Re: Looking for a great Laptop

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@puzzlezaddict wrote:

@Poemetra  The Acer Predator is mostly a great laptop for what you want to do—its processor and graphics card are more than enough for Sims 4, even with all packs on ultra settings, and getting 16 GB RAM is great.  The one downside is that it doesn't have enough storage.  A 256 GB hard drive would be enough if you only wanted to play Sims 4, write, and browse the internet.  But it's not enough to also fit your video collection and/or other games.

The nice thing about Predators is that they have space for the user to add more storage; for example, this one has a second M.2 slot (for fast solid state drives) and an empty 2.5" drive bay (for a SATA SSD or a smaller mechanical drive).  So you could add whatever you wanted.   But of course that would drive up the final price you'd pay.

If you don't want to have to add a second hard drive, I can look for other options.  A couple of questions though:  Do you want a U.S. keyboard or a Japanese one?  A Japanese store might happen to sell a model with a U.S. keyboard, but a laptop shipped from the U.S. almost certainly will.  And what is the international shipping cost you're seeing on Amazon, or are you factoring that in separately from the sticker price of your computer?

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Thank you. I am looking for a U.S. keyboard. I have a lot of pictures and videos saved on my current laptop, so having enough space is a must for me. I am not sure if the price includes international shipping. I am factoring that in separately. I want to get an idea of the type I should get. I believe I can purchase that one here at my local electronics store, but I am not sure. However, the one I choose would have to have enough space.

@Poemetra  I'm sorry that I didn't respond earlier.  I found mentions of several computer stores in Japan, but I could barely navigate them even with google translate, and I certainly couldn't tell if the laptops had things like a U.S. keyboard.  I did find a few models worth considering on newegg's Japanese site, but again, I don't know about the shipping cost.  (I do know that the computers would have U.S. keyboards, having asked for an Italian buyer a couple of months ago.)

At any rate, I can show you the laptops I did find, and you can take a look to see if they're good options for you.  I did try to keep it close to the equivalent of $1200, including tax.

All three of these have the same Nvidia 1660 ti for a graphics card, which is a bit of overkill for Sims 4, but you said you might want to play other games.  The first one has the weakest processor, although it's still more than fine for TS4.  The second one has the strongest processor, while the third has last year's version.  The first two only have the same 256 GB SSD that the Predator has, so you'd still need to get a second drive.  (The third has a 512 GB SSD.)  These three also only have 8 GB RAM, so you'd probably want to upgrade that too, unless you never multitask.  If the Predator is competitively priced, from Amazon or a local store, it's a better option than these.

https://www.newegg.com/global/jp-en/p/N82E16834235244?Item=N82E16834235244

https://www.newegg.com/global/jp-en/black-msi-gl-series-gl73-9sd-409-gaming-entertainment/p/N82E16834155241?Item=N82E16834155241

https://www.newegg.com/global/jp-en/black-msi-gl-series-gl73-8sd-297-gaming-entertainment/p/N82E16834155231?Item=N82E16834155231

This one has a slightly better processor than the first option above, still not as strong as the other two, and the same 1660 ti.  It does have 16 GB RAM though, plus a combination of a 256 GB SSD and a 1 TB mechanical drive, which is more than enough space for almost anyone.

https://www.newegg.com/global/jp-en/gold-steel-asus-tuf-gaming-tuf505du-eb74-gaming-entertainment/p/N82E16834235196?Item=N82E16834235196

This one's a bit pricier, but it has a 256 GB SSD/1 TB HDD, plus the stronger processor and 16 GB RAM.  Its graphics card is not as strong as the others, but it should still run TS4 on ultra settings, including all packs now and in the future.

https://www.newegg.com/global/jp-en/p/N82E16834235011?Item=N82E16834235011

As for your current question, I would personally prefer a second solid state drive to a mechanical drive, but if the secondary drive is just for storage, an HDD would do just fine.  Here are some quality drives, which I'm sure you could find in any local store.  (I'm using the newegg site because it's easy to navigate; there's no difference in the drives themselves.)

https://www.newegg.com/blue-1tb-wd10spzx/p/N82E16822231550?Item=N82E16822231550

https://www.newegg.com/adata-ultimate-su750-512gb/p/N82E16820215132?Item=N82E16820215132

https://www.newegg.com/samsung-860-evo-series-500gb/p/N82E16820147674?Item=N82E16820147674

https://www.newegg.com/samsung-860-qvo-series-1tb/p/N82E16820147738?Item=N82E16820147738

Samsung is the gold standard, Adata is good and has excellent benchmarks, and WD is fine for mechanical drives.  If you're willing to shell out for a 1 TB SSD, a Samsung Qvo is cheaper than an Evo, and you wouldn't notice much difference unless you were doing something like downloading and then uninstalling a whole new game every other week.  The Qvo only comes in 1 TB and up though.

