Hi,

I posted last week about being unable to play games on my new laptop. Well, that turned out to be the least of my worries: the ASUS already died.

Before I return the piece of junk to Best Buy, I was wondering whether you might make some recommendations to a complete know-nothing on an inexpensive ($300-400) laptop that might run fairly basic games. I'm fond of FPS games, particularly. The previous laptop I had was a nothing special HP (sorry, I don't know the specs) that ran my GOG games just fine, so I feel that there must be something basic out there that will get me back to having fun.

Thanks in advance for your ideas.

Look here: at that kind of budget you must make some compromises.

Does it absolutely have to be a laptop?

Do you need it lightweight and thin? <<This + powerful = lots of $$$

Can you live with very bad battery life?

If you want to play FPS, I say maybe look at used as you can find one with a graphics card, which is something you can forget about if you buy a new computer for under $400, I think.

I am looking at Best Buy's USA website now if there is anything. Looks like integrated only at this price class as I suspected. I guess Intel HD 620 integrated does not cut it unless you want to stick to older and smaller games.

I've seen similar threads before and people always suggest to save up to at least $600 if you want a laptop that isn't junk

Yikes! That's steep! May have to rethink this...

Make a thorough list of things you want from a computer besides price. See my post a bit earlier about some points.
Give some examples of the heaviest games you want to play.

Have a look here to get an idea

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Notebookcheck-s-Top-10-Laptops-under-300-Euros.130231.0.html

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Notebookcheck-s-Top-10-Laptops-under-500-Euros.124349.0.html

At your price range buy an AMD based laptop.

End off

At the £300 range an AMD laptop will outperform a similar priced intel machine for games at least 4 times

If you do buy an AMD based computer, make sure it comes with at least TWO modules. AMD used to call those four core processors before Ryzen but they are not four full cores. Avoid the single module, so called 2 cores. They are alright for typewriters and such, not much else.

And if you buy Intel, do not get a Celeron processor as they also belong in the typewriter department.

Specs on an inexpensive laptop

*rimshot*

This is a great start. Thanks!
I appreciate your help!