General purpose laptop advice?

fael097 · June 24, 2019

Hey, I'm looking for a general purpose laptop to buy. It doesn't need to be the fastest or anything, but it must be capable of running stuff. Let me elaborate

I work with 3d modeling/rendering and I already have a very capable desktop PC, which also can run games in 4k which I play occasionally, but it recently broke, and I'm relying on a surface go and my phone to do my daily activities. Obviously I can't do my work nor play games on them, so I want to buy a laptop so I won't have to interrupt my work when this kind of things happen. Really it doesn't need to be nearly as good as my PC, if I could just open some 3d models and play games at 1080p low/med settings, that would be awesome.

The thing is that I had a laptop and it also died a few months ago, that's some bad luck right there, but it was kinda sub par. It had an Nvidia 920m or something that wouldn't run any games or even be able to open 3d models without glitching.

So I don't know, maybe a gtx1050 would do the job? I wanted to spend as little as possible, except I wanted a good solid build. I've used these Acer laptops which have some kinda good specs except they are terribly made. The touch pad response is slow and weird, they are all plastic, the screen is terrible.

I've been searching for a while nowbut browsing for laptops is awful. Dell website is a mess, you can't really compare all they have and sort by price. MSI website is worse, their model numbers and naming is completely arbitrary, you don't know what to choose and if you just go for anything, sometimes they don't even have that in stock.

So that's why I need help, perhaps someone knows what's good out there? What do you suggest?

June 24, 2019

10 hours ago, fael097 said:

So I don't know, maybe a gtx1050 would do the job? I wanted to spend as little as possible, except I wanted a good solid build. I've used these Acer laptops which have some kinda good specs except they are terribly made. The touch pad response is slow and weird, they are all plastic, the screen is terrible.

With all these requirements you are quickly looking at a considerate price tag of 1000$ +. Unfortunately mid range windows laptops usually still have a rather crappy build quality and not a good screen.

So am I understanding you right that you just want the laptop as a backup in case the PC fails? Why not have a backup PC for that, still not really needed imo but cheapern than a laptop.

fael097 · June 24, 2019

Well i suppose it can have a plastic finish and a crappy screen, as long as it isn't the worst available.

And perhaps I oversimplified it's usage, it's not just in case my PC fails, It's for daily use as I want a portable but fully functional computer for a while now, it's convenient to use while on bed and taking with you as well. That's why it must be a laptop, but it will also serve as a backup in case shit happens

I saw this one from Dell https://www.newegg.com/p/1TS-000A-03NH3?Item=9SIADRF8BA1756

And it looks decent, about as expensive as I'd like to go, so I thought if there's a Dell laptop for this price, there must be something marginally better for a little cheaper from some other brand, but I just can't browse for laptops. I just checked Asus website now and it's the same as msi, no pricing, you must choose between their series that don't mean anything to me.

VEXICUS · June 25, 2019

7 hours ago, fael097 said:

Well i suppose it can have a plastic finish and a crappy screen, as long as it isn't the worst available.

And perhaps I oversimplified it's usage, it's not just in case my PC fails, It's for daily use as I want a portable but fully functional computer for a while now, it's convenient to use while on bed and taking with you as well. That's why it must be a laptop, but it will also serve as a backup in case shit happens

I saw this one from Dell https://www.newegg.com/p/1TS-000A-03NH3?Item=9SIADRF8BA1756

And it looks decent, about as expensive as I'd like to go, so I thought if there's a Dell laptop for this price, there must be something marginally better for a little cheaper from some other brand, but I just can't browse for laptops. I just checked Asus website now and it's the same as msi, no pricing, you must choose between their series that don't mean anything to me.

Acer Nitro 5 is a decent option. 8300H + 1050Ti for under $700. I have one of those. Its display is better than dells similar priced offerings.

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Nitro-AN515-Laptop-i5-8300H/dp/B07C715KNT