Affordable laptop recommendations: budget £350-£450
- Thread starter psycherelic
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scifisam
feck! arse! girls! drink!
I disagree. The hybrids ed's been recommending seem to be, when you look at their spec, low-end tablets that connect well with a keyboard.
This is a thread about laptops. Would you buy a 64gig laptop with terrible ram, a tiny keyboard and a tiny screen, all just because you can detach the screen from the base now and then? Yes? Then if you want that, you're not looking for a laptop.
It can go on your lap, yes, but it can also go on your desk. It's the new 64gig desktop pc! With none of the functionality you actually want, but you can remove the screen!
That would be as absurd as calling these hybrids "laptops."
editor
hiraethified
The bit you're singularly failing to understand is that for some people something like the Transformer 100 will prove to be a perfectly adequate laptop for their needs, as well as being a tablet. It comes with a full version of Office for a start and can run Photoshop CS6. And some people may like that dual functionality. I certainly would.
Obviously it's not for people who are seeking high powered machines or big screens or are looking to write a novel, but for basic computing it's definitely worthy of a recommendation as an alternative to the usual laptops, regardless of whether you personally can see the attraction or not.
editor
hiraethified
Th exact specs are a bit woolly but this looks a good machine for £350 - touchscreen 11.6" 1366 x 768 pixel multitouch display, powered by an ‘Intel Quad core Pentium processor’ and backed by 8 GB memory and 128GB Solid State Disk
http://www.wirefresh.com/acer-trave...ttractive-touchscreen-ultraportable-from-349/
http://www.wirefresh.com/acer-trave...ttractive-touchscreen-ultraportable-from-349/
scifisam
feck! arse! girls! drink!
Can someone please suggest an actual laptop on this thread for laptop suggestions?!
I suggested one several posts up. I don't know if it's the best ever, but it's pretty good. The ram makes it worthwhile.
It doesn't come with pre-loaded full office software, but I have a licence for that from my old PC that I can legally use on this one.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
It's not so easy to just suggest a laptop these days.
Five years ago, there were:
Netbooks - cheap and small. laughably slow.
consumer laptops - cheap and heavy. reasonably powerful.
business laptops - smaller, lighter, powerful, expensive. screens that actually don't suck.
(I'm leaving portable workstations out of this, they're not "laptops" as most people see them)
It's a lot more complex now. The Netbook class is powerful enough for a lot of tasks, though still immensely less powerful than even a basic i3 equipped model. They've become as expensive as the cheaper consumer laptops to compensate. The Acer above is an example of this new breed.
Consumer laptops have hardly changed, except that they're now grossly powerful machines. Integrated graphics is powerful enough to run many games with good results - one thing that really separates them from the netbooks. Sadly they've not got any lighter, nor have their screens got any better.
Business units have split into the super small and light (MBA, Ultrabook) segment and the standard business unit segment. They cost the same, the the MBA-alikes sacrifice speed and flexibility to be super thin and light. These units now represent the high-end of consumer units as well.
I'll take a moment here to point out that Intel sells a Pentium and a Pentium Quad Core. Bizarrely, the Pentium (which is a dual core unit) is considerably more powerful. The PQC is what used to be called an "Atom" and is designed for tablets and netbooks. The regular, dual core Pentium is designed for laptops and desktops. I believe in a threaded CPU benchmark they come off as being in the same league, but there are caveats to that:
- The dual core Pentium has a vastly more powerful graphics unit onboard.
- In situations of equal theoretical performance, it is almost always better to have half the number of cores running twice as fast. This is because the real world doesn't thread so well.
Five years ago, there were:
Netbooks - cheap and small. laughably slow.
consumer laptops - cheap and heavy. reasonably powerful.
business laptops - smaller, lighter, powerful, expensive. screens that actually don't suck.
(I'm leaving portable workstations out of this, they're not "laptops" as most people see them)
It's a lot more complex now. The Netbook class is powerful enough for a lot of tasks, though still immensely less powerful than even a basic i3 equipped model. They've become as expensive as the cheaper consumer laptops to compensate. The Acer above is an example of this new breed.
Consumer laptops have hardly changed, except that they're now grossly powerful machines. Integrated graphics is powerful enough to run many games with good results - one thing that really separates them from the netbooks. Sadly they've not got any lighter, nor have their screens got any better.
