Thoughts on my new laptop purchase

[Bellboy]

Not being a heavy gamer, I've struggled along with my dell inspiron 5520 for a long while but have had a few hundred quid burning a hole in my pocket for a cheap upgrade, with some gaming potential. Finally bit the bullet today when a clearance deal came up that I managed to get in on, £499 for a hp pavilion 15-bc250na i7 15.6" gtx 1050 gaming laptop (fingers crossed it comes through).

I'm interested to know thoughts from those in the know (ie. patrons of this forum) - for what it is, is it good value? Anyone any experience of it? And what sort of performance can I expect - I'd say at the moment, the only two games I'm likely to delve into are WoW and Total War: Warhammer (my 5520 struggles with WoW and can't run TWW at all) - I assume OK for that? How about anything more demanding? I'm not bothered about high quality settings, so long as the FPS is playable.

I've been keeping an eye out for something for a while for under £500 (ideally under £400), including mainly 2nd hand ebay listings, but not seen anything like this value, to my amateur eye - or have I bought a turkey for the money, and should I return it?!

I just baulk at spending upwards of £1k on something like this when I don't play regularly enough to justify the outlay.

Specs (taken off a fleabay listing as it's no longer on the competitor website but pretty certain it's the same):

Screen Size 15.6"
Screen Resolution 1920 x 1080
Memory 8GB
Processor Type Intel Core i5 7th Gen.
Processor Intel Core i5
Processor Speed 2.50GHz
Hard Drive Capacity 1TB
Operating System Windows 10
Graphics Processing Type Dedicated Graphics
Primary Drive No DVD Drive
Solid State Capacity 128GB SSD
Webcam Integrated HD Webcam with Microphone
Network Cardcard Gigabit Ethernet LAN
HDMI 1 x HDMI Port
USB Ports 2x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0
Battery 4-cell, 63.3 Wh Li-ion - Up to 11 hours
Speakers B&O PLAY; Dual speakers
4G/3G Mobile Connectivity No
Backlit Keyboard Yes
Touchscreen No
2-in-1 No
Weight 2.2 Kg
Special Features Intel Core i5-7300HQ / 2.5 GHz (3.5 GHz Turbo) Quad Core Processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 2GB GDDR5 Dedicated Graphics, Backlit Keyboard, Battery Up to 11 hours

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[FurryLemon]

That's really cheap.

I have a similar spec machine for astronomy and it cost me 800 I think. Only difference being 256gb ssd +1td HDD, 1050 4gb and RGB keyboard.

 

[Bellboy]

Cheers. Have picked it up today and had a quick play around (sadly other now duties call) but it looks pretty nice on first glance, sleek and much lighter & quieter than my current laptop. Then again I'm coming from a relatively low base! Look forward to testing it properly when I have a chance. Pretty happy so far.

 

[mr_jase]

I'm in the same boat as you, looking for a laptop, can I ask where you found that one? As that sounds like great spec for a decent price.
I think I know which company, (indian meal).co.uk (first time posting, so guessing links to sites aren't allowed).
Did you find it in-store or online?

 

[Bellboy]

You are correct, it was a clearance deal though so all gone I'm afraid. Although you could try calling to see if there were any returns. There was also an i7 version for the same price (I missed the boat on that one) - named 15-bc251na.

 

[mr_jase]

Thanks for that, yeah did a bit more looking, was posted on hotukdeals, and of course lots of people buy more than 1 and are now selling them on the fleabay for £625 at cheapest.
Oh well.

 

[Bellboy]

Sadly too many vultures floating around!