Laptop for Gaming and Game Development

[Aleemageddon]

Hey all,

 

I'm a Games Programming Student and I am needing to update my laptop, and I use it for light gaming when on the move, and a lot of programming. My budget would be around £1000 at a stretch and atm I have my eyes on the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-Inspiron-Gaming-Laptop-i5-7300HQ/dp/B01NAW8DX0/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1499774359&sr=1-2&keywords=dell%2Binspiron%2B15%2B7000&th=1) or quite possibly the HP Omen (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01N1UA5RC/ref=psdc_429886031_t3_B01NAW8DX0). Usually, I prefer to have a 1TB HDD and 12-16gb of RAM (does anyone know if the Omen is upgradable). However, I have a history of making very bad laptop decisions my last two laptops have been terrible so I was wondering if anyone who probably knows a lot more than me can see that I'm being an idiot had any better suggestions or know of any reliable laptops for less or are either of those a good choice?

 

Kind regard and thanks for any help in advance,

Aleem

[System Error Message]

dell inspiron is good value but dell's choices itself in design isnt great.

 

The most important question is what do you need from a laptop? Im doing game dev too but my needs are very different. I'd suggest sticking to the best CPU you can get with a mid GPU if you need to budget. 16GB of ram is a minimum though (buy the laptop with minimum ram then buy yourself ram seperately. Cruicial is one of the best cheapest ram you can buy yourself rather than selecting the config from dell).

 

If you can afford an SSD you should definitely go for one, it'd speed up launching your IDE and dev tools. Again buy it seperately from the laptop and if the laptop has m.2 you can have both hard drive and SSD for power saving and performance. Simply dont place any program/data you'd use on battery on the hard drive.

[Aleemageddon]

27 minutes ago, System Error Message said:

dell inspiron is good value but dell's choices itself in design isnt great.

 

The most important question is what do you need from a laptop? Im doing game dev too but my needs are very different. I'd suggest sticking to the best CPU you can get with a mid GPU if you need to budget. 16GB of ram is a minimum though (buy the laptop with minimum ram then buy yourself ram seperately. Cruicial is one of the best cheapest ram you can buy yourself rather than selecting the config from dell).

 

If you can afford an SSD you should definitely go for one, it'd speed up launching your IDE and dev tools. Again buy it seperately from the laptop and if the laptop has m.2 you can have both hard drive and SSD for power saving and performance. Simply dont place any program/data you'd use on battery on the hard drive.

Thank you very much, yeah I was planning on getting the minimum RAM but that one can only have a HDD or SSD and I can't afford a big enough M.2 drive and another version of Windows.

[System Error Message]

Just now, Aleemageddon said:

Thank you very much, yeah I was planning on getting the minimum RAM but that one can only have a HDD or SSD and I can't afford a big enough M.2 drive and another version of Windows.

you dont need to buy another copy of windows. your laptop should have the key/registration for it. Even my alienware has its licence for windows 10 inside if i need to reinstall windows. All you do is download the version of windows your laptop is registered with, install and activate using the licence info on the bottom/inside of your laptop

[System Error Message]

take a look at clevo laptops as well.