Help with choosing laptop for Sims 4 UK

[princess_snowph]

Hi all,

Looking to buy a laptop for my daughter and (i know it's asked a lot!) I would appreciate some help choosing one that will suit her needs. We are in the UK.

Would need to run the following:-

Sims 4 plus all expansions packs & all add ons

Minecraft

Netflix

Youtube

Amazon Video

MS Office (Word, Powerpoint, Excel)

Photo & Video Storage

Internet

DVD Player

Budget is £400 - £600.

I have been looking online but getting ever so confused with the huge number of makes and models.

Are people able to recommend certain makes and models or should I post links to laptops I have seen?

Thanks so much for any help.

Sean

[puzzlezaddict]

@princess_snowph  There aren't a whole lot of good options in the £600 range.  The best graphics card for TS4, which is an Nvidia 1060 6 GB, isn't available in that range, or it looks like in any model below £800, which is where I stopped looking.  The next cards down are still very good, and they will currently run TS4 and all packs on ultra settings.  The difference may be in a couple of years, when more packs raise the demands on the computer.  Custom content will also increase the demands, although that will depend in part on how it's made.

The bottom line is, the following computer will run all of TS4 on ultra settings now, but in a couple of years, your daughter may need to dial back the graphics to high.  If you're fine with that, then this model will work very well.  (It will also run everything else you listed.)  It's £580.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-FX505DY-BQ008T-Bezel-Gaming-Laptop/dp/B07MWKBGLX?th=1

If you prefer Currys/PCWorld to Amazon, the same laptop is the same price there, although it's currently sold out:

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/asus-tuf-fx505dy-15-6-amd-ryzen-5-rx-560x-ga...

The one thing this laptop doesn't have is a disc drive, but many if not most models don't these days.  You can buy a cheap external drive for around £30, maybe less, and it will work just as well.  Just make sure that the external disc drive has either a USB 3 type-C or USB 3.1 connector, or you'll need to buy an adaptor as well.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask.

[princess_snowph]

@puzzlezaddict   Thanks so much for the quick response. I had a suspicion my price range was going to be a problem. I will digest what you have told me and get back to you if that is okay.

Thanks again,

Sean 

[puzzlezaddict]

@princess_snowph  Sure, take your time.  The model I found isn't bad at all, and Asus makes very good gaming laptops, even at the entry level.  I just wanted you to understand its limitations, so you wouldn't think you were getting a beast of a system that would always be able to run everything on ultra settings.  I can't imagine it would ever struggle with high graphics settings though, no matter what TS4 looks like in a few years.

Anyway, you know where to find me.

[princess_snowph]

Not bought a laptop yet as my daughter and I have been very busy, but will be back to ask questions about choices. In the meantime would the following laptop run Sims 4, Lenovo Ideapad 300. It's my son's laptop which he isn't using for a while. Thanks, Sean

[puzzlezaddict]

@princess_snowph  It looks like there are a few different configurations for that model, but I think they all have the same weak processor, and none of them have a dedicated graphics card.  Ideapads also don't have great cooling, so this one might have problems overheating while running TS4.  Even if it didn't, the processor and integrated graphics card probably wouldn't be able to handle anything more than low settings, especially since you said your daughter has all the packs.

Since you already have access to the computer, you could always try it, and see if your daughter is comfortable with how the game runs.  Make sure she elevates the laptop whille playing—putting books or something similar under the corners works reasonably well.  Still, I don't think the quality of play is what she, or you, are looking for.  And if you do see any signs of overheating, don't let her keep playing on it.  Excess heat can damage the hardware, and laptop hardware generally cannot be repaired.

[XTraSWEPizzaHere]

i got one for 200 works fine with sims 4 but it was in 2016 and don't know bout how it goes now cus i go another one but u would not need a super pc to handle sims but its hard to find good pcs with dvd drives but there are some usb dvd drives i can try finding a laptop for u that fits ur requirements