PC Sherdog Gaming Laptop & Review Thread (OP Updated Apr-2019)

[Slobodan]

Heavy gaming laptops run out of power fast right ?
Do you guys know the value of a laptop battery (Milliampere ?)
and what is a good number ?

I guess it will depend on the component (4050 vs 4060 vs 4070 etc and which configuration they come in 100w vs 150w etc) but the higher the better. The max for carrying on a plane is 99Whr

 

[Madmick]

Heavy gaming laptops run out of power fast right ?
Do you guys know the value of a laptop battery (Milliampere ?)
and what is a good number ?

If you dig with a laptop's precise model number you can usually find its battery capacity expressed as Watt-Hours, or Wh.

 

[Andy Capp]

Hey, beggin your pardon folks for beggin for info. The missus is shopping for a new laptop for work. She thinks this one may be kind of keen,
Edit: sherdog's redesign says fuck you if you want to post a link.

So, instead any recommendations for a person up here in Canuckistan?

 

[KaNesDeath]

So, instead any recommendations for a person up here in Canuckistan?

Type of work she does is needed information.

 

[Slobodan]

Hey, beggin your pardon folks for beggin for info. The missus is shopping for a new laptop for work. She thinks this one may be kind of keen,
Edit: sherdog's redesign says fuck you if you want to post a link.

So, instead any recommendations for a person up here in Canuckistan?

Did you try to just paste that Amazon link as a URL or did you try to embed it as a media link? Because your original post shows it as a media link so I don't know if it automatically did that or not

I know we had some issues with Amazon links in the past.

EDIT: ok nevermind, I tried that link and the same thing happened to me, it automatically embedded as a media link.

 

[Slobodan]

Amazon.ca

Okay I found a workaround , you have to press that share button right on top of the image and copy the link that way. It's not perfect but at least the link will show.

@Andy Capp

 

[Andy Capp]

Type of work she does is needed information.

She manages a tour company, so general office stuff plus accounting and the like. Needs to be portable hence the preference for a laptop over a desktop. It's hard to say now if the performance issues she had with the laptop she has now were due to not being up to the task or due to the HDD gradually failing but she feels like she's due for an upgrade anyway.

This is the description of the one she's looking at on Amazon at a price of $849 CAD,

"HP 15.6" FHD Laptop, 11th Gen Intel Core i3-1215U, 32GB DDR4 RAM, 2TB SSD, Intel UHD Graphics, Numeric Keypad, HD Camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, Windows 11, Silver, 32GB Hotface USD Card"

If anyone wants to tell me wtf a hotface USD card is that would be peachy too.

 

[Madmick]

She manages a tour company, so general office stuff plus accounting and the like. Needs to be portable hence the preference for a laptop over a desktop. It's hard to say now if the performance issues she had with the laptop she has now were due to not being up to the task or due to the HDD gradually failing but she feels like she's due for an upgrade anyway.

This is the description of the one she's looking at on Amazon at a price of $849 CAD,

"HP 15.6" FHD Laptop, 11th Gen Intel Core i3-1215U, 32GB DDR4 RAM, 2TB SSD, Intel UHD Graphics, Numeric Keypad, HD Camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, Windows 11, Silver, 32GB Hotface USD Card"

If anyone wants to tell me wtf a hotface USD card is that would be peachy too.

I don't know why the Amazon media tool isn't embedding properly, my preview is showing nothing, too, but you can use the old trick of only copying the address without the http:// code included. Like so:
www.amazon.ca/dp/B07Y2WY3XP
Or copy some text to be the title, and then hyperlink it with the address. Like so:

HP 15.6" FHD Laptop, 11th Gen Intel Core i3-1215U, 32GB DDR4 RAM, 2TB SSD, Intel UHD Graphics, Numeric Keypad, HD Camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, Windows 11, Silver, 32GB Hotface USD Card​

In my experience in the past helping Canadian Sherdoggers, the best laptop prices (and generally the best computer prices) aren't on Amazon Canada. The winner tends to be Memory Express. Canada Computers also usually has strong pricing, and Best Buy Canada infrequently carries strong sales. But just eyeballing what I'm seeing right now the Amazon offerings appear to be more competitive than what I've seen in the past. It looks like you're particularly after more memory and storage. Nothing's jumping out at me skimming the other vendors or sales on Amazon.ca as a better deal.

