@hannahnolloth What other games are you looking to play? £500 is plenty for a laptop for Sims 4 if you're comfortable with medium-high graphics settings, but other games might benefit significantly from an-entry level gaming laptop. Those start around £650, maybe less when on sale.
@puzzlezaddict Other games will include things like Dreamlight Valley and Palia, so probably nothing that requires too high a spec?
As I said happy to stretch budget if it’s worth it, I’ve been looking at the 4 below -
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/3268753
But equally if it’s not worth spending up to £850 just to play (mainly) Sims 4, I’d love to hear some cheaper options that are suitable!
thanks for your time!!
@hannahnolloth While Dreamlight Valley is easy to run on even a lower-end machine, Palia is not. In fact, according to the publisher's website, the requirements for ultra settings are about what you'd see in a £1,500 gaming desktop. The minimum requirement for the graphics card, at least on this site, is an Nvidia GTX 960, and older and very much outdated GPU, but it's still twice as fast as the fastest graphics options you'd find for under £500. The recommended graphics card is a GTX 1060, which is about as fast as a 3050 mobile.
If you don't mind very low graphics settings and perhaps some performance issues, I could certainly find you a sub-£500 laptop that would run Sims 4 fine and probably run Palia without crashing too much. Steam's minimum requirement for the game is a GTX 660, significantly slower and on par with the best integrated graphics available for around £500. So I would guess you could play, but the experience might not be great. Whether it's worth the extra money to upgrade is entirely your call.
Of the four laptops you've linked, the last one, the Acer from Currys, is the best in theory, but the HP models are fine too, and a better value. The HP from Currys is a bit better than the one from Argos because it's a bit newer and its RAM runs faster, but there wouldn't be any noticeable difference between the two in Sims 4. These models have a screen with good colors but that's somewhat dim, fine in darker rooms but not ideal under bright lights; the Acer's screen is a bit brighter and has the same color quality. The Acer from Argos is not as good as the other Acer—at the moment, it's better to get an AMD processor if you can, as they run cooler and use less battery—and more expensive, so cross that off the list.
Having said that, none of these is the best option at its price point. If you're willing to pay £800 though, this is better than any of the ones you found:
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/3414882?clickPR=plp:15:44
It has the same specs as the better of the two Acers except that its graphics card is one tier higher. However, it does have a dimmer screen, with the same peak brightness as the HP models.
If you're willing to go up to £850, this one is an upgrade even over the one above: its graphics card is the newer and significantly faster version of the one in the Asus, and it has a brighter screen:
To be clear, Sims 4 wouldn't benefit from the extra power, but Palia would. It's just a question of when the extra cost is no longer worth the upgrade to you.
If you'd rather not spend so much money, this Acer has an upgraded graphics card (same tier, newer and significantly faster generation) than the HPs and is otherwise equivalent. Its RTX 4050 is a bit below the RTX 3060 but is still much faster than the 3050.
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/3365113?clickPR=plp:9:44
It does only have 8 GB RAM, but you could get another 8 GB for around £20 and install it yourself with a screwdriver and some patience. RAM is the easiest upgrade to install, and most gaming laptops make the process very simple. It's of course more convenient to have the full 16 GB pre-installed, but that raises the price, and at that point you could upgrade to an RTX 3060 along with doubling the memory.
If you have more questions, please feel free to ask.
@puzzlezaddict thank you so much for your response, that's so helpful!
I had no idea that Palia needed such high spec, but as I'm getting a laptop primarily for Sims 4 I really don't mind about that, as I can play Palia on my Switch, so it's not worth the upgrade for me.
I will check out the laptops you recommended, out of all options which do you think is the best budget option, primarily for Sims 4? As that's really all I want it for, I would rather keep the price as low as I can.
@hannahnolloth I think the best budget gaming laptop, at least of the ones available from Currys or Argos, is the Acer with the RTX 4050. If you don't need a gaming laptop at all and don't mind playing Sims 4 on medium-high graphics settings, you could go for this £500 model instead:
https://www.currys.co.uk/products/acer-swift-3-14-laptop-amd-ryzen-5-512-gb-ssd-silver-10254285.html
There are cheaper options with the same processor and graphics chip, but only 8 GB RAM, if you feel up to installing more yourself. (Let me know, and I'll list some.) However, with only integrated graphics, 8 GB is workable but not ideal. The iGPU borrows from main memory to do its processing, meaning that 8 GB installed might only be 6.5 GB available once the graphics chip has started rendering the game.
Since your budget can accommodate it, I would highly recommend either buying a system with 16 GB already installed or getting a cheaper 8 GB system and upgrading it.
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