Laptop recommendation

Cheetah Designs · 2 May 2017 at 08:37

I have a budget of around £600.

Here is what I would like:

- Silent - no fans or mechanical HDD
- Minimum Full HD screen (don't care if its better)
- <= 1.4kg
- <= 13.3" screen
- > 8 hour battery life when browsing
- Not actually too fussed by OS.

Nice to have:

- Ability to play Rome Total War + Age of Empires 2. Not really that worried about graphics, just needs to be "playable" at 720p or something like that.

Any recommendations?

MiSJAH · 2 May 2017 at 08:48

GRADE A - ASUS Zenbook UX303UA-R4129E
Intel Core i5-6200U Dual Core Processor
13.3" Full HD Screen
Windows 7 Professional Edition 64-bit
8GB DDR3 RAM
256GB SSD
Integrated Graphics
USB3 | HDMI | Bluetooth
3 Year ASUS Onsite Warranty
UX303UA-R4129E-OSS

£599

Ticks all the box, yet grade A?

Cheetah Designs · 15 May 2017 at 22:32

I haven't bought anything yet...I'm incredibly tempted by the MS Surface Laptop....If I was to raise my budget, what should I get?

MiSJAH · 16 May 2017 at 06:10

Microsoft Surface Book

Cheetah Designs · 16 May 2017 at 09:19

Any particular reason? I'm currently looking very seriously at the Asus UX330UA-FB100T...looks very similar in specs to the Surface Laptop

Peter450 · 16 May 2017 at 15:21

If you want to do any kind of gaming a dedicated card is important. Intergrated graphics just does not cut it on games even on the most basic settings. You should be able to get a slimline machine with a 960 which will be a vast improvement over intergrated. That machine looks ok if you don't want to game, if you do want to game I'd be on the lookout for a good deal on the zenbook pro with a 960 GT's. Otherwise just get a cheaper zenbook like the one suggested above with a dual core CPU and intergrated graphics for a lot cheaper.

Cheetah Designs · 16 May 2017 at 16:51

Interesting, I would have thought integrated graphics would be enough for the old games I'm looking to play...

Peter450 · 17 May 2017 at 00:00

It all comes from the fact that a card like the gtx940 is so much slower than say a 970gtx that even when the new gen version comes out the improvement is from such a low base that it takes years and I mean years and years before it catches up with the old 970

Intergrated graphics are like half the performance of a 940 or maybe less, so even very old games designed to work on the ancient 3D accelerators of the day might still run pretty poorly

Best bet is to have a Google to see others experiences of runing it on laptops with intergrated graphics, but something like a 960 under the hood will give you a lot more options of games to play including newer versions of the games you like. The older versions sometimes require a lot of effort to even get working on new hardware/Windows versions

It really comes down to how much you want to game on it, it's probably not worth the extra cost over a non game friendly model if you are hardly ever going to play on it

MiSJAH · 17 May 2017 at 09:11

Cheetah Designs said:
Any particular reason? I'm currently looking very seriously at the Asus UX330UA-FB100T...looks very similar in specs to the Surface Laptop

The Surface Book lastest version come with a GTX965M built into the keyboard. Plenty of power for your games.

Cheetah Designs · 17 May 2017 at 10:16

I had a surface pro (I think v3) at one point and I seem to recall I was able to play the games ok...the system requirements are pretty low: http://store.steampowered.com/app/4760/Rome_Total_War__Collection/ (scroll to bottom)

...I'm just trying to work out whether I am being silly/misremembering, or you guys need to play your games at high graphics settings (something that I don't care about as the occasional game player)