Business units have split into the super small and light (MBA, Ultrabook) segment and the standard business unit segment. They cost the same, the the MBA-alikes sacrifice speed and flexibility to be super thin and light. These units now represent the high-end of consumer units as well.
I'll take a moment here to point out that Intel sells a Pentium and a Pentium Quad Core. Bizarrely, the Pentium (which is a dual core unit) is considerably more powerful. The PQC is what used to be called an "Atom" and is designed for tablets and netbooks. The regular, dual core Pentium is designed for laptops and desktops. I believe in a threaded CPU benchmark they come off as being in the same league, but there are caveats to that:
- The dual core Pentium has a vastly more powerful graphics unit onboard.
- In situations of equal theoretical performance, it is almost always better to have half the number of cores running twice as fast. This is because the real world doesn't thread so well.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
There's a huge selection in the £350-450 range, so it's not all about the specs. i3 is worth it over Pentium, i5 probably not worth it over i3. Any current generation i3 (named i3-4xxx) is much the same as any other, so long as they don't have a U or Y at the end. Those are for ultra-portables and have severe speed restrictions to reduce heat and power draw. 8GB of RAM is standard these days. Beyond that, go with what you like.
Personally, I would find the cheapest i3/8GB I could in a package that's not abominable to use or look at. Then spend whatever I saved over a nicer one on a 256GB SSD disk. Those are under £100 these days, and really make the biggest difference to system responsiveness you can buy. The difference inside an application is negligible, but it just makes everything so *smooth*. If you can find a laptop already equipped with one for under £450 that's great, but most of the manufacturers are still chasing specs and would rather put in a 750GB-1TB spinning disk because it looks bigger (and is a bit cheaper).
Edit: The i3 U class aren't really so bad. It looks like a lot of them are put in to get reasonable battery life. I'd prefer one that's not, but it's not crippling.
Personally, I would find the cheapest i3/8GB I could in a package that's not abominable to use or look at. Then spend whatever I saved over a nicer one on a 256GB SSD disk. Those are under £100 these days, and really make the biggest difference to system responsiveness you can buy. The difference inside an application is negligible, but it just makes everything so *smooth*. If you can find a laptop already equipped with one for under £450 that's great, but most of the manufacturers are still chasing specs and would rather put in a 750GB-1TB spinning disk because it looks bigger (and is a bit cheaper).
Edit: The i3 U class aren't really so bad. It looks like a lot of them are put in to get reasonable battery life. I'd prefer one that's not, but it's not crippling.
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emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
My laptop seems to be on its way out and I will have a bit of extra cash floating around in October so plan to buy a new one around then. It's a bit early in the day but have been having a quick look around to get an idea of prices and what is available. I though of getting a hybrid but have settled on a proper full laptop, and now I am torn between being practical and getting something in £4-500 range or pushing the boat out and spending around £8-900, which will be about the absolute upper limit I can afford, and to be honest would probably be a bit unnecessary for me. But those choices can wait until nearer the time.
I have come across this company and have spent ages playing around as you can configure your own laptop which I find quite appealing and the prices look reasonable to me. so I am thinking of buying from them in October. A bit of goggling tends to turn up positive reviews, although mainly on their own forums. I was wondering what the more tech savvy of you think, do they look decent, or am I better of going somewhere else?
I have come across this company and have spent ages playing around as you can configure your own laptop which I find quite appealing and the prices look reasonable to me. so I am thinking of buying from them in October. A bit of goggling tends to turn up positive reviews, although mainly on their own forums. I was wondering what the more tech savvy of you think, do they look decent, or am I better of going somewhere else?
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
What do you do that needs a 5000 quid laptop.
This looks good value.
