My 9 year old wants a gaming laptop and my laptop spec knowledge is minimal. He wants to play Fortnite and Minecraft and the like, nothing fancy. Any ideas re good laptops to buy, or good places to look? I’m in the UK and my budget is 300 quid tops, ideally less.
The specs required for these games is low, fortunately. Cheaper gaming laptops typically go for twice your max budget. Looking for a used laptop is the way I would go with the budget. I have the specs for fortnite below, but keep in mind, these are the minimum expectations not what you should get. I would search for something with 1.5-2x these specs if you expect your kid to have the laptop for more the 3-4 years and the demands of future games.
https://www.chillblast.com/blog/fortnite-pc-specs-requirements-2024
CPU - Core i3-3225 3.3 GHz. GPU - Intel HD 4000 or AMD Radeon Vega 8. Memory - 8 GB RAM. Storage - 30GB available space
Minecraft can be pretty RAM/CPU hungry, especially if you want it to be playable. I can’t speak to fortnite, but usually a games “minimum” requirements are not going to result in a enjoyable experience.
It might be better to save money for a better laptop than to buy a min spec laptop that cant really play the games