Help needed to choose a good laptop!

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timmmay

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#1323849 13-Jun-2015 10:00

Compilation deals with a lot of small files, so SSD really would help a lot. Agree that i5 is as fast as you'd need, i3 or AMD CPU probably fine.

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#1324124 13-Jun-2015 17:18

FYI, here is an example of a typical entry-level "gaming" laptop (without an SSD), discounted to $1,899: [price range $2,000 to $5,000 plus]

ASUS G501JW-DM271H 15.6" FHD 1920x1080 i7-4720HQ 8G DDR3 RAM 1TB HDD GTX960M 2G NoOpt Win 8.1

I don't think that you really need a gaming laptop for your course.

Aim lower.

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cseb96

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#1324477 14-Jun-2015 16:03

What about this laptop.

Lenovo Essential B5070 http://www.pbtech.co.nz/index.php?z=p&p=NBKLEN59434423S&qr=ec_0613_11
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specs

Intel i7-4510u 2 Ghz
8 Gig Ram
240 GB SSD
2 GB Dedicated graphics (Radeon R5 M230)
Screen size 15.6

I'm not too worried about the battery performance or the resolution, but yea, is this a good laptop?

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#1324499 14-Jun-2015 17:07

cseb96: What about this laptop.

Lenovo Essential B5070 http://www.pbtech.co.nz/index.php?z=p&p=NBKLEN59434423S&qr=ec_0613_11
-------------------------

specs

Intel i7-4510u 2 Ghz
8 Gig Ram
240 GB SSD
2 GB Dedicated graphics (Radeon R5 M230)
Screen size 15.6

I'm not too worried about the battery performance or the resolution, but yea, is this a good laptop?

Apart from the low screen resolution (which does not worry you, but would worry me), it looks good on paper, and the price is near the "sweet spot" for value.
The 240GB SSD is just big enough to be practical, and should greatly improve performance.

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Xeon

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#1324636 14-Jun-2015 21:36

Not really looking into stuffs much but if your getting a ULV processor this seems like a better deal:

http://www.pbtech.co.nz/index.php?z=p&p=NBKASU555607&name=ASUS-X555LD-Notebook-15.6-Intel-i5-4210U-4GB-1TB-G

Comparing to what you posted:

i5 4210u vs i7-4510u (Slower albeit but both ULV so the performance difference will barely be noticable - both will be fast enough for basic stuff and both will strain on intensive stuff)
4GB Ram vs 8GB
1TB HDD vs 240GB SSD
15.6" 1366x768
GT 820M > R5 M230

For $768.20, and if you really want a 240GB SSD + 4GB Ram <$200 from Amazon (+ you'd have a spare 1TB drive)
Its worse in CPU (10-20%~) and that you can't have 16GB Ram (doubt that will be the bottleneck).

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