Toshiba Satellite C55 Notebook, 15.6" Intel® Core™ i5-4200M 2.6, 3.2GHz £400 at staples
Toshiba Satellite C55 Notebook, 15.6" Intel® Core™ i5-4200M 2.6, 3.2GHz £400 at staples
maomao
普費斯
I got a desktop from them 3 years ago and was very very happy with it. Still running with no problems.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Hopefully the Satellite range has got over the issue of screen death (caused by useless flexible connectors) that it suffered a few years ago!
fractionMan
Custom Title
I just bought my dad a samsung ativ book 9 lite for £380. It's a great little laptop for those looking for a cheap 13.3 inch ultra portable. The screens not the best and the processor isn't super speedy but it's great for the money. 128 SSD, 4g ram, 13.3 inch touchscreen and 5 hours real life battery. 8 seconds boot from cold & 1.5kg weight.
http://www.ebuyer.com/542793-samsung-ativ-book-9-lite-np915s3g-k02uk
It's just about the only laptop in this price range with that sized screen. Last september it was 560 quid, so hefty discount on release price.
http://www.ebuyer.com/542793-samsung-ativ-book-9-lite-np915s3g-k02uk
It's just about the only laptop in this price range with that sized screen. Last september it was 560 quid, so hefty discount on release price.
bmd
Island in the stream.
I'm looking for a laptop for my daughter for college. She doesn't want Windows 8 and doesn't need a touchscreen.
What do you think of this one?
http://www.ebuyer.com/633691-lenovo-thinkpad-b5400-laptop-mb82juk#
What do you think of this one?
http://www.ebuyer.com/633691-lenovo-thinkpad-b5400-laptop-mb82juk#
discobastard
Well-Known Member
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Leno...ows_8.1_Laptop_in_Black__59414062/version.asp
Thinking about getting this. My current laptop is about 7 years old, Vista, 3GB RAM and 250GB hard drive. Disk is more or less full of music etc and while I have a backup, just worried about it failing. It's getting a bit cranky (though am using System Mechanic which is really good at keeping things in check).
I only really use it for storing music, the odd bit of Office work and sometimes I run Reason on it, which it handles reasonably well. So it does most of that fine but want something that will be more resilient for another 5 or so years to store more music, video and run some DAW stuff.
Thought it was a decent price, any views?
Thinking about getting this. My current laptop is about 7 years old, Vista, 3GB RAM and 250GB hard drive. Disk is more or less full of music etc and while I have a backup, just worried about it failing. It's getting a bit cranky (though am using System Mechanic which is really good at keeping things in check).
I only really use it for storing music, the odd bit of Office work and sometimes I run Reason on it, which it handles reasonably well. So it does most of that fine but want something that will be more resilient for another 5 or so years to store more music, video and run some DAW stuff.
Thought it was a decent price, any views?
Look at what your price range can buy in you from a decent manufacturer with an SSD drive.
editor
hiraethified
That's a very decent price.
I think the OP didn't want Windows 8 (can't blame em, it's a bit shit, it works, but it's a bit shit).
discobastard
Well-Known Member
Cheers both. Have read some bad stuff about laptops direct, and part of the price is a VATback offer from Lenovo, having looked at it properly - on their site it doesn't actually list that model as being in the promotion so I'll need to check that out properly. Does seem like a good deal for a decent spec machine, though, thanks for comments.
A couple of drive considerations. SSD is becoming the obvious option for most with the resilience and ever increasing storage mean prices are dropping quickly.
From what you've posted it seems you like some grunt (CPU&Memory) but you're work/finished product/archive etc could be stored on a potable drive.
SSD storage means no de-fragging, massively less likelihood of hard ware and keeping on tech curve of less on my machine, more in the cloud ETC.)
From what you've posted it seems you like some grunt (CPU&Memory) but you're work/finished product/archive etc could be stored on a potable drive.
SSD storage means no de-fragging, massively less likelihood of hard ware and keeping on tech curve of less on my machine, more in the cloud ETC.)
True, buts it's likely to have a longer life.
Bob_the_lost
Elsewhere
But it's also very easy to do yourself and much more economical as OEMs still tend to jack the price up more than they should for SSDs, even if they are getting better about it now.
128GB SSDs go for £50 these days if you get them in a sale, i've seen 256GBs for around £80 too.
128GB SSDs go for £50 these days if you get them in a sale, i've seen 256GBs for around £80 too.
editor
hiraethified
I tried to do it myself with my Lenovo X200. Disaster followed
discobastard
Well-Known Member
Guess I could downgrade to a 500GB drive and spend the extra on an SSD? To be honest the amount of space I use is slowing and I don't buy amounts of music anymore (most of that was my back catalogue).
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