 

[Andy Capp]

I don't know why the Amazon media tool isn't embedding properly, my preview is showing nothing, too, but you can use the old trick of only copying the address without the http:// code included. Like so:
www.amazon.ca/dp/B07Y2WY3XP
Or copy some text to be the title, and then hyperlink it with the address. Like so:

HP 15.6" FHD Laptop, 11th Gen Intel Core i3-1215U, 32GB DDR4 RAM, 2TB SSD, Intel UHD Graphics, Numeric Keypad, HD Camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, Windows 11, Silver, 32GB Hotface USD Card​

In my experience in the past helping Canadian Sherdoggers, the best laptop prices (and generally the best computer prices) aren't on Amazon Canada. The winner tends to be Memory Express. Canada Computers also usually has strong pricing, and Best Buy Canada infrequently carries strong sales. But just eyeballing what I'm seeing right now the Amazon offerings appear to be more competitive than what I've seen in the past. It looks like you're particularly after more memory and storage. Nothing's jumping out at me skimming the other vendors or sales on Amazon.ca as a better deal.

Thanks, but unfortunately, while prices on that site seem lower, I have insufficient knowledge of current hardware to evaluate relative performance. To put that another way, I don't know enough to know if a system on that site is cheaper because it's a better bargain or if it's because it has lesser components. So, in a nutshell, of the top of your head, anything stand out to you to indicate that machine may be overpriced or any concerns about the brand?

I.e. she's had shitty luck with Toshiba. It goes on my list of brands to not recommend. How's HP looked upon these days?

 

[koquerelle]

Hey, beggin your pardon folks for beggin for info. The missus is shopping for a new laptop for work. She thinks this one may be kind of keen,
Edit: sherdog's redesign says fuck you if you want to post a link.

So, instead any recommendations for a person up here in Canuckistan?

Fellow Canuck here. MSI makes great laptops if you're willing to pay the price.

 

[Andy Capp]

Fellow Canuck here. MSI makes great laptops if you're willing to pay the price.

Thanks, but again, I wouldn't really know if I was looking at comparable performance unless the components just happened to be identical. It looks like we're going with @Madmick's non-committal "Nothing's jumping out at me skimming the other vendors or sales on Amazon.ca as a better deal." as the most sensible and reliable comment.

I'll take a look at their site just in case, and I thank you for the reference, but it seems to me the missus hit the nail on the head on the first go round.

 

[Andy Capp]

Fellow Canuck here. MSI makes great laptops if you're willing to pay the price.

The closest thing I found had an i5 processor instead of i3 but it also had less ram and 1/4 of the storage space. She went ahead with the Amazon order. Here's to hoping/expecting it will be adequate. I don't think she'd notice the difference, TBH. The biggest difference for her will be the speed of the SSD (compared to the HDD in the old one) and the increased amount of RAM. If the CPU turns out to be a bottleneck it will still be much faster for her, I have no doubt.

 

[koquerelle]

Thanks, but again, I wouldn't really know if I was looking at comparable performance unless the components just happened to be identical. It looks like we're going with @Madmick's non-committal "Nothing's jumping out at me skimming the other vendors or sales on Amazon.ca as a better deal." as the most sensible and reliable comment.

I'll take a look at their site just in case, and I thank you for the reference, but it seems to me the missus hit the nail on the head on the first go round.

How many laptops did he buy for work? You say non-committal answer. I say generic answer meaning shit. Madmick would run circles around me when it comes to gaming PC. I feel comfortable talking about work laptops even though I don't stay up to date.

Pay more. Get RAM. Get a laptop with a real graphic card. etc.

 

[Andy Capp]

How many laptops did he buy for work? You say non-committal answer. I say generic answer meaning shit. Madmick would run circles around me when it comes to gaming PC. I feel comfortable talking about work laptops even though I don't stay up to date.

Pay more. Get RAM. Get a laptop with a real graphic card. etc.

I appreciate your input, don't get me wrong, but:

That's what I did when got my own machine, but the missus has different needs. As I said, the main difference between the HP my wife chose--she went ahead and placed the order--and a comparable MSI product was a faster CPU but half the RAM and a quarter the storage in the latter for $50 more. I don't see great need for a separate graphics card to run Simply Accounting and I doubt the speed difference between the CPUs will be very noticeable for her day to day--I welcome data that says otherwise FTR.

