Best laptops for less than R10,000 in South Africa

Laptops are often an essential piece of equipment for work purposes, but they can provide access to a range of entertainment, including video streaming, music, gaming, and general browsing when combined with an Internet connection.

When it comes to gaming, the entry point for a decent gaming experience is often out of reach for many. However, with Rain testing GeForce Now in South Africa, this may soon not be the case.

MyBroadband looked for the best laptops available in South Africa for less than R10,000 that meet the requirements of Nvidia GeForce Now.

The most affordable option is the Acer Aspire A315 Intel Core i3-1215U laptop with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage for R7,999 from Game.

For R1,000 more, South African residents can get an Acer Aspire 3 i3 or Acer Aspire 3 i5 laptop from Incredible or Game, respectively.

The Acer Aspire 3 Intel Core i5-1135G7 laptop from Game packs 8GB of RAM and 256GB of SSD storage.

The Intel Core i3-1005G1 version of the laptop is available from Incredible features 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive for those requiring more storage.

First Shop is selling the Lenovo V15 G4 with an AMD Ryzen 5 7520 processor for R9,899. It packs a 512GB SSD and 8GB of DDR5 RAM — the only option listed with DDR5 memory.

Several options are available for R9,999 from stores like First Shop, Takealot, Incredible, and Evetech. Each offers 8GB of RAM combined with SSD storage.

Takealot sells the Asus Vivobook 15 Intel Core i5-1235U and Asus X515 Intel Core i5-1035G1 laptops with 256GB and 512GB of storage, respectively.

From Incredible, South African residents can also get an Asus X515 laptop. However, this model features an Intel Core i7-1065G7 processor with 512GB of SSD storage.

Incredible also sells a Ryzen 7 3700U-powered Lenovo IdeaPad 3 for R9,999. It packs 8GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD storage.

First Shop is selling the Dell Inspiron 3520 15.6-inch laptop with an Intel Core i5-1135G7 for R9,999. The laptop features 8GB of DDR4 RAM and a 512GB SSD.

Evetech sells the only MSI-branded laptop on this list — an MSI Modern 14 powered by an Intel Core i5-1155G7 processor and 8GB of RAM. It features 512GB of SSD storage.

Affordable high-end gaming

Rain’s local Nvidia GeForce Now servers went live for beta testing in late September 2023.

Beta testers who are Rain customers only pay R1 per month to use the service, while non-Rain customers pay R3 monthly.

Pricing for the service post-beta has not been announced.

The Priority subscription currently in testing in South Africa is priced at $9.99 (R188) per month in the US, while Ultimate — which also seems to be planned for a local launch — costs $19.99 (R376) per month.

MyBroadband tested the Rain-Nvidia GeForce Now beta and had a near-flawless online multiplayer experience. However, the single-player experience for newer GPU-intensive titles wasn’t great.

Regarding online multiplayer gaming, we tested Counter-Strike 2 and Apex: Legends. In addition to achieving a typical pin of 4ms, there was no noticeable input lag for in-game actions.

We also tested Starfield as a new hardware-intensive title, and saw frame rates of between 15 and 22fps on maxed-out graphics at 1080p resolution.

Dropping the graphics resulted in some frame rate improvements. However, we only achieved about 20 to 25fps  on “High” and 25 to 30fps on “Medium” settings.

We also tested the service by playing Atomic Heart — an alternative history shooter and an older title — and achieved 60fps consistently with the highest “Atomic” graphics profile.

We used an Acer laptop connected via Ethernet to a 250/250Mbps fibre-to-the-home connection for our testing.

Some of the best laptops available in South Africa for less than R10,000 are listed below with specifications and pricing.

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Acer Aspire A315 i3 — R7,999 (Game)

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Acer Aspire 3 i3 — R8,999 (Incredible)

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Acer Aspire 3 i5 — R8,999 (Game)

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Lenovo IdeaPad 1 i3 — R9,249 (Makro)

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Asus M515 AMD Ryzen 7 3700U — R9,298 (Wootware)

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HP 255 G9 Ryzen 5 5625U — R9,399 (First Shop)

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HP 255 G8 Ryzen 5 5500U (8GB RAM) — R9,399 (Takealot)

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HP 255 G8 Ryzen 5 5500U (12GB RAM) — R9,699 (Takealot)

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Lenovo IdeaPad 3 i5 — R9,776 (Wootware)

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Lenovo V15 G4 Ryzen 5 7520U — R9,899 (First Shop)

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Dell Inspiron 3520 i5 — R9,999 (First Shop)

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Asus Vivobook 15 i5 — R9,999 (Takealot)

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Asus X515 i5 — R9,999 (Takealot)

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Asus X515 i7 — R9,999 (Incredible)

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Lenovo IdeaPad 3 Ryzen 7 3700U — R9,999 (Incredible)

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MSI Modern 14 i5 — R9,999 (Evetech)

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