Gaming laptop deals? Best options?

[Ublondgirl]

I’m looking to get my 11 year old a laptop for gaming, mostly Minecraft. He’s playing on his switch now and wants the extra options a laptop would provide. What are the most important things to look for in a deal? Memory, RAM? I have no idea. I know there are a lot of options listed from the different ads that have been released so far and I’d like to keep it under $600 or so. Can anyone give me some guidance on this before I stumble blindly into buying the wrong thing?

[nirvana4all]

Hard drive - 512gb or bigger, SSD is quicker than HDD, but is more expensive.  SSD is becoming the standard in almost all laptops.  RAM - 8gb is the minimum now, 16gb is what I would get for a gaming laptop, but RAM is the one thing that is easiest to upgrade after purchase.  It is sometime the only thing you can upgrade after purchase in a laptop.  Definitely have it checked before purchase to make sure it can handle more RAM.

Video card - for Minecraft about any videocard will work.  For future gaming though a higher end card would be good idea. 

Here is an example: https://www.newegg.com/black-msi-gf-series-gf63-thin-11ud-261-gaming/p/N82E16834156089?Item=N82E16834156089&quicklink=true

[Ublondgirl]

This is so helpful - thanks a million!!!

[nirvana4all]

I forgot to mention - most games and software in general is going the way of download only. With that in mind and to save both room and $ most laptops do not have a CD drive.  If you have software you want to load from CD, get an external dvd drive that connects via USB.  You can get a good one from places like newegg for $30.