PaoloSanchez
Well-Known Member
What make/model?
...and how comes you didn't buy a Chromebook? Don't you know that they're taking over the whole world?
Affordable laptop recommendations: budget £350-£450
- Thread starter psycherelic
- Start date
...and how comes you didn't buy a Chromebook? Don't you know that they're taking over the whole world?
iamwithnail
Well-Known Member
It's a custom build from PC Specialist. Can you get Chromebooks with big-ass graphics cards now? *innocent face*.
I'll be dual booting this into Ubuntu (it comes with Windows) as my main development machine, so a Chromebook or similar was definitely not on the shortlist. I nearly bought a hackintosh, then realised for about the same I could get a brand new fairly top line machine.
I'll be dual booting this into Ubuntu (it comes with Windows) as my main development machine, so a Chromebook or similar was definitely not on the shortlist. I nearly bought a hackintosh, then realised for about the same I could get a brand new fairly top line machine.
PaoloSanchez
Well-Known Member
To be fair, you can also dual boot Ubuntu with ChromeOS on a Chromebook (although I'm not sure why anyone would want to do that), and as for the graphics, well for the same price as your beast you could have bought 5 or 6 chromebooks and set up some kind of parallel processing supercomputer. Looks like you missed out on an opportunity. (*tongue planted firmly in cheek*)
Sounds like you've got yourself a nice laptop there. I'm still using my Asus N56 i7/16gb/Geoforce GT630m which I've had for 5 years now and paid £900 for. Overall I'm happy with it and it works fine and I've never had any real issues. Battery needs replacing, and build quality is okish, but nowhere near macbook/thinkpad t levels.
No manufacturer has made my dream laptop yet, which will be a 14 inch 2 in 1 and have the best elements from Thinkpad, macbook and Surface, well screwed together and be easily dockable with the ability to have a separate graphics card in the dock.
iamwithnail
Well-Known Member
Oh, separate (affordable) graphics card would be the dream, wouldn't it? (As opposed to this fucker.) I don't need it when I'm dicking about remotely, but want it at home (for gaming) and smooth multi-screen action.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Lightweight laptop for on the go and a small desktop for at home would probably be a similar to price to such a thing if it existed.
cybershot
Well-Known Member
Nice!
PaoloSanchez
Well-Known Member
If I'm honest, I probably don't even need it at home, but I'd like to have it available should I decide to Autocad or 4k video editing or After Effects animations. I'm not sure that the GTX630 in my current laptop has had to do any real work at all in the time that I've owned it. If I do ever get around to a building a heavy lifter, it will most likely be a desktop, even though they are not as popular as they used to be, imo represent the best bang for your buck as long as you are ok with the lack of portability.
As excited as you are with your new machine, I'm still very happy with the 2 T430's that I bought for £190 each on ebay, especially with the build quality and docking station arrangement, which I think is brilliant.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
It's the small things on a desktop, like multiple hard drives.
Took me months after moving to get mine up and running. Despite being a similar vintage to my thinkpad, the performance difference is like night and day just for relatively simple tasks.
iamwithnail
Well-Known Member
I want it nowwwwwwwww. Didn't want to pay another £60 for 3 day build time though. Tomorrow will be 3 of probably 9 (working days). Arrgghhhhhh.
I was *this* (makes tiny gesture) close to buying a desktop, but I was only going to save about £100 for the same spec, which is a bit crazy. I'd rather have the portability. I probably don't need the GTX for anything work related. But it'll be nice to play Elite: Dangerous and some other stuff in 60fps HD.
I was *this* (makes tiny gesture) close to buying a desktop, but I was only going to save about £100 for the same spec, which is a bit crazy. I'd rather have the portability. I probably don't need the GTX for anything work related. But it'll be nice to play Elite: Dangerous and some other stuff in 60fps HD.
PaoloSanchez
Well-Known Member
With my current use I don't really notice any particular lack of performance, but it could be that I don't know what I'm missing. I have a single 1tb drive and use external 2tb usb drives for the various VM's and if I wanted to could replace the optical drive with an additional hard drive in a caddy. There's no doubt that a similarly priced desktop would be faster and represents the better price/performance ratio, however for me right now the sweet spot is an I5/I7 in a laptop form factor which for me has the right balance of power/flexibility and convenience. Even though I mostly use my current laptop like a desktop, 95% of the time it's on my desk plugged into an external monitor with a usb keyboard and mouse plugged in, I do like the ability to pick it up and just take it with me whenever I need to do so and have all my stuff with me in a conveniently sized package.It's the small things on a desktop, like multiple hard drives.
