$600-$900 Laptop - Light Gaming

[theprodigalrebel]

It's a birthday present for my sister. She's always been the 'go to Best Buy and pick whatever has the nicest looking screen and is priced between $400 - $500' kind of laptop user. However, I do know she enjoys some casual games like The Sims 3 and might be interested in the new SimCity game.

I'm pretty up-to-speed on desktop GPUs but am totally clueless about notebook graphics, particularly with all the rebranded/confusing model numbers.

I have a few questions:
1) My sister isn't the kind of person to obsess over graphics fidelity or 'being able to max out the game'. However, I would like the GPU to have good driver support and not have games crash or have weird rendering bugs. Does this still mean ignore Intel integrated GPUs?
2) The laptop is going to be home 95% of the time. So it doesn't need to be compact/thin or have particularly great battery life - 14/15/17 inch screens are all welcome. But it would be nice to have decent picture quality (so she doesn't feel like her husband's Macbook Pro has her laptop thoroughly outclassed).
3) Touchscreen is not a priority.
4) Due to build quality issues with a past Acer laptop, that is one brand I would like to avoid since she kind of swore to never buy another laptop from them.

A quick look at Newegg got me this comparison (Sony VAIO S Series vs Lenovo Ideapad Y500). Both $900 - I filtered results for 1080p with Windows 8. The Sony lists an IPS LCD which sounds good - but it has Intel HD 4000. The Lenovo, OTOH, has GT650 SLI which I imagine should be enough to play casual games. Plus, I'm sure the bigger 5400rpm 1TB hard drive would be more attractive to her than the 7200rpm 500GB drive.

If anyone has any recommendations, that would be great. If you could link to a laptop from any US-site, you would be a bro.

 

[TheStu]

I have a few questions:
1) My sister isn't the kind of person to obsess over graphics fidelity or 'being able to max out the game'. However, I would like the GPU to have good driver support and not have games crash or have weird rendering bugs. Does this still mean ignore Intel integrated GPUs?

Not necessarily. The intel integrated GPUs are actually not terrible any more. Although not gaming powerhouses by any stretch of the imagination, they will get the job done and won't just go up in a puff of smoke. More than enough horsepower for truly casual gaming (facebook games, flash games, more simplistic stuff). I'm not recommending them in this instance, but you don't have to avoid them like the plague.

2) The laptop is going to be home 95% of the time. So it doesn't need to be compact/thin or have particularly great battery life - 14/15/17 inch screens are all welcome. But it would be nice to have decent picture quality (so she doesn't feel like her husband's Macbook Pro has her laptop thoroughly outclassed).

Regarding the size of the machine, what size does she have now? Maybe you should stick to around that size.

A quick look at Newegg got me this comparison (Sony VAIO S Series vs Lenovo Ideapad Y500). Both $900 - I filtered results for 1080p with Windows 8. The Sony lists an IPS LCD which sounds good - but it has Intel HD 4000. The Lenovo, OTOH, has GT650 SLI which I imagine should be enough to play casual games. Plus, I'm sure the bigger 5400rpm 1TB hard drive would be more attractive to her than the 7200rpm 500GB drive.

The IPS display on the Vaio will probably be quite nice, but if it is 1080p, that intel 4000 isn't going to be all that great for even lighter games like Sims/SimCity. The Y500 is kind of the performance/$ winner right now, and it is hard to beat in that regard. Plus for a gaming system it is thankfully not incredibly flashy. Best Buy sells them both I think, you could go in to see them in person, see how the screens look and all that.

 

[frozentundra123456]

It's a birthday present for my sister. She's always been the 'go to Best Buy and pick whatever has the nicest looking screen and is priced between $400 - $500' kind of laptop user. However, I do know she enjoys some casual games like The Sims 3 and might be interested in the new SimCity game.

I'm pretty up-to-speed on desktop GPUs but am totally clueless about notebook graphics, particularly with all the rebranded/confusing model numbers.

I have a few questions:
1) My sister isn't the kind of person to obsess over graphics fidelity or 'being able to max out the game'. However, I would like the GPU to have good driver support and not have games crash or have weird rendering bugs. Does this still mean ignore Intel integrated GPUs?
2) The laptop is going to be home 95% of the time. So it doesn't need to be compact/thin or have particularly great battery life - 14/15/17 inch screens are all welcome. But it would be nice to have decent picture quality (so she doesn't feel like her husband's Macbook Pro has her laptop thoroughly outclassed).
3) Touchscreen is not a priority.
4) Due to build quality issues with a past Acer laptop, that is one brand I would like to avoid since she kind of swore to never buy another laptop from them.

A quick look at Newegg got me this comparison (Sony VAIO S Series vs Lenovo Ideapad Y500). Both $900 - I filtered results for 1080p with Windows 8. The Sony lists an IPS LCD which sounds good - but it has Intel HD 4000. The Lenovo, OTOH, has GT650 SLI which I imagine should be enough to play casual games. Plus, I'm sure the bigger 5400rpm 1TB hard drive would be more attractive to her than the 7200rpm 500GB drive.

If anyone has any recommendations, that would be great. If you could link to a laptop from any US-site, you would be a bro.

I would not depend on HD 4000. An a10 has a bit stronger igp, but with a900.00 upper range, I would try for a get a gt650m or gt660m. An igp might handle Sims 3, but I am not so sure about sim city 5. The Lenovo with gt650 sli looks intriguing, but I think a single card is a safer bet. Sli can have driver issues, and I don't know how it would handle the heat.

 

[kbp]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834312438

 

[theprodigalrebel]

Thanks for your inputs guys. I am at work and I just wanted to acknowledge that I have read your recommendations. I will do a bit more research and try and see if I can find some recent benchmarks. It's just been a busy set of days, so I thought I should get some opinions from you guys.

TheStu - she has a 15-inch Inspiron currently. It appears to be falling apart and has been through some rough times from what I hear.

 

[Sleepingforest]

Maybe get another Dell Inspiron 15R from the Dell Outlet? Even though it's refurbished, Dell offers "like new" warranty by default, and you can find ones without cosmetic blemishes (they're graded). You can get one with a mobile i5 and 7750M graphics card (good enough for "medium" detail at least in most games) for around $850. It'll also be nice if she liked the layout of the old laptop to replace it with one very similar.