Does anyone have any advice on where I could get a cheap laptop computer that would play Minecraft?
It really only will be used by my 8yr old to play Minecraft with his brother and would rather new than second hand.
Any tips would be greatly appreciated… I am hoping there is something out there for under $400 but I'm not that tech savvy with what will support Minecraft and what won't.
Thanks :)
This expired deal is the lowest I could find that you will get away with:
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/111632
This is marginal for minecraft, but will work.
As long as its the v3-571g with a 640m, that is a very good budget gaming laptop.
So long as you don't have the windows 8 version (which has a new locked bios), you can unlock the vbios for amazing GPU overclocks here
http://forum.techinferno.com/acer/1846-acer-aspire-v3-5xx-se…
people are getting their core clocks from 624MHz up to 1114MHz. Mine seems to max out around 1050 or so. Too bad the memory bandwidth is pretty crap for the ddr3 models though (like mine)
I think too many people sell this laptop short. It plays crysis 3 quite nicely on medium - not to shabby in my books. I got it from catch of the day when it was 6 or 7 hundred. It is probably the tech purchase I am most happy to have made. It served my gaming needs well for the 12 months-ish my desktop was in storage and still gets some use now and then for the convenience of a laptop.
I find minecraft laggy on my vostro from this deal: http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/106780. And this has integrated graphics - although maybe I'm running it in FHD - I should check that.
I also have a slim desktop with an ATI 5450 ($30) in it that runs minecraft perfectly well.
You need an external mouse also. I would recommend a cheap desktop and 22in screen.
It would be cheaper and harder to break.
There's an option to lower Res to 800x480. Plays better but looks the same!
I can run minecraft on my Core i5 + HD3000 Lenovo laptop but its too laggy to be enjoyable — there is a significant amount of input lag from the mouse.
Minecraft despite it's pixelated looking graphics requires quite a bit of grunt from the GPU, so I recommend getting something with a discrete graphics option.
I recommend this $500 dollar AMD based laptop with dedicated GPU. It'll play Minecraft much smoother than a Core + HD4000 will.
There is a link failure here, but it is likely that scrimshaw's suggestion is much better than mine.
Now we just need to know what the suggestion is!
It's a Samsung NP355V5C-S04AU from MSY, costs $499.
Also with similar specifications, but with 6GB RAM
HP Pavillion G6-2311AX(D5F85PA) @ $499
The entire brochure:
http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/notebook.pdf
That is an A6-440, which according to some quick research has a GPU which is a bit hit and miss. Definately better than the HD4000, but not by a huge amount and you loose on the CPU.
I think you still have to accept that at this price range the results aren't going to be great.
Thank you for the comments/advice guys … will definitely look into those options.
Make sure you get something with at least 4Gb RAM… Minecraft is heavy on GPU like mentioned above, but one of the biggest reasons for the game crashing is having too little RAM.
Apologies if the above linked notebooks have over 4Gb RAM but at 2Gb RAM the game just sucks it up and spits it out, crashing rather frequently… annoying but true.
On the positive side, a great game for all ages and can flex the creative minds of youngsters without the uber-violence or mind-numbingly boring "childrens" games out there. Good going parent!!
Thanks Medrad … Will keep this in mind.
Minecraft definitely seems to be akin to 'old school' Lego for the digital age. I remember spending whole afternoons as a kid creating stuff with Lego but these days my kids just want to build the latest and greatest Lego box set by the book.
They are more than happy to create amazing things in Minecraft for as long as I let them though. The struggle is determining how long that should be!
Only until night-time… the monsters come out during the night…
Peaceful difficulty. Problem solved.
Sorry… forgot to mention it is a laptop we're searching for …. probably not much hope under $400/$500 but if anyone knows the Ozbargain community will :)