Took me months after moving to get mine up and running. Despite being a similar vintage to my thinkpad, the performance difference is like night and day just for relatively simple tasks.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Everyone has different needs.
For me cloud storage means that switching between machines has never been so easy and I'm increasingly finding I dont need a laptop very often. When I'm away from the home I can do 90% of what I need with a phone and tablet, so laptop comes out for the rest. Whilst part of me is drawn to form factor and price of Chromebooks, as I do relatively little with a laptop, I like the idea of doing Windows type tasks with ease when I need to.
For me cloud storage means that switching between machines has never been so easy and I'm increasingly finding I dont need a laptop very often. When I'm away from the home I can do 90% of what I need with a phone and tablet, so laptop comes out for the rest. Whilst part of me is drawn to form factor and price of Chromebooks, as I do relatively little with a laptop, I like the idea of doing Windows type tasks with ease when I need to.
PaoloSanchez
Well-Known Member
Indeed, horses for courses. I can understanding you not using your laptop that often if you already have a decent desktop machine to do the heavy lifting. I guess my laptop would be the equivalent of your desktop (albeit not as powerful), and it's great to be able to pick my "portable desktop" up and take it with me out and about with all the applications installed and files that I need. There's no way that I could do all that comfortably on a Chromebook, tablet or phone. I don't often take my laptop out with me anyway so it's mostly deskbound, however it's nice to know that I can whenever I need to.Everyone has different needs.
For me cloud storage means that switching between machines has never been so easy and I'm increasingly finding I dont need a laptop very often. When I'm away from the home I can do 90% of what I need with a phone and tablet, so laptop comes out for the rest. Whilst part of me is drawn to form factor and price of Chromebooks, as I do relatively little with a laptop, I like the idea of doing Windows type tasks with ease when I need to.
The reason that it's my sweet spot is because I can do nearly everything I need to in one machine (to rule them all). If I need a bit of power I've got it, if I want to do lightweight webby stuff consumption stuff, no problem, if I want to watch a movie in bed I can, if I want to take it on a plane, yep that too (for the moment). A good balance of power and versatility and convenience. It's not perfect, nothing is, but compared to what we had 15 years ago, it's bloody marvellous and hopefully will get even better.
Cloud storage is a wonderful thing and I use Onedrive, Dropbox, GoogleDrive and Amazon, mainly for backups of photos and documents and Onenote backup, however nothing beats having your own physical files on your own local machine especially when Virgin broadband or the wifi stops working and there's no interwebs. On top of that, even though they have improved quite a bit, web applications are on the whole nowhere near as good as native ones.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
That's a bit nuts. £500 and doesn't come with a graphics card!
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Yup. Handy for keeping machines in sync rather then relying on to always be working!
kalidarkone
Bringing YOU round.....
So I have read the last few pages of this thread and am considering:
chrome book R11
Something from the Lenova range.
I need a laptop for writing essays and researching as my little tablet does not support much...
Music/ film would be good.
I also need a laser jet printer - but I'll go to the relevant thread for that.
My budget for the laptop is £350.
Cheers babbers
chrome book R11
Something from the Lenova range.
I need a laptop for writing essays and researching as my little tablet does not support much...
Music/ film would be good.
I also need a laser jet printer - but I'll go to the relevant thread for that.
My budget for the laptop is £350.
Cheers babbers
Throbbing Angel
this is no longer a place of honour
Careful with printer choices if you get a Chromebook. They use Cloud Print Google Cloud Print
You can print from a local printer via a cable but it isn't as straight forward as you may like. I dropped lucky and already had a WiFi enabled printer which made things easier.
More:
How To Print from your Chromebook - Introduction -
https://chromeunboxed.com/usb-printing-from-a-chromebook-is-possible-and-quite-simple/
You can print from a local printer via a cable but it isn't as straight forward as you may like. I dropped lucky and already had a WiFi enabled printer which made things easier.
More:
How To Print from your Chromebook - Introduction -
https://chromeunboxed.com/usb-printing-from-a-chromebook-is-possible-and-quite-simple/
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
So I have read the last few pages of this thread and am considering:
chrome book R11
Something from the Lenova range.
I need a laptop for writing essays and researching as my little tablet does not support much...
Music/ film would be good.
I also need a laser jet printer - but I'll go to the relevant thread for that.
My budget for the laptop is £350.
Cheers babbers
When you say music and film do you mean downloading them from torrents and the like or streaming them from paid services like Spotify and Netflix. I only ask as it would massively effect your storage requirements.
editor
hiraethified
kalidarkone
Bringing YOU round.....
PaoloSanchez
Well-Known Member
I would suggest that spend a bit of time working out what you want to do with the laptop you intend to buy and then doing a bit of research before purchase. Don't just rely on advice from internet randoms.don't know how to stream
Downloading I guess.
What tablet do you currently have and what do you use it for?
If you can take a trip to your nearest Currys/PC World and get some "hands on" with cheap laptops/chromebooks and see what the staff there say.
If you absolutely must have a "2 in 1" which is basically a laptop that can sort of be used as a tablet as well or at least has a touch screen, the following would be in your budget (£150 - £450) at PC World...
2 in 1 laptops - Best 2 in 1 laptops Offers | PC World
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kalidarkone
Bringing YOU round.....
This is part of my research! also I know and trust a couple of the 'random posters' on this thread.
I use my tablet for emails and social media etc.
I need a lappy because I'm studying and need to write essays and research papers and to be able to do a power point presentation.
But yes I will go to the shop and try a few out. Cheers x
also I know and trust a couple of the 'random posters' on this thread.I use my tablet for emails and social media etc.
I need a lappy because I'm studying and need to write essays and research papers and to be able to do a power point presentation.
But yes I will go to the shop and try a few out. Cheers x
PaoloSanchez
Well-Known Member
Fair enough.This is part of my research!
I wasn't dissing your forum friends. Even if you do trust the people that you ask, you will need to be able to communicate exactly what your requirements are so that they can give reasonable advice. For example, is it important that your laptop has a touchscreen if you already have a tablet? Is it important to be able to carry your laptop around and use it out and about or will it be mostly used at a desk? Is long battery life a priority? Does the laptop have to be brand new? Those are just a few off the top of my head, you may have other things that are uniquely important to you that others might not know about when giving you advice.Laptops are definitely more convenient than tablets for typing long documents/essays.
If your assignment/essays, research papers and presentations absolutely have to be in Microsoft Word and Powerpoint, then you might be better off with a Windows laptop and you will need to include that in your budget. There are of course other free word processors and presentation software available. LibreOffice is one and GoogleDocs for Chromebooks. There is also Office Online which is free and can be used from any browser.
My daughter is in the middle of doing a degree and her assignments have to be in Microsoft Word format. Initially we were using LibreOffice Writer which is supposedly compatible with Word but there were subtle differences that just didn't quite work as required. If you haven't already, it may be an idea to check what the policy is at your university. Microsoft Word appears to be the most widely used format for assignments.
If you need to have room on your laptop for your own music and films (as opposed to streaming services like Spotify and Netflix) then you might be better off with more local storage. Chromebooks typically don't have as much local storage, so that's another thing you'll need to take into consideration. Good luck with your search.
kalidarkone
Bringing YOU round.....
I don't absolutely have to have a 2 in 1. As I have a tablet. Anyway thanks for the link.
PaoloSanchez
Well-Known Member
That's what I thought. If you don't need to have a touchscreen then you'll have a bit more choice at that budget as there are quite a few regular laptops that you can get for under £450.
kalidarkone
Bringing YOU round.....
I got an acer aspire e14 from pc world and an HP envy printer/ scanner/ photocopier.
Thanks for the advice.
They gave me macafee anti virus free as I refused to buy it and they were ' concerned'.
I have always used free avg as well as spy bot and lavatory.
Any anti viral advice?
Thanks for the advice.
They gave me macafee anti virus free as I refused to buy it and they were ' concerned'.
I have always used free avg as well as spy bot and lavatory.
Any anti viral advice?
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Along with the built in Windows defender you should be covered with those.
kalidarkone
Bringing YOU round.....
I must be getting old...... The lappy does not seem to have a dvd player.......I forgot to ask about that. It's not important.
UnderOpenSky
baseline neural therapy
Makes for more compact design. As you say, it's not important to you and most others these days. How times change. I remember paying a fair bit to add a CD drive to my first computer.
My current desktop came with no optical drive, but the drivers (including for the NIC) were in a CD. Had to scavenge a drive from an old machine, result of which is that I still have a close-to-15 years old drive in my desktop.
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