Newbie with buyer’s regret - help!

[Jimmylondon07]

Hi Folks

New UK poster here, nice to meet you all.

I am pretty new to gaming laptops, to be honest up to this point I only really play Football Manager which has pretty low requirements, though I have my eye on the new flight sim as a private pilot in real life. I am also going to swerve the next gen consoles so I might rely on the laptop to scratch a gaming itch now and again.

In my rush to replace my current laptop I bought an Acer Nitro 5 AN515-54 with the following spec for £798, it was delivered yesterday and should be more than OK for FM but I am yet to open the box because I can’t shake the feeling that I can do better for the money.

15.6" Acer Predator Nitro 5 NH.Q59EK.01H, FHD, ComfyView IPS, i5 9300H, 8GB DDR4 (2400Mhz), 1TB NVMe SSD, 4GB GTX 1650, Win10 Home

Having looked at some deals I am entitled to via work schemes I can get 10% off at both Dell and Lenovo, as well as 6.5% off at Currys. I came across this spec of Dell G3 direct from their website which I can get for £935, but at this point I am not sure if it’s worth the additional £137 over the Nitro. From what I have read of the G3 the screen is a bit ropey, certainly less nits than the Nitro 5, both are 60Hz I believe.

• 9th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-9750H (12MB Cache, up to 4.5 GHz, 6 cores)
• Windows 10 Home 64bit, English, Dutch, French, German, Italian
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1660 Ti with Max-Q Design, 6GB GDDR6
• 16GB, 2x8GB, DDR4, 2666MHz
• 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive

£935 really is the max I want to go to, is the Dell worth the premium over the Nitro or can you recommend anything else?

Thanks!

Jimmy

 

[Oussebon]

I don't think you need to feel buyer's remorse, as that's about normal for a spec of that price, and a 1650 is fine for casual gaming.

The next flight sim is likely to be relatively light on hardware too, since a lot of the work is done by MS's Azure severs as I'd understood it.

That said, for general gaming if you might branch into other titles, a 1660 ti, even the max-q version is likely to be a lot faster than a 1650. And you get the better CPU too with that Dell (which can be a significant asset for FM). You can't replace the GPU or CPU of a laptop, as you could with a desktop to upgrade it, so you're stuck with what you buy and the only way to upgrade in the future is to buy a new system.

Having a quick look, a (laptop) 1650's Firestrike graphics score is ~9300, the 1660 ti 14700, with the 1660 ti Max-Q maybe being around 13000. So there are arguments for returning your unused laptop and getting a different one, in terms of futureproofing and the other laptop giving more bang for buck (performance per £).

But if you'd prefer to save the cash your current laptop seems to meet all your needs, and if those ~£140 would be better spent elsewhere, your current laptop seems fine.

 

[Jimmylondon07]

Thanks for the detailed reply mate, appreciate it! I think on reflection it’s probably worth throwing the extra £140 at the better spec G3, I was eyeing up an additional 8GB of RAM for the Nitro 5 anyway which will be £25-30 and I’m not sure I am comfortable fitting it either, so if I pay someone to do that the difference is probably more like £80 between the 2.

 

[Oussebon]

Fitting RAM is about as easy as changing the batteries in your TV remote - you literally just open the laptop, which depending on the model may not even require a screwdriver, and it slots and clicks in place - so I'm sure you could handle it fine.

But either way, it further closes the price difference between the two as you say - tipping the scales a bit more towards the more expensive one

 

[Jimmylondon07]

Yep think I will have to pull the trigger on the more expensive one! Thanks for the advice mate, appreciate it.

 

[Jimmylondon07]

Funny how things work out, in the end I didn’t go for the Dell either and opted for an Acer Nitro 7 for the same price I was planning on paying for the Dell. 8GB less RAM but a proper 1660Ti and a 144hz panel, worth it I think.

PERFORMANCE

Processor	- Intel® Core™ i7-9750H Processor - Hexa-core - 2.6 GHz / 4.5 GHz - 12 MB cache
RAM	8 GB DDR4 (2600 MHz)
Graphics card	- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti - 6 GB GDDR6
Storage	512 GB SSD

SCREEN

Touchscreen	No
Screen size	15.6”
Screen type	IPS LCD
Resolution	Full HD 1920 x 1080p
Screen features	- 144 Hz display - Anti-glare - LED backlighting

 

[Shadowclash10]

Welp, I am in the US, so I can't directly help with prices, but yep, this looks like a much better deal to me, on the hardware side. You get a nice IPS 144Hz screen, and maybe down the line you can add another 8GB stick. Just like @Oussebon said, adding RAM is ridiculously easy. If I was in your place, I would have picked the Nitro 7 over the G3 as well; RAM can be upgraded post-purchase, but not the screen! Enjoy your visuals!