PC Laptop Buying Advice

Nug

I've never owned/used/purchased a pc as I've always had macs but am now looking for a pc laptop for my kids to use for school, some games (like Sims) etc. Was told that some of the cheaper models around £300 wouldn't cope with games and needed an i5 processor with NVIDIA GeForce 840M graphics card as a minimum. Is this correct? I started looking at an HP Envy 15-k200na for about £520. If anyone can shed some light would be much appreciated.

soapy_jones

Kids?

Go reconditioned, the cherubs will only bung it up with God knows what...

https://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/moreinfo/about/

dizzee

Don't do it. They frazzle your brain and ruin your eye sight.

Clem_Snide

Nug said:

I've never owned/used/purchased a pc as I've always had macs but am now looking for a pc laptop for my kids to use for school, some games (like Sims) etc. Was told that some of the cheaper models around £300 wouldn't cope with games and needed an i5 processor with NVIDIA GeForce 840M graphics card as a minimum. Is this correct? I started looking at an HP Envy 15-k200na for about £520. If anyone can shed some light would be much appreciated.

My daughter has an Asus with an i3 processor and 4gb of RAM. It cost £300 new and it runs the SIMS 4 absolutely fine - she spends half her life on it!

I've also run FM2015 on it with no issues.

It does absolutely everything she needs it to do and in 2 years hasn't played up once.

PL54

Just spent 200 on a reconditioned Fujitsu laptop and it's as quick as anything with just 3gb

Stu_of_Kunming

Have a look at the Dell Inspiron 15 series.

I just got one and am really, really happy with it.

i7 processor with 8gb of ram and it was only around £400.

SOTF

Sorry to hijack this thread but hopefully someone with more knowledge of this might be able to help.

I'm currently in the process of buying a laptop for a new business venture. I'm going to be 100% mobile so a typical Desktop PC won't work for me.

I'll need it to store a substantial documentation, a web based database, emails, spread sheets etc. Essentially my entire business on a Laptop.

I want it to be Windows and I'm currently looking at 12/16GB RAM. The question I have is should I get 1TB data and 8GB SSD or 2TB Data without the SSD?

Any tips or general thoughts for a technically incompetent idiot would be most welcome!

DavidCee13

Well the main benefit of an ssd is that it is a lot quicker than a hdd. Having said that 8gb isn't much so you will have to weigh up whether the extra 1TB of storage is more useful to you or the speed the ssd will give you for the few programs you will have on it.

Do you have any laptops in mind? If you want to post links to a few products I could give you my opinion.

buckshee

Macs are pcs. PC means personal computer which is a Mac or Windows.

SOTF

Thanks DavidCee13 - much appreciated.

At the moment I'm torn between the HP Envy and the Toshiba Satellite. Both have i7 processors 16GB and 2TB or 1TB and 8 SSD. The difference in price is £50.

SSD seems to really drive the price up. The cheapest I've seen so far is an Asus ZenBook Pro which is £1300 for 12GB, 1TB Data and 256GB SSD.

Does SSD really improve performance that much to justify that sort of cost?

Edit... Just seen that Dell have a new Inspiron 15 7000 Series that could be under consideration but seems it's been built for gaming.

Lazy_eye_metaphor

Lenovo IdeaPad Y series if you want a real gaming laptop

PL54

buckshee said:

Macs are pcs. PC means personal computer which is a Mac or Windows.

If I wrote that I'd get 18 flags and a very idle 'threat' to have the laptop stuck up my arse.

Snide.

DavidCee13

Had to pop out, sorry to keep you waiting

You will be fine without an SSD but it would speed up things like launching programs and would cut boot times considerably but it's more of a luxury.

You seem to have the specs you want figured out so just stick to main brands, check the likes of Sony, Lenovo, Asus, Acer, Dell, etc and compare specs and go based on what represents the best value.

It might be worth waiting to see if there are any deals to be had on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

cafcnick1992

To put the speed increase into context, an old hard drive will move a large file at approximately 80mb/s.

An SSD will move it at about 550mb/s.

A laptop with an SSD will cold boot up in about 5 seconds. Takes about 40 seconds with an HDD.

And to top it off, an SSD uses about a third less power than a HDD.

SOTF

Thanks... That's really helpful. I hadn't realised what a difference SSD will make.

cafcnick1992

An 8gb SSD partition is a bit pathetic though. The Windows installation will be bigger than 8GB so I'd question its worth.

If you can, splash the cash on an SSD. If you feel up to it, buy a laptop with a HDD and just buy an SSD off Amazon and swap them. Very easy procedure.

cafcfan

cafcnick1992 said:

An 8gb SSD partition is a bit pathetic though. The Windows installation will be bigger than 8GB so I'd question its worth.

If you can, splash the cash on an SSD. If you feel up to it, buy a laptop with a HDD and just buy an SSD off Amazon and swap them. Very easy procedure.

Out of interest, is it that easy if you've got pre-loaded Windows 10 rather than a Windows product bought direct from microsoft with a pucker product key? If the former is easy I might have a bash at converting an old PC to SSD and reloading the OS just to have a play.

