Laptops, I know I have posted on here before, but we are about to buy 2 laptops, one is for me for my business so thats got to be a good spec and the other is for hubby and my 10 year son to share. Son would like to put minecraft on it so he can play with his brother as his older brother already has his own laptop. Hubby just needs a really basic entry level one, not expensive, its mainly for his emails (he runs a footy club), and surfing the net and a few spreadsheets. Not worried about how long the batter lasts as it will only be in the house.
I have been looking at various ones on the net and I have come across things like 'AMD A series' for processors and also Intel Celeon Dual Core, and Intel Core i5? What is the difference in all of them? I don't play games on mine, mine is purely for business and surfing the net for the old holiday of course! Hubby's one eventually our younger son will be doing his homework on it and I suppose playing a few games, although I don't expect too many. Hubby doesn't play computer games at all.
So what Processor do I go for on a basic Laptop?
Any help is always appreciated, I am not a techy person and haven't got a clue about processors, rams etc!
edit:- Hubby's Laptop don't want to spend anymore than about £300 - £350, and mine upto about £600.
thanks
-- Edited by Amanda on Saturday 22nd of September 2012 11:50:05 AM
My son is a bit techy and I used to work in IT support before going back to bookkeeping, but seem to have got left behind now...IT moves on so quickly. I would say go for an Intel Celeron Dual core rather than AMD. AMD used to be better than Intel, but apparently now it's the other way round. Also I would go for the most hard drive space, fastest processor and most RAM that you can afford...although for a basic laptop you don't need to go mad.
You have to work out what you want them for.....for a gaming laptop you'll need fast processor, lots of RAM and a good graphics card. For just doing work on you'll probably need more storage space than fast processor.
With regard to make, mine is an Acer Aspire 5720 and has been brilliant...had it 4 years now and not had any trouble (ha ha...famous last words). Dell are also good, but expensive. Don't think you can go wrong with a Toshiba or a Samsung either, but also think they are a bit more expensive. Asus are also a good name.
My laptop has an Intel dual core processor 2.2ghz, 2gb of RAM and a 160gb hard drive, although it's a bit cheeky as the hard drive is partitioned into a C drive and a D drive which reduces the space to 68gb on each one (yes I know 68 and 68 don't add up to 160, but that's what it says, and you always lose a bit on the C drive for the system info). This is more than enough for my needs.
Thanks for the info, I am going to look at an acer today for hubby, just basic one, but thats all he needs, mine you its got4gb of ram so thats more than enough for him. My sons got an acer too and he loves it.
What programmes do you run on yours for the business? And do you store alot of photos on yours?
I was looking at 4gb ones for me, but I really need to go to PC world and have a play with all of them to see what keyboard I like the best.
I haven't looked at Dell yet, maybe I'll go on their website today if I get time.
I do store some photos, but not a huge amount, not like my friend who has millions! lol She also has an Acer but I think it has more storage than mine.
I run Quickbooks Pro 2012 and Sage Instant ...can't quite remember the version now but it's a recent one. Also I have 12Pay and Moneysoft Payroll Manager. I also have Outlook, Excel, Word and Powerpoint 2003. I have recently had to delete a few programmes that were clogging up the works (mostly games that I'd downloaded) as I was running out of space on the C drive. It seems to cope with all of these pretty well, don't have too many problems with crasing or seizing up. It's been a little noisy recently, the fan keeps coming on, but I think it just needs a bit of a clean up inside...dust and fluff!
It is a good idea to go to PC World and have a play with the various keyboards, but don't buy one from there....get a better deal online. I actually got mine from Tesco Homeware...was on a special offer at the time!
keep an eye on the Dell outlet as occasionally you can hit some excellent high spec bargains where a system has been ordered and then cancelled before delivery.
If your boy wants to play games then the key is a dedicated graphics chip. With a laptop that's still going to be on the same motherboard.
Also don't get anything that says Celeron on it as that's a cut down processor.
The core i3 and i5 processors seem good value for money.
Windows 7 machines can address more than the 4gb that XP machines could so the more Ram that you can get the better.
I still prefer AMD processors and ATI Graphics but my boy likes Intel and Nvidia. We both have Dell XPS 6 cores mines AMD his is Intel. Watching them side by side his gets there faster but crashes more often. All in all though very little difference between the two.
Your not going to get DX11 support for the sort of money that you are looking at.
