Help me choose a laptop for chess

I am a 14 year old (almost 15) who is looking to buy a laptop for the almost sole purpose of chess.

Ideally should be fast enough to use a good engine, easy to use chessbase, watch videos (I have like 250+ hours of quality chess videos on my flash drive) use chess.com/chessable/gmail and be decent at non-chess things.

I would not like to spend too much money though, if possible less than 400-500 dollars.

What is your opinion on a reasonably priced chess laptop

P.S. I know nothing about processing power or other things on how laptops/PC's work

I have a $250 Toshiba i use for chess ,and it works fine.

The difference between lower-end and upper-end systems is going to be thinking time for the engine. Assuming you're going to be using it either to analyze your games or to play teaching games against it, you're going to be giving it a lot of time anyway, so I'm doubtful you'll notice much of a difference. A $400-500 system should do just fine for that. Watching videos, playing chess on the site, and other media/internet applications are no worry at all.

As an extra tip, buying a laptop that's been refurbished by the original manufacturer (the bold part is important) is often a good idea. These systems had something that needed fixing and got extra attention, meaning they've been looked at even closer than brand new ones, and come with the same warranties as a new one, but often have a significantly lower price.

You will get a more powerful computer for your money if you're willing to give up portability.  You have more upgrade options with a desktop. Most laptops will let you easily add RAM and swap out the hard drive. But your average desktop can take more RAM than your average laptop. And with a desktop's multiple bays, your drive options open up considerably. For instance, you don't have to choose between an SSD and a hard drive on a laptop; you can have both. Upgrading a CPU or graphics card reasonably easy tasks on a desktop are difficult to impossible (usually impossible) on a laptop.

Which brings up the issue of repair. It's easy to open up a desktop PC, check to make sure the cables are secure, clean out the dust, remove a broken part, and replace it with something generic. Laptop repair takes considerable skill, and many parts are specific to that model.

On the other hand, laptops are portable. That's a very good reason to buy one. They also use less electricity.

At first glance, desktops have an ergonomic advantage, thanks to the big screen and full-sized keyboard. But not really. At least when you're home or in the office, you can plug that screen and keyboard into your laptop.

Another option: Buy a desktop PC and a tablet. That way, you can have desktop power and more portability than a laptop can offer. The problem: You can't have both at the same time.

I HAVE A FRIKIN TRACKPAD AND I AM AT 1712 IN BULLET

Laptop doesn't matter

Anything modern will be fine.  No need to break the bank.  I doubt they even sell laptops that don't have SSD drives these days.  Those help with the overall speed of the computer and using endgame tablebases for engine analysis.

I do most of my chess on a server with dual screens.  I couldn't imagine using a laptop full time for that.

This is another good idea.  When not on my computer, I use a tablet (Nexus 9) for my chess stuff.  Lots of good apps out there for reading interactive books such as Forward Chess and Gambit Chess Studio.  I spend a lot of time on ICC using their app (chess.com app is terrible).

Usually what I end up doing is using the computer to put pgn books together, storing them on Google Drive, then using an app like Chess PGN Master on my tablet to read or play Guess the Move training.

This is actually a much better idea than using a laptop.

I just did a ton of research on different models ... there are several good review sites and I think you need to determine exactly what kind of speed, graphics, price range, etc you want to target before making your decision.  It can be a fun project, and doesn't take more than a few hours.  I chose the Lenovo Yoga 700

Good graphics, good processor.

this is what i like to do, with excellent results.

When I was 15 I could barely buy glasses or shoes to play baseball in- So what kind of brand new laptop should a 15 year old get just to play chess with? Maybe you should just look at a Nebraska Furnature Mart or Best Buy ad in the newspaper and keep quiet.

ACER Netbook is best for your money.

I make money chess coaching and with local tournaments so I can afford a laptop.

Many of the sleek laptops today don,t have a DVD drive. The irony is you pay more for these. The Mac laptop is a good example. I have a 4 year old $300 HP laptop that I use for Fritze 12 . It works fine for that DVD but not much else.

P

... and when his grandfather was 15, they got only one toy for Christmas ... and when I was 15, you could buy a 10mb hard drive for the price of a decent laptop today ... who cares?  

Maybe a lenevo one? 

Logozar,

Better get a lenevo laptop then :)

As a chess programmer, I can tell you that PCs are so fast these days that it hardly matters.

Any reasonable laptop, even a second-hand machine that's 3 years old, will run Stockfish well enough to make a grandmaster look foolish. Get a machine that you like, runs well generally (deescalator's advice about 8GB RAM is very sound!), and it should be absolutely fine for chess. Save a bit of money on the laptop to spend on books, coaching, tournament fees etc!

Yes agreed,

In India, most people have computers that laptops. (except software engineers, of course)

Windows is the only program that you can download chessbase on.