DavidCee13

cafcfan said:

cafcnick1992 said:

An 8gb SSD partition is a bit pathetic though. The Windows installation will be bigger than 8GB so I'd question its worth.

If you can, splash the cash on an SSD. If you feel up to it, buy a laptop with a HDD and just buy an SSD off Amazon and swap them. Very easy procedure.

Out of interest, is it that easy if you've got pre-loaded Windows 10 rather than a Windows product bought direct from microsoft with a pucker product key? If the former is easy I might have a bash at converting an old PC to SSD and reloading the OS just to have a play.

Laptops or PCs pre-loaded with Windows should have a sticker on the machine with the product key on it. If you can find the product key then it should be the same process.

SDAddick

cafcnick1992 said:

To put the speed increase into context, an old hard drive will move a large file at approximately 80mb/s.

An SSD will move it at about 550mb/s.

A laptop with an SSD will cold boot up in about 5 seconds. Takes about 40 seconds with an HDD.

And to top it off, an SSD uses about a third less power than a HDD.

Agree, but to be honest, for what you're doing, I don't know how often you'll need to utilize that speed. I use my laptop for very similar things (Macbook with HDD) and when I've used a company Dell laptop that was SDD, I didn't find the speed made life significantly easier.*

The big thing for me would me be battery life. If you're going to be traveling a lot, that can make or ruin a journey.

*That is assuming you're not a tw@t like me and you don't leave 60+ browser tabs open of all the articles you want to read but are too lazy to bookmark.

Edit: The other investments I would look in to are portable chargers--there are all kinds. I got a $12 solar charger from a woot deal, and it's done the trick on more than one occasion. That said, not sure how well it'd work in blighty.

Also, I'd look into the portal 3G hubs. I don't know how much they are over their, but given mobile/data tends to be cheaper, I'd guess they're pretty reasonable. Again, this is going on the assumption that "mobile" means a lot of traveling, but it can come in handy for working during journeys, cloud storage, and I've had to do presentations where it had better WiFi than where I was presenting.

cafcnick1992

SDAddick said:

cafcnick1992 said:

To put the speed increase into context, an old hard drive will move a large file at approximately 80mb/s.

An SSD will move it at about 550mb/s.

A laptop with an SSD will cold boot up in about 5 seconds. Takes about 40 seconds with an HDD.

And to top it off, an SSD uses about a third less power than a HDD.

Agree, but to be honest, for what you're doing, I don't know how often you'll need to utilize that speed. I use my laptop for very similar things (Macbook with HDD) and when I've used a company Dell laptop that was SDD, I didn't find the speed made life significantly easier.*

The big thing for me would me be battery life. If you're going to be traveling a lot, that can make or ruin a journey.

*That is assuming you're not a tw@t like me and you don't leave 60+ browser tabs open of all the articles you want to read but are too lazy to bookmark.

Edit: The other investments I would look in to are portable chargers--there are all kinds. I got a $12 solar charger from a woot deal, and it's done the trick on more than one occasion. That said, not sure how well it'd work in blighty.

Also, I'd look into the portal 3G hubs. I don't know how much they are over their, but given mobile/data tends to be cheaper, I'd guess they're pretty reasonable. Again, this is going on the assumption that "mobile" means a lot of traveling, but it can come in handy for working during journeys, cloud storage, and I've had to do presentations where it had better WiFi than where I was presenting.

I couldn't disagree more. It's the everyday things that make the SSD shine. Opening word, chrome, searching through files, turning on your PC.

For me, it's night and day.

Oggy Red

What are people's experiences with 15" laptop 1920 x 1080 IPS screens.

Normally you'll find a lower resolution 1366 x768.

cafcledbury

Amazon has a deal on today for a laptop. Is this deal any good.

cafcledbury

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=gbmh_mob_s-3_2647_cc524221?rh=i:computers,n:429886031&sort=relevancerank&hidden-keywords=B012VJ0BBA|B012VJ08JA&ie=UTF8&m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&dealid=cc524221&pf_rd_p=608212647&pf_rd_s=slot-3&pf_rd_t=35801&pf_rd_i=22&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0E4ZZKBWDSD2NT15F84A

cafcnick1992

If you want something to browse the web on and run office on, it'll do the job fine. Good amount of RAM for the price.

Buy that laptop and one of these and you're laughing

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00P736UEU/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1448529279&sr=8-1&pi=SX200_QL40&keywords=samsung+850+evo&dpPl=1&dpID=41fw65-8tpL&ref=plSrch

queensland_addick

I like the look of the Asus Transformer range. You get the ssd drive in the detachable tablet part and the option to put up to a 1TB ssd or HDD in the keyboard part. Good price as well for a touch screen laptop. Only problem is that some of the bigger ones only seem to be available in the US on Amazon.

razil

am selling a used macbook air if interested pls inbox me

Oggy Red

So called Black Friday tomorrow.


Supposed to be loads of big discounts on phones and computers etc.

Anyone else thinking about buying a laptop and where to get the best deals?

Oggy Red

Anyone bought Zoostorm laptops?

They seem to have a decent HD IPS screen and separate graphics card.

But are they reliable?