How much extra do you think we should expect to pay and what should we expect to receive for that? That's a sincere query by the way; I'm not sure how the tone comes across but I don't see a better way to put it that is as succinct.

 

[Madmick]

How many laptops did he buy for work? You say non-committal answer. I say generic answer meaning shit. Madmick would run circles around me when it comes to gaming PC. I feel comfortable talking about work laptops even though I don't stay up to date.

Pay more. Get RAM. Get a laptop with a real graphic card. etc.

I'm not at all bothered by a second set of eyes, here, but I don't understand. He is getting RAM. The 32GB in the unit he has selected is double-- and sometimes quadruple-- what most offerings in that price range carry. He also managed to find a unit with a whopping 2TB SSD which is quite impressive for $849 CAD ($628 USD for reference of comparison to us Yanks).

The thing about "business class" laptops that aren't truly business class (a vague terminology alluding to a superior build quality), which is pretty much all laptops under $1500, is that it often makes sense to sacrifice some processing power bang-for-your-buck. That's because the low-end processors today are more than enough for most business users, and because the cooling systems are not robust, so a less powerful processor tends to stress the laptop less, meaning that it enjoys a longer lifespan operating in its ideal performance state as it would out of the box the first time.

That's why I think his find is better than this $899 HP Pavilion on Memory Express, for example, which has the significantly more powerful overall processor in the i5-1340P. For gaming or editing, that's a very large advantage. However, look at the web browser benchmarks and single core scores comparing those processor. These are more meaningful for how an office user or casual home user would use a laptop. There's almost no difference at all. And the i3 will offer this parity at a lower temp. Meanwhile, the only other disadvantages are the slightly slower ports (no Thunderbolt) and the inferior WiFi networking card (WiFi 5 in his unit vs. WiFi 6 in the Pavilion). So for $50 less, he's getting 4x the SSD storage, double the RAM, that bonus 32GB flash drive, an SD media card reader, and a slightly larger screen (15.6" vs. 14.0").

That's the stuff I was looking at.

 

[Andy Capp]

I'm not at all bothered by a second set of eyes, here, but I don't understand. He is getting RAM. The 32GB in the unit he has selected is double-- and sometimes quadruple-- what most offerings in that price range carry. He also managed to find a unit with a whopping 2TB SSD which is quite impressive for $849 CAD ($628 USD for reference of comparison to us Yanks).

The thing about "business class" laptops that aren't truly business class (a vague terminology alluding to a superior build quality) which is pretty much all laptops under $1500 is that it often makes sense to sacrifice some processing power bang-for-your-buck. That's because the low-end processors today are more than enough for most business users, and because the cooling systems are not robust, so a less powerful processor tends to stress the laptop less, meaning that it enjoys a longer lifespan operating in its ideal performance state as it would out of the box the first time.

That's why I think his find is better than this $899 HP Pavilion on Memory Express, for example, which has the significantly more powerful overall processor in the i5-1340P. For gaming or editing, that's a very large advantage. However, look at the web browser benchmarks and single core scores comparing those processor. These are more meaningful for how an office user or casual home user would use a laptop. There's almost no difference at all. And the i3 will offer this parity at a lower temp. Meanwhile, the only other disadvantages are the slightly slower ports (no Thunderbolt) and the inferior WiFi networking card (WiFi 5 in his unit vs. WiFi 6 in the Pavilion). So for $50 less, he's getting 4x the SSD storage, double the RAM, that bonus 32GB flash drive, an SD media card reader, and a slightly larger screen (15.6" vs. 14.0").

That's the stuff I was looking at.

It looks so good to me I am tempted to get one for myself to be ready if/when my own laptop dies. I can't justify that though lol

 

[avenue94]

The closest thing I found had an i5 processor instead of i3 but it also had less ram and 1/4 of the storage space. She went ahead with the Amazon order. Here's to hoping/expecting it will be adequate. I don't think she'd notice the difference, TBH. The biggest difference for her will be the speed of the SSD (compared to the HDD in the old one) and the increased amount of RAM. If the CPU turns out to be a bottleneck it will still be much faster for her, I have no doubt.

32GB of RAM is overkill and a mismatch with the 12th gen i3 if your wife is only looking for light productivity. That price isn't very good, so if you're willing to put up with the hassle, I'd honestly recommend returning it and getting something else since discounts will pick up in the last few weeks of the year.

