Cheap Laptop beater.

Jano

Jano

Jano

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Joined
31 Mar 2009
Posts
2,383
Location
Basingstoke, UK
The GF's grandparents are considering replacing their laptop, and for around the £350 mark I can come up with the following spec -

Intel Core i3 2330M 2.2GHz,
4GB RAM,
500GB HDD,
15.6" HD LED,
DVDRW,
Intel HD,
Webcam,
Windows 7 Home Premium 64

Is a full desktop system - possibly shuttle or some sort of small format (they don't really need a laptop) at a similar, if not better spec, possible at this price? It will be used for pretty basic internet browsing and the occasional light games (solitaire, suduko sort of thing), operating system, keyboard and monitor would need to be included in the price.
 
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YOUR BASKET
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.99
1 x Benq G950A 18.5" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £65.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £49.99
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D2V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £39.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020046) £36.98
1 x Intel Celeron G540 2.50GHz Socket LGA 1155 Processor - Retail £29.99
1 x Kingston Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £19.99
1 x Zalman T1 Mini Tower Case - Black £17.99
1 x Samsung SH-224BB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
1 x Gigabyte KM6150 Keyboard and Mouse Set £9.98
Total : £379.38 (includes shipping : £11.25).




£365.88 using free delivery.
 
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I don't see a system on that page that would allow the OP to stay on budget. Anyway they are all terrible systems at the really low end!
 
So it is just about doable, I'm not really clued up on lower spec offerings, I guess I'll let them know and they can decide if they want a laptop or not as I guess there wouldn't be too much between them performance wise.

Usage as above, very light internet use mainly.
 
 
I would check the drive usage on their current PC, a 64GB SSD is going to be far more useful than a 500GB/1TB drive if they only ever use about 40GB space.
 
Jano said:
So it is just about doable, I'm not really clued up on lower spec offerings, I guess I'll let them know and they can decide if they want a laptop or not as I guess there wouldn't be too much between them performance wise.

Usage as above, very light internet use mainly.
Click to expand...

The desktops should have the performance edge on the laptops due to the slightly faster processors and 7200RPM HDDs, