Help needed to choose a good laptop!

Forums › Laptops and mobile computers › Help needed to choose a good laptop!

cseb96

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Wannabe Geek

#174913 10-Jun-2015 15:36

Whats up guys, I am a first year comp sci student and am in need of a reliable and powerful laptop. Don't have enough budget to buy a gaming laptop. My minimum to maximum budget is approx. 800 $ to 1000$. Could you guys help me with good suggestions as me myself am not that knowledgeable about good laptops in the current market.

Thanks

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#1322260 10-Jun-2015 15:45

What do you need to do on your laptop?

cseb96

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Wannabe Geek

#1322265 10-Jun-2015 16:02

Basic uni works, processing tools like Photoshop and able to play at least 2014 games on medium settings. Please correct me if I am asking too much on the gaming power. What are your opinion on this laptop - http://www.justlaptops.net.nz/acer-15-6-gaming-quad-core-8g-1t-sshd-r7-m265-2gb-3251

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#1322306 10-Jun-2015 16:35

The price "sweet spot" for laptops is about $1,200 in NZ.

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timmmay

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#1322307 10-Jun-2015 16:39

Why does it need to be a laptop? Do you need to move it around?

That laptop's specs look ok. It will boot quickly because of the small flash cache, but nothing else will be that fast. Photoshop will run fine I think. It's CPU is 1/3 the speed of my 4-5 year old desktop PC, but it's faster than the budget laptops.

I personally like Asus and Lenovo laptops. I have a Toshiba ultrabook through work which is great, but I suspect it's $2k+.

cseb96

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Wannabe Geek

#1322330 10-Jun-2015 17:25

Yea, if it was a desktop PC I could have built a really good one around my budget, but I am looking for something portable that I can bring to uni. Thanks for your insight and will definitely look into more Lenovo and Asus laptops.

cseb96

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Wannabe Geek

#1323163 12-Jun-2015 08:40

I've found two laptops that fit almost all my criteria.
They are http://www.justlaptops.net.nz/acer-15-6-gaming-quad-core-8g-1t-sshd-r7-m265-2gb-3251 and http://pricespy.co.nz/product.php?p=2971800. Could you guys please tell me which one would be better for me. And if you have any other better suggestions at this price range, that’s all good as well. Thanks

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timmmay

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#1323207 12-Jun-2015 09:11

If you make it easy for people to help you you'll get more help. Link directly to specificions, not prices.

Asus is better brand IMHO, but the Acer has better specs. Asus has i5 which is better, but the Acer has 8GB RAM and a hybrid disk. RAM is good.

lxsw20

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#1323240 12-Jun-2015 10:12

They both have rubbish screens but you're not likely to do any better in your price range. I would never buy anything that was 1366 x 768 res.

cseb96

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Wannabe Geek

#1323241 12-Jun-2015 10:14

Sorry. New to this forums.

Here's the specs for the Acer laptop
-----------------------------------------

Acer Aspire E5-551G series notebook http://www.justlaptops.net.nz/acer-15-6-gaming-quad-core-8g-1t-sshd-r7-m265-2gb-3251

- Quad Core AMD A8-7100B processor 1.80GHz, with Turbo CORE Technology up to 3.0GHz 4MB Cache
- AMD Radeon R7 M265 2GB Dedicated Gaming Graphics
- Default 8GB DDR3 memory
- Default 1TB SSHD drive(1TB Hard Disk w/8GB SSD buffer)
- Windows 8.1 64 Bits

And here's the specs for the Asus Laptop
----------------------------------------------

Asus X555LD http://pricespy.co.nz/product.php?e=2971800

Processor: Intel i5-4210U Dual Core 1.7 Ghz
Memory: 4GB DDR3-1600 RAM
Hard Drive: 750GB 5400rpm
GeForce 820M 2 GB
DDR3 4GB RAM
Windows 8.1

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#1323253 12-Jun-2015 10:55

lxsw20: They both have rubbish screens but you're not likely to do any better in your price range. I would never buy anything that was 1366 x 768 res.

+1 Screen resolution is important.

The Acer is described as a "gaming" laptop.
This is pure marketing BS.
You are not going to get a gaming PC in your budget range.

You can get a decent general-purpose laptop for about $1,200.
Gaming laptops cost a lot more than $1,200.

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MikeB4

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#1323277 12-Jun-2015 11:26

The display on the Acer is "Display: 15.6" HD 1366 x 768 " in my experience that resolution on a 15" display is disappointing and makes using it for reading text and word processing uncomfortable and irritating to the eyes.
You mention Photoshop in your Apps you use, photos will look bad. If you can get a 1080 screen

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

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#1323279 12-Jun-2015 11:33

lxsw20: They both have rubbish screens but you're not likely to do any better in your price range. I would never buy anything that was 1366 x 768 res.

Surely the quality of the display is more important than the res. Admittedly , chances are cheap lappies will be lower quality display anyway :-)
The older 15' lappy on my desk has a beautyfull display, yet only 1280x800 . In fact, it seems nicer than some slightly higher res displays on newer lappies.

On 15" , why the need for super high res if its primary use word be just browsing & email & possibly MS Word.
or is it just the oddball 1366x res you dont like ?

Just wondering ..

cseb96

7 posts

Wannabe Geek

#1323814 13-Jun-2015 08:42

Lot of you guys are telling me that my budget is too small to buy a decent laptop. So can u suggest me a decent one at around 1200$.

These are my ideal specs
-------------------------------
Intel i5 or i7
256GB SSD / 1 TB HDD
4-8 GB RAM
1-2 GB Graphics Card

Atm I'm considering these two laptops
---------------------------------------------

1) HP Pavillion 15-P235TX http://pricespy.co.nz/product.php?e=2956335

Intel Core i7 5500u
15.6
1366*768
8 GB Ram
2 GB Geforce GT 840m
1 TB 5400 rpm HDD

2) Asus P550LDV-XX1024G http://pricespy.co.nz/product.php?e=2945463

Intel Core i5 4210u
15.6
1366*768
8 GB Ram
2 GB Geforce 820m
1 TB 5400 rpm HDD

By specs alone i think HP's better but some of you guys have the opinion that ASUS is a better brand. Could you clarify why and suggest any other Laptop that's within my price range (<1200) or pick between these two?

Thanks

Again sorry if I am asking for too much and you guys have been really helpful. :)

khull

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#1323826 13-Jun-2015 09:09

Speaking from compsci experience I recommend:

SSD - nothing worse than waiting for compile to finish
8GB ram - text editors jvms IDEs multiple browser sessions API references will quickly fill up
Forget i7 - by the time you reach stage 3 to deal with rendering or AI, specs would have moved considerably. Even i3 would sort your first year out
You can't afford dedicated graphics on your budget so either increase it or leave it out

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#1323846 13-Jun-2015 09:58

khull: Speaking from compsci experience I recommend:

SSD - nothing worse than waiting for compile to finish
8GB ram - text editors jvms IDEs multiple browser sessions API references will quickly fill up
Forget i7 - by the time you reach stage 3 to deal with rendering or AI, specs would have moved considerably. Even i3 would sort your first year out
You can't afford dedicated graphics on your budget so either increase it or leave it out

+1 Godd advice.

SSD makes a huge difference - but is expensive
i7 is complete overkill and outside your budget - and gives lousy battery life. Suggest i3 or i5
dedicated graphics - is complete overkill and outside your budget

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