Laptop Recommendations
Hi all,
I'm currently a university student and I'm looking at getting a new laptop, and I'd like to also be able to play the Sims 4 at relatively high settings.
I'm not interested in a traditional gaming laptop, as these are usually heavy and impractical for students, and I just don't love the look of them.
I'm currently looking at HP Pavillion laptops, with 512GB SSD storage, 16GB RAM, dedicated graphics (granted, only MX130 and MX250) and I'm willing to spend about $1200 Australian Dollars. I know a lot of places do great student discounts here, and I think roughly for HP I'd be looking at a 30% discount on most products.
Any advice on any other laptops would be amazing!
Thanks so much in advance!
@vicki_meowxx Given your price and preference for a lightweight laptop, an MX250 is the best choice for a graphics card, and therefore the best choice overall for playing Sims. It's significantly faster than an MX130, maybe 50% in gaming, although that depends in large part on the game. An MX150 would also be fine: it's only slightly slower (a couple percentage points) than an MX250, and you might find one for somewhat cheaper. Either one should run Sims 4, all packs included, on high graphics settings, or high with one or two settings turned down to medium.
If you could find a laptop with an MX350, that would be much better though—it's around 20% faster than the MX150 and 250. But it's a very new card and difficult to find even in the U.S. right now. If you want to keep an eye out for it, here's a list of models that have one or can, depending on the configuration:
https://www.ultrabookreview.com/38111-nvidia-mx350-mx330-laptops/
Barring that, the older MX cards would be fine. I didn't want to try to figure out the student discount situation, so I just looked for options up to $1,700, or $1,190 after a 30% student discount. (That's an impressive discount if you can get it, by the way.) This isn't an exclusive list, and you might find better, but at least these will show you what models to keep in mind. They're all in the same performance category as the HP Pavilions with MX cards, so this comes down to the other features and your personal preference.
https://www.computeralliance.com.au/asus-ux333fn-a3215r-13.3-core-i5-notebook-win-10-pro
https://www.centrecom.com.au/acer-swift-3-14-fhd-ips-core-i7-1065g7-laptop
Laptop memory can be upgraded, unlike the other components, so depending on prices, it might be cheaper for you to get a laptop with 8 GB RAM and add anoter 8 GB yourself.
If you have more questions, please feel free to ask.
