Gaming laptops for under £1000

daniel_b

Morning all,

I've been looking on and off at getting a gaming laptop for the last 18 months, and was close to ordering one this morning.

I'd like one to play driving games, but also to use for the likes of Rouvy (Though I understand that doesn't really require a beefy laptop) but potentially other online cycling services such as Rolla and Indievelo.

Desktop/mini tower is not an option, as my garage gets cold and damp during the winter months, plus I want two screens.

I currently have a ~5 year old HP i7, which I use fairly regularly, but it's not a gaming laptop in anyway shape or form, if the replacement is end up buying is decent enough, then I would pass this onto my daughter for homework tasks etc - it's a nice light laptop, with a good quality screen - in fact I replaced the screen after a couple of years, as it mysteriously developed a crack, but it's been very reliable and battery still works well - iirc it cost about £550, and has 16gb Ram, 512gb ssd.

Looking at laptops for under £1000, I see Gigabyte are cheap, but I've seen the build quality is questionable. Asus and Acer seem to be a bit hit and miss too.

Having read up on various reviews, I'm aiming for a minimum of 16GB Ram, RTX 4060, and for preference a 1TB SSD drive.

I was all set on this MSI Crosshair:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-Crosshair-240Hz-Gaming-Laptop/dp/B0D33THL3G

• Intel Core i7-14700HX Processor
• RTX 4060, GDDR6 8GB
• 16" 16:10 QHD+(2560 x 1600), 240Hz, 100% DCI-P3, IPS-level panel
• DDR5 8GB*2
• 1TB NVMe PCIe SSD Gen4x4 w/o DRAM

But have put myself off by finding a fair few 'hinge' issues, where the hinge, or hinges effectively break, and wreck the case as well - MSI appear not to honour this as a warranty issue, and as it's only 12 months anyway, a lot of them will fall outside of this period.

You can bodge a repair yourself, but for that kind of money I would expect it to last well - I'm generally pretty careful with my kit, whatever it is, and expect things to last.

Of course it could well be that 2% of people have this issue, and are either unlucky, or have some Friday afternoon models, and I am worrying about nothing, but just wondered on the off chance if anyone had experience (good or bad) with MSI laptops, or had any other recommendations.

With the TCB cashback this would cost (From Very) theoretically £872, which I think is decent value for the spec.

Thanks

N0bodyOfTheGoat

I very nearly bought a Lenovo Loq from Argos for ~£559 yesterday, that had an RTX 4060, but was wary of the 45% NTSC screen https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/lenovo-loq-156in-i5-16gb-512gb-rtx4060-gaming-laptop-4430840

MSI laptops have a bad reputation for under-powered GPUs and poor thermals, I'd be very wary of them myself, albeit I'm a laptop rookie half-looking at one for portability over a newer second gaming desktop pc.

daniel_b

Wow, that would have been a stunning deal, all be it with an i5 and 512gb ssd - back up to £734 with 30% off today.

Lenovo have a decent reputation I think.

photonic69

We have Dells here. 4 of them. Not gaming but business/study oriented. Very reliable and good on site aftercare service. Eg sons keyboard lost a few keys. Man came out next day and replaced the whole keyboard here at home.

daniel_b

I've had Dells as work machines for probably 22 out of the last 24 years 🤣

Some models are better than others, the corporate ones companies tend to spend a bit more and tend to be better quality ime. The Inspiron for example, is or at least was a 'home' laptop, but not of the highest quality.

I did have a personal favourite (D600 or 610) that had a few choice upgrades, but one of those hinges broke, but I pillaged a carcass for a replacement and it ran for several more years.

I had assumed they would be a bit more tasty price wise, and it seems like the equivalent is currently on offer for £1049:

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/gaming-and-games/g15-gaming-laptop/spd/g-series-15-5530-laptop/cn22248sc

Food for thought though, thankyou :-)

photonic69

https://forum.bikeradar.com/discussion/comment/21101042#Comment_21101042

Ooh! Tasty!! My workhorse is a 5+ year old 16" XPS with i7 32GB 1TB ssd and a 1050ti 4GB card with some superhigh res monitor 3840x2160!!

It munches through image editing but is now slow compared to my desktop. Been reliable but that gaming laptop you listed would be so much faster and about 40% of the cost of this one!!!

daniel_b

I noticed on Thursday that Very (Same as Littlewoods I think?) had the MSI Crosshair on for £949 but with a 10% discount code, and it worked!

I dithered for a bit, and then noticed the price had gone back down to the previous £899, so assumed the code was no longer valid, BUT it still worked - so £809 seemed to good a deal to turn down, and 2% cashback on the non vat amount through TCB means I get it for under £800, which I had not envisaged.

So rightly or wrongly I have ordered it.

When I was looking this time last year, and even in the sales, it was virtually impossible to get this spec for less than £1000.

I just have to hope I am one of the lucky ones with regards to reliability, hinges etc 😬

It's being packed up now, so expecting it in the early part of next week.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Not under £1k, but first good deal on a big laptop brand was posted on hotukdeals in the last 24 hours, Lenovo Legion 5 with rtx4070 for ~£1100.

https://www.costco.co.uk/Computers/Laptops-MacBooks/Lenovo-Legion-5-16IRX9-Intel-Core-i7-16GB-RAM-1TB-SSD-NVIDIA-GeForce-RTX-4070-16-Inch-Gaming-Laptop-83DG00DRUK/p/515512

Beazy

I remember seeing HP victus model with a 4060 as well maybe look into it. I've heard some good things about it from my cousin who got it. See If you can get it under 1k. Hp victus gaming 16-R0074TX. Ci7-13700hx RTX 4060 8gb