Computers & Tablets

[Heidina84]

I'm looking for a Laptop for my 12yr old son to do his school work and play games. Something fast and try to cost less than $400

[bobberuchi]

Thats a good age to get him into a laptop of his own. There are lots of good laptops out there in your price range for school work, social media and general online use.

You will see a number of them with touch screens.  Those are great for tablets but you can get more bang for your buck on the laptop to get one that does not have that feature.

The caviet is that in that price range, while it will play games, it won't do it well for more graphic intensive games. 

The main difference is the presence of a graphics card that is not built into the mother board.  These are commonly referred to as gaming models.

However, there are a few gaming laptops in that price range.

HP has several decent models.  Keeping in mind that he would not be able to play at max settings but they will perform.

Here is a link to a selection of HP Gaming Laptops  

I would suggest looking at one of the three on the right.  They are essentially the same just different colors.  The advantage they have over the one on the left is it has a much larger hard drive.  The advantage to the one on the left is it has a solid state drive (SSD).  The SSD will boot up much faster but is small enough that he will only be able to get one or two games on it at a time. They do have integrated grapics that are good but not high end. They will work well for basic games. 

If he wants to play games like Fort Night they do not quite meet the recommended requirements. 

[Fey-BBY Valued Contributor]

Hi, Heidina84,

Welcome to the Best Buy Forums!

Bobberuchi is right on when he mentions that most lower-cost laptops will not have the necessary hardware requirements to run most AAA titles. Better hardware will also translate to faster speeds in most cases. Do you have any examples of game titles that your son would be running? We would be happy to make some recommendations for computers that would work for him.

Best,
 

[bobberuchi]

I would suggest considering a Best Buy Credit card.  Quite often you will see offers on computers for interest free financing for 6, 12, 18, or 24 months.  However, generally the 24 months is rare and normally applies only to Appliances and huge 24 TV's

You could get the card and buy a decent gaming computer for around  $800 or so.  Keeping in mind it will not be high end settings but it will play most current games decently. The one in the link below right now qualifies for 12 months interest free.  You could make your first payment with the money you have set aside for the computer. and then make payments for a few months.  

HP - 15.6" Gaming Laptop

It has what was considered a top end graphics card several years ago and it has 8 gb of ram.  These two things by themselves will greatly increase performance.