% ebay coupon today, this is a great deal for a 1050Ti laptop, IPS screen:

While I know this won’t help the OP because of the reduced price range, I just wanted to let people know about a good deal on a new model:

HP Omen
15.6" IPS
i7-8750
1060 w/6GB VRAM
16 GB RAM
256 GB SSD, 1 TB HDD (showing as a 7200 RPM at least in reviews)
Thunderbolt 3 (not in the description below, but confirmed on HP’s website and in reviews)

Currently $999 at Microcenter

Video review
^not me^