Finally, if you do want an HDD rather than an SSD, be sure to get a 2.5" version, not a 3.5".  Laptop drive bays are almost invariably 2.5", so the larger ones wouldn't fit.

@puzzlezaddictThank you for the information! I currently have 671 C hard drive on my computer with 8GB RAM. I think these would be good for me. Are there any cheaper options that would also be great? I don't want to pay a high price for a good laptop if I can get close to the same quality for a lower price. If not then I think these will be fine.  I also found this. What do you think?

@Poemetra  Leaving out a couple of options that I'm not seeing (and that you might not be able to find), here's a ranking of the graphics cards you might buy, all from Nvidia:

• 1050
• 1050 ti
• 1650
• 1060 3 GB
• 1060 6 GB
• 1660 ti

Since we don't know what Sims 4 will look like by the time it's out of development, it's impossible to say exactly what card you'd need to run the game with all packs on ultra settings.  But we can guess, and our best guess is that the 1060 3 GB is right on the border, maybe being just enough, or not quite.  The 6 GB version of a 1060 would certainly be sufficient.  Anything lower, and you would likely need to turn your graphics back down to high at some point in the future.  Even a 1050, no ti boost, will run the game on ultra now, but the expansion packs are getting somewhat more demanding, and the cumulative impact of all of them needs to be considered as well.

You also mentioned possibly wanting to play other demanding games.  Without knowing what those are, I can't tell you what hardware they'd need, but you could list them if you wanted, or else look up their specs yourself.

Again, I'm only looking at one site that I know ships to Japan, and has laptops with U.S. keyboards, and enough variety to be worth searching.  I can't tell you what else is out there without doing a lot more research, and even then the language barrier is likely going to be an issue.  What I can tell you is that on this one site, the cheapest among all the laptops with a 1650 or above is the first one I linked, with a decent processor and a 1660 ti.  I actually got the hard drive size wrong—I mixed it up with a different laptop that I didn't end up posting because I thought this one was better for a slightly lower price.  This is the first one again:

https://www.newegg.com/global/jp-en/p/N82E16834235244?Item=N82E16834235244

To get cheaper, you'd have to go all the way down to a 1050 ti.  It's still a good card, but not even in the same class as the 1660 ti.  This is not the very cheapest option, but it's the cheapest with a combination SSD and HDD.  If you had no SSD at all, Windows and many other processes would run much slower, and the option with a single small SSD is only nominally cheaper.

https://www.newegg.com/global/jp-en/obsidian-black-acer-aspire-7-a715-72g-72zr-gaming-entertainment/p/N82E16834316537?Item=N82E16834316537

However, it looks like Amazon will ship to Japan in at least some circumstances.  This Amazon help page says it would cost $5 plus $2 per pound, so maybe $17 for a 5.5 lb computer, although you should check on that.  (You can email Amazon directly if you want.)  It also doesn't include tax or customs fees.

This is the cheapest good computer ($800) on Amazon U.S. that has a 1060; it also has a combination 128 GB SSD/1 TB HDD and a good processor, although it's not as strong as the 8750H.

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Gaming-Laptop-G5587-5859BLK-PUS-Anti-Glare/dp/B07CD3MRZD

I couldn't find any laptop with a 1660 ti for cheaper than the Acer Predator you already saw, but this MSI, for the same price, has all the same hardware except for a 512 GB SSD:

https://www.amazon.com/MSI-GL63-9SDK-610-i7-9750H-GTX1660Ti/dp/B07QHF3PNH

By the way, last year's Acer Predator, with last year's processor (only slightly weaker than this year's) and a 1060 6 GB, is $1000:

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Predator-Overclockable-Aeroblade-PH315-51-78NP/dp/B07CTHLX8C

So I guess it really comes down to whether you're taking those other games into account, and how the overall prices look on your end.

I saw the link you found late, so I'll just add this at the end:  The graphics card in that one is a 1050, no ti boost, and is weaker than any of the ones I listed.  If any of these are within your budget, I think they'd be better options, although MSI is definitely a good brand for gaming laptops.

@puzzlezaddictThank you so much! I have narrowed it down to these two choices. Choice 1 and Choice 2. Which of these do you recommend? I want a laptop that will be fast and smooth for internet browsing, videos, pictures, gaming, and one that won't overheat on me. Both of these look good to me. The only difference in them is that the amazon one has less memory. Is that right? Let me know what you think and thank you so much for your help I really appreciate it.