I am looking for a new laptop advice needed

Hi wigglenose,

I had made a similar topic about a year ago. I'm linking it here so you can read what others wrote. I got the laptop I mention there and the machine itself is awesome, I couldn't have wished for more, it fulfills all my needs and it is even below your price range (it was ~1200 €). Just don't buy it at the shop I linked. They have the most horrible customer support you can imagine.

For a lot of laptops you can change the ram, so maybe look for 8GB ones as well and see if and up to which amount RAM can be added. 32 GB still kinda expensive, but you can always upgrade if you feel there is a need to. If your not working with RAM intensive software like image, video, 3D editing, I see no reason to get that much.

Clickable mouse pad, usb ports, sd card slot are pretty much standard. SD card slot maybe not always in gaming laptops.
There are cheap adapters, especially for micro SD I'm kinda happy to have one.
You should make sure you also have at least one USB 3.0+ but should be standard in that price segment as well.

With 1500 £ you should be able to get a decent powerhouse. But I'm not sure about the laptop prices in the UK, maybe you want to check out some other shops in the EU as well. (Sadly don't know if there is now a tax problem)
I consider myself rather lucky, from a site not mainly for PC&Stuff (Don't want to do advertisement here but it is a big company so no shaddy shop), I got my laptop with all the specs I wanted and even paid ~200€ less than for similar products from other specialized sites.

I really would recommend a SSD + HDD combination, and set it up that stuff like pictures, music etc. are stored on the HDD by default. Windows sadly stores to much stuff on their main partition by default.

Be patient, compare, question yourself: Do I really need that? Try to resist the temptation of better specs.
That would be my tips to avoid overspending.

If you're playing a lot of AAA games, I'd recommend finding out about the cooling system as well.
Laptops can run pretty hot after a few hours of high strain on the CPU/GPU and in the (not so long) run, it will damage the cooling system.
Speaking from personal experience, that's something I didn't even consider when buying my gaming laptop and the sucker lasted me 3 years only. Now it's basically a hot plate and I can't even run games like Little Misfortune for 10 mn without the laptop shutting down from overheating.

So make sure to check the reviews for cooling system information and that the heat pads are easily accessible for repasting.

I found this site rather informative. What your gaming laptop should have ideally RTX 3060 GPU, 16 GB Ram, 144 Hz IPS display, 1 TB SSD. Right now some new models with Ryzen CPU are hitting the market which should be worth a consideration. I found the offer of Dell G5 15 for $ 1,100 interesting.

Check also for laptops with aluminum chassis. Their overall quality is much higher than those with common plastics and can handle much better the heat dissipation.

thanks again and will take all your advice onboard

There you go

not suggesting anything specific just a tip that i used when i bought mine - i bought a laptop with 8gb ram and just bought extra ram afterwards, cause all the models at that time with already 16 or 32 gb inside was more expensive than buying laptop with less ram + extra ram ;)

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/402893666499?hash=item5dce5578c3%3Ag%3ACP4AAOSwv4Ngt8df&LH_BIN=1&LH_ItemCondition=1000

is what i am looking at buying

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/402893666499 - is what i did end up buying seems pretty good for the price and can't wait to get it and start using it - thanks again peeps :)

https://skinflint.co.uk/msi-stealth-15m-a11uek-070uk-carbon-grey-9s7-156311-070-a2457614.html?hloc=uk this would be my pick with your search, to be fair, i've searched with a 1tb ssd and touchpad with seperate buttons get rare... another thing, idk if this machine does it but some msi laptops have their motherboard upside down, so upgradeability is harder because you must take the motherboard out of the chassis ... my laptop is a lenovo ideapad gaming 3 (15ARH05 [82EY00J5GE]) ... got a ryzen 5 4600h, 1650, cheapo 60hz ips panel 480gb ssd ... around 48Wh battery ... it lasts around 4 hours for videos and so 2h in games on battery

Do you need it for work/study/school as well? Do you need portability and/or need to carry it around often? Would you like one that looks like a full-blown gaming laptop or one that's a bit minimalist?