Which is the best laptop to buy?

[Cibhadon]

Hi,

I'm trying I look for a new laptop as my old Toshiba continuously crashes whilst playing sims 3. I have the base game, and all Eps except Showtime and all stuff packs except the cars one.

The two laptops I've seen are:
1.) Pavilion g6-1331ea 15.6" Laptop - Silver
Specs:

General Information
Processor AMD Quad-Core A8-3520M (1.6 GHz, 4 MB L2 cache)
Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64
RAM 6 GB (1 x 2 GB, 1 x 4 GB)
Graphics card AMD Radeon HD 6620G + 7450M Dual GPU
1 GB DDR3 dedicated
Screen type HD LED BrightView
Screen resolution 1366 x 768
Screen size 15.6"
Hard drive 750 GB
Optical disk drive SuperMulti DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
Memory card reader Multi-Format Digital Media Card Reader
USB 3 x 2.0
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth No
Audio interface 3.5 mm
TV output VGA
HDMI
Sound Altec Lansing speakers
Webcam 0.3 MP
Keyboard & Mouse Full size with home roll keys
TouchPad with on/off button and support for multitouch gestures
Battery Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion)
Up to 5 hours
Accessories included HP g6-1331ea Notebook, Power Cord, 90 W AC Power Adapter, 6-cell Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery, "Begin here" guide, HP manual
Software included Microsoft® Office Starter: reduced-functionality Word and Excel® only, with advertising. No PowerPoint® or Outlook®. Buy Office 2010 to use the full featured software.
HP Setup Manager
HP Support Assistant
HP Recovery Manager
Cyberlink YouCam DE
Windows Live Essentials
HP Games powered by WildTangent
Adobe Reader
Adobe Flash Player
EasyBits Magic Desktop
HP Launch Box
Evernote
HP+
HP Rara Music
HP Security Assistant
Size W 374 x D 245 mm
Thickness: 36.3 mm
Weight 2.55 kg

2.) Pavilion dv6-6c75sa 15.6” Laptop

Specs:
General Information
Processor Intel® Core™i3-2350M processor (2.2 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache)
Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64
RAM 6 GB DDR3
Graphics card AMD Radeon HD 6490M
Screen type HD LED BrightView Infinity Display
Screen resolution 1366 x 768 pixels
Screen size 15.6"
Screen features HP BrightView LED
Hard drive 500 GB SATA 5400rpm
Optical disk drive SuperMulti DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
Memory card reader Multi-Format Digital Media Card Reader for Secure Digital cards andMultimedia cards
USB 3 USB 2.0 ports
Modem/Ethernet Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN
WiFi WiFi802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth Bluetooth with WiDi
Video interface HDMI output
Audio interface 2 x 3.5mm audio out
1 x 3.5mm audio in
TV output VGA output
Sound Beats Audio system
Webcam 2 megapixels
Keyboard & Mouse Full size keyboard with integrated numeric keypad
TouchPad supporting Multi-Touch gestures with On/Off button
Battery 6-cell lithium-ion battery for up to 6 hours of use
Additional features Fingerprint reader
Accessories included Power Cord, 90 W AC Power Adapter, 6-cell Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery, "Begin here" guide, HP manual
Software included HP Setup Manager
HP Support Assistant
HP Recovery Manager
Cyberlink YouCam
Windows Live Essentials
HP Games powered by WildTangent
Adobe Reader
Adobe Flash Player
EasyBits Magic Desktop
HP CoolSense, HP ProtectSmart
Omnifone MusicStation
HP SimplePass
Size 378 x 247 x 35mm
Weight 2.91kg

The firsts processor and graphics card seems better. But I'm not sure. The second is £50 more (maybe because of the beats sound system and the light in trackpad)

Any help much appreciated thanks!

[ajaxsirius]

The second one is better. You'll have to reduce the graphics across the board to Medium though.

[Mordant17]

Neither is going to play the game well. A 1.6 Ghz processor (the first laptop) isn't going to play at all well. Since you have pets, you really should have a CPU that's at least 2.4 GHz, so the second one isn't quite up to par either. The desktop version of the Radeon HD 6490 graphics card (laptop 2) has no's listed for all EPs, and laptop graphics are never as good as their desktop counter parts.

Really, I wouldn't suggest using either of those for playing the sims 3. Is there any particular reason you need a laptop? If it's just for playing the sims 3, you'd be much better off with a desktop -- you can get a much nicer computer for a lot less money!

[Mordant17]

The thing isn't that they won't play the game, it's that they won't play the game well and that playing the sims 3 will damage your computer. If you do buy one of those, don't be surprised if the game crashes on you all the time.

I really recommend reading your computer is like a car (http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:Your_Computer_is_Like_a_Car).

About the quad core -- more cores is better, but 1.6 isn't speedy enough. Check out the System REquirements (http://www.modthesims.info/wiki.php?title=Game_Help:TS3_System_Requirements) to see what the game needs.

[ajaxsirius]

It's only slightly better than the 2nd option. I would not recommend buying HP though.

[ellacharmed]

Please don't multi-post, Cibhadon. Use the Edit button if you have something to add to you post and no one else has responded on the thread.

I'd stay away from AMD's APUs and Intel i3's for the moment. A lot of systems with those Processors shows up on Sims forums all over.
And the 6490M may not work so well in the future for newer patches and EPs, and even now since you have most of the addons except one.

There's really not a lot of options for laptops at that price range that can play the game well. Just load and expect crashes and freezes, maybe.
Expectations of the components on laptops at that price range is going to be low, if it loads. So, if you're OK to play on low settings and still expect crashes, you're going to have a laptop with a diminished lifetime, because it is pushed to perform beyond its limits and thus wear out faster.