If your set on Acer try the 5733 I3-380 which should come in at around £400. Its going to be quite restricted for Games but should play older games and movies fine.
kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
My first proper pc was an olivetti 286dx with 80mb hdd, 4mb ram and single 3.5" floppy. I remember getting the processor upgraded, an extra 4mb ram added and a cd rom so i could move from windows 3.1 to windows 95 which i was desperate for. It installed, but it took so long to do anything that i eventually hit the big time building my first pc with a 133 mhz processor, but couldn't afford the intel so i bought an AMD.
-- Edited by kjmcculloch83 on Monday 24th of September 2012 08:25:11 PM
I've spent about 20 years in IT and have seen a lot of laptops. DELL are ok for home use, ACER I would avoid as they don't tend to be the best build quality.
At the moment Lenovo are trying to increase their market share in the UK (they are the 2nd biggest in the world) so are doing some very nice laptops for resonable prices. I bought one a few months ago and it's been brilliant, good quality, fast and long battery life (5 hours).
This model from PC World is a good spec for the price - http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/lenovo-g580-15-6-laptop-blue-14553720-pdt.html
ACER I would avoid as they don't tend to be the best build quality.
Awww....in defence of Acer...my laptop is very well built and has been going for over 4 years now....ok, the battery has gone nearly and I've gone through two power packs, but apart from that it's taken everything I've thrown at it....lol
I found my Acer to be very good too. I had a Fujitsu that lasted about 2 years before the screen went, the card reader failed and the keyboard died.
I think for basic stuff, office work, emails, a bit of surfing any current machine will do. In fact my office machine is about 5 years old with slightly upgraded ram and an external harddrive and does everything i need of it, including graphics work.
Paul wrote:At the moment Lenovo are trying to increase their market share in the UK (they are the 2nd biggest in the world) so are doing some very nice laptops for resonable prices.
Hi Paul,
They were better when they were IBM though.
With Dell you need to seperate them into two strands. The home/student laptop and the business/gaming laptops.
It was always a case the Inspirons were for the home and Latitudes were for business. XPS laptops just take that to the next level for build quality and dependability.
That said, I always buy high end Toshiba's as Laptops and Dells as Desktops largely because the Tosh's are as good as the equivalent Dells but cheaper.
As for makes that I wouldn't buy... probably just Advent, Gateway and HP. The last of those because not overly impressed with the screen quality rather than any dependability issues.
kind regards,
Shaun.
p.s. you must have started off with PCs at about the same time as me. My first two were a TIKO 386 dx with 90mb hard drive and 5.25 inch discs. The Laptop was a Toshiba T120 FB with twin floppies and no hard drive. Unbelieveably they cost £2k a piece! You couldn't give them away as doorstops now.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
And I bet like myself Kris you thought 80/90mb nobody could ever fill up that amount of space!
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Been looking at some of the reviews on these laptops, and they are quite good. For me I would want a 17 inch one, I have a 17 inch Toshiba at the mo and thats a good size. Anyone on here over bought a Lenovo?
They sold off the PC arm of the business to the chinese multinational Lenovo.
When they were IBM laptops they were expensive but the build quality was second to none.
Supposedly they are the same machines with different branding and business seems to have embraced the lenovo brand well.
I've got an IBM laptop, not got a Lenovo version of it so I'll leave it to others to say whether the build quality is as good as it once was.
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
p.s. you must have started off with PCs at about the same time as me. My first two were a TIKO 386 dx with 90mb hard drive and 5.25 inch discs. The Laptop was a Toshiba T120 FB with twin floppies and no hard drive. Unbelieveably they cost £2k a piece! You couldn't give them away as doorstops now.
I'm showing my age but my first PC was an 8086 with no hard disk and a single 5.25 drive. Had a massive 640k RAM.
Been looking at some of the reviews on these laptops, and they are quite good. For me I would want a 17 inch one, I have a 17 inch Toshiba at the mo and thats a good size. Anyone on here over bought a Lenovo?
thanks,
Sure have, I'm writing this using my Lenovo. Was £349 for an i3, 6Gig of RAM and a 500gbyte hard disk.
The spec was very good for the price and the laptop itself feels very well built, also has a seperate numeric keypad which is very handy.
Thanks for the info Paul, I was surfing the net last night looking at them. They look very good with decent spec.
thanks
They are very good for the cash, I have a G570 (the i3 version) and it's been great, my mother in law, girlfriends sister and one of her friends all got one too as at the time they were the only i3 available for under £400.
