Is a Used Gaming Laptop Worth It? #Helpful Post

hey guys Boston we take a look at a lot

of budget gaming laptops on the channel

but today I have something a little bit

different in mind so this is a 2014

Alienware 13 and back when it came out

it cost well over $1000 today though I

was able to pick it up on eBay for only

500 and ignoring a little bit of

cosmetic damage what you're getting here

is the surprisingly decent gaming laptop

on the other hand we have this the Acer

Aspire 5 now I am a huge fan of this

laptop I've already done a whole video

on it and the gist of it is for $600

you're getting a quad-core processor

nvidia graphics 8 gigs of ram as well as

a full SSD but does it make sense to

save your hundred dollars and get a used

option one look at the Alienware and

you'll be able to tell this used to be

$1,000 plus laptop now it does have some

minor scuffs and scrapes on the outside

but importantly on the inside it's going

to be clean and it's got all the good

stuff including a 13.3 inch 1080p panel

that looks surprisingly decent

impressively this actually even has a

windows precision touchpad something

that a lot of even modern computers are

barely starting to adopt now for the

most part it's solid I don't think it's

all that thick or heavy however you are

going to be making a couple of

compromises when you buy a used system

it's only like the Acer well you're not

going to have to deal with it the idea

of having a brand new laptop is

definitely a big advantage but there

also are some disadvantages to having

something a little bit on the cheaper

end so even though Acer was able to cram

a ton of high-end specs into this guy

it's sort of at the cost of some build

quality and some design things so for

example it's very plasticky there's some

like screenflex and on the right side

instead of having USB 3.0 ports you have

a pair of USB 2.0 ports and sure there's

still going to be USB C and USB 3 on the

other side but there's just little kind

of cost-cutting measures here and there

that do start to add up but the

important thing to keep in mind is this

is a brand new laptop that comes with a

full warranty if it comes broken you can

return it

whereas with something like the

Alienware you're going to kind of be on

your own if something goes wrong on the

Acer we're also getting a 1080p panel

this time at 15.6 inches however it is a

lower NT and display and honestly it's

actually my biggest issue with the

laptop I can live with pretty much all

the rest of the stuff like slightly

flimsy build quality but the screen is

barely acceptable it would really be

nice if they had an upgrade and actually

makes the Alienware display looks pretty

nice

Pearson now the keyboard is going to be

fine you get a full number row as well

as a number pad as well as you're going

to be getting backlighting and it

technically does have a windows

precision trackpad

but the touchpad itself isn't so great

what you're really buying this laptop

for are the really impressive specs at

the $600 price point with the Alienware

now are you going to be getting three

USB 3.0 ports as well as Ethernet

there's also going to be HDMI mini

DisplayPort as well as the Alienware

graphics amplifier ports now this is

something that's actually even found on

current Alienware laptops and you can

think of it as an old-school version of

Thunderbolt 3 so back before is it easy

to be able to put an external GPU and

connect it to a laptop instead Illinois

made their own graphics amplifier which

you actually can still find on eBay for

around a hundred bucks or so you know I

don't know if I would necessarily want

to do it with this particular Alienware

13 but if you ever want to upgrade with

some graphics options even an older

laptop like this does have the ability

to do so now we need time you buy

something used the price is going to be

a huge factor so four or five hundred

dollars we were able to pick up not only

the Alienware 13 but it also came with

some key upgrades including 16 gigs of

ram as well as a 500 gigabyte Samsung

850 Evo SSD inside you'll find a dual

core i5 4210 u so this is a Haswell chip

from a couple generations ago you can

essentially think of it as an ultrabook

CPU not exactly what you want to find in

your gaming laptop whoever thankfully it

is going to be backed up by some pretty

decent graphics the nvidia geforce gtx

860m well it won't make a big difference

for gaming that 16 gigs of ram and SSD

does make a big difference from normal

day-to-day use but when it comes to

actual gameplay on this guy while the

cpu is going to be a little bit of a

bottleneck the GPU should be capable of

some pretty decent modern games put the

two side-by-side and Geekbench and

you'll see that they new eighth

generation Core i5 in the Acer Aspire 5

absolutely runs of rings around the

Alienware

however jump over to the GPU side of

things and it's actually surprisingly

even so not only in the times pi

benchmark but as well as in fire strike

you're going to be getting very very

similar performance first up we have