For example this is a better value at Best Buy. If you want MSI, this one is also a better value and will almost certainly keep its discount to $699 through most of December. Dell also has some competitive options that might work for your wife.

I can't really help you with review recs and quality, not really my wheelhouse. But I can point you in the right direction as far as pricing and discounts since I get a lot more data on that since it's my job.

 

[Andy Capp]

32GB of RAM is overkill and a mismatch with the 12th gen i3 if your wife is only looking for light productivity. That price isn't very good, so if you're willing to put up with the hassle, I'd honestly recommend returning it and getting something else since discounts will pick up in the last few weeks of the year.

For example this is a better value at Best Buy. If you want MSI, this one is also a better value and will almost certainly keep its discount to $699 through most of December. Dell also has some competitive options that might work for your wife.

I can't really help you with review recs and quality, not really my wheelhouse. But I can point you in the right direction as far as pricing and discounts since I get a lot more data on that since it's my job.

Please elaborate on "the price isn't very good" in the context of the foregoing discussion regarding alternatives.

Edit: as mentioned before, the MSI one has 1/4 the storage and half the RAM for a step up in CPU speed plus $50.

The Best Buy machine is a better deal at $50 less but it similarly sacrifices storage and RAM.

 

[avenue94]

Please elaborate on "the price isn't very good" in the context of the foregoing discussion regarding alternatives.

As in your paying an extra $200 for an extra 16GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. I don't think the pricing is very compelling based on that and the overall pricing data I get that an average consumer doesn't see (my job is essentially help PC manufactures set their retail pricing and discounting).

Edit: as mentioned before, the MSI one has 1/4 the storage and half the RAM for a step up in CPU speed plus $50.

The Best Buy machine is a better deal at $50 less but it similarly sacrifices storage and RAM.

I personally don't think either of those are really worth it for productivity unless your wife is really cranking Excel files near the program's limit or super complex formulas. On storage, would your wife actually fill up 2TBs (this is enough for dozens of hours of 4K footage) in the next couple of years? Most folks don't, but your wife may indeed do that.

Just to be clear, that HP notebook isn't an awful deal or anything, it's just very specialized and priced accordingly for a higher margin. I personally would opt for something like this ($649 is effectively lowest price to date), since Ryzen 7000 has better efficiency/battery life than modern Intel, and your wife wouldn't really notice not having 32GB of RAM or that extra TB of storage.

If you want to go through the hassle of looking more, I'm happy to take a peak at the data. It's just easier if you have a rough set of specs in mine (screen size/resolution, processor tier, storage, etc), and from there I could point ya toward a retailer or brand in terms of raw value. Like I said, reviews aren't really my wheelhouse, other folks know that better than me. Also, not to further complicate it, but something to consider for your wife is whether she wants a backlit keyboard/num pad (aka does she work in the dark, I kind of assume she wants a num pad for accounting).


Hope this helps a little.

 

[Andy Capp]

As in your paying an extra $200 for an extra 16GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. I don't think the pricing is very compelling based on that and the overall pricing data I get that an average consumer doesn't see (my job is essentially help PC manufactures set their retail pricing and discounting).

I personally don't think either of those are really worth it for productivity unless your wife is really cranking Excel files near the program's limit or super complex formulas. On storage, would your wife actually fill up 2TBs (this is enough for dozens of hours of 4K footage) in the next couple of years? Most folks don't, but your wife may indeed do that.

Just to be clear, that HP notebook isn't an awful deal or anything, it's just very specialized and priced accordingly for a higher margin. I personally would opt for something like this ($649 is effectively lowest price to date), since Ryzen 7000 has better efficiency/battery life than modern Intel, and your wife wouldn't really notice not having 32GB of RAM or that extra TB of storage.

If you want to go through the hassle of looking more, I'm happy to take a peak at the data. It's just easier if you have a rough set of specs in mine (screen size/resolution, processor tier, storage, etc), and from there I could point ya toward a retailer or brand in terms of raw value. Like I said, reviews aren't really my wheelhouse, other folks know that better than me. Also, not to further complicate it, but something to consider for your wife is whether she wants a backlit keyboard/num pad (aka does she work in the dark, I kind of assume she wants a num pad for accounting).


Hope this helps a little.

Well, being the decisive sort, she's already gone ahead and ordered the HP so from here on out it's moot unless she finds it's not adequate during the return window. But I will keep this in mind if that happens. That one at $650 seemed ok. Thanks for your effort.