csgo and here we're running at high at

1080p

now we're getting a pretty decent 60 to

80 frames per second here and this is

one of the easy ways to be able to tell

that you're not supposed to walk around

the corner Cisco's actually a pretty

good game to test though because while

we

have that solid GPU we're going to be

missing a little bit on the CPU side now

csgo even though it's easy to run at

fairly low frames especially when you

get up and they like the ATS hundred 150

whatever the case is it actually is

really helpful to have that solid CPU

but so far it's actually not too bad

move over to the aspire 5 and on those

same settings at 1080p medium we are

getting a noticeable bump in framerate

so right now actually averaging about a

hundred which is pretty impressive and I

think something else is kind of nice is

that the Wi-Fi chip in this laptop

actually seems to be a little bit more

robust so especially because we're kind

of a little bit farther from the normal

point it actually does smooth out some

of the latency as well next up because

it is 2018 after all we have fortnight

battle royale so again here at 1080p

this time I'm medium settings we're

getting decent frame rates in the 40s to

upper 30s now it's not going to be the

most smooth playable experience in the

world but if you do want a little bit

more framerate it's easy to knock down

the graphics a little bit or even bump

the resolution back down to something

like 720p I'm surprised that I hadn't

really noticed a lot of CPU limitation

yet now I'm sure if this did have a

quad-core CPU or even a faster dual-core

chip we're probably getting slightly

higher frame rates but it's actually not

a crazy pairing with this 860m it does

seem to be reasonably balanced although

I'd like a little more power of course

if you guys want to know more about

Fortnight I actually did do an entire

video on it and how it can run on pretty

much everything from a super high-end

gaming PC all the way down to a 200 all

a laptop well if you've really tried

hard at least well the nice things about

fortnight is that it does actually look

nice almost regardless of what setting

you're running on I mean come on you can

run it on your phone it doesn't look

that bad

but here 1080p medium settings on the PC

we're getting a pretty nice-looking

experience move over to the Acer and

with those same settings and for tonight

yet again we are seeing a slight

performance improvement so as opposed to

being in the high 30s and low 40s or

mostly in the upper 40s here not a

massive change but it is something

you're going to be able to notice if I

don't fall off this close next up we

have pub G a game that is not

particularly nice to lower end hardware

I think this is actually spot we're

going to see the dual-core CPU struggle

here well that's not encouraging it's

able to play the game I mean we're

seeing some of the neighborhood of 25

frames per second now but the stuttering

is really bad that's weird I feel like

this game should be

playable but right now I mean this is a

stuttering mess technically it's running

and I mean again my framerate it's not

too bad showing like 35 36 right now but

there's something very very wrong here

yeah even reloading the game on very low

settings restarting everything we're

still getting that same stuttering issue

technically this actually is slightly

below the minimum spec for pub G so I

guess it can't be too upset but come

over to the Acer and we have no such

problems so I did turn into graphics

down to 720p on low but we're getting a

pretty consistent 45 to 50 frames per

second and thankfully none of those

weird stuttering issues this is much

much more like it

it's kinda disappointing really so I

like the Alienware it's a good laptop

but at the end of the day you're

probably gonna want to play games like

pub G and well sure the GPU is not too

bad I do feel like that CPU does let it

down don't get me wrong I really didn't

want to like the Alienware 13 but with

options like the aspire 5 at $600 it

makes it very very difficult to

recommend most gaming laptops that are

going to be used now this guy isn't too

far off with a lack of a higher-end CPU

really does hurt it's going new is

always going to be a safer bet so not

only do you get that brand new chassis

but you get the warranty you don't have

to worry about any kind of weird

blemishes on your used laptop it's going

to be a safer bet but if you do go used

my main piece of advice would be be very

careful what you pick so the idea of

going something that's going to be

slightly newer versus slightly older

especially in laptop terms can mean a

huge performance difference pick your

choice wisely at minimum I would go with

a quad-core processor and don't skimp on

the graphics either

similarly the 860m inside the Alienware

isn't going to be too bad but a lot of

times with gaming laptops you can spend

a little bit more money to get a lot

more performance so I'm curious would

you let you ever want to pick up a used

gaming laptop let me know in the

comments below and I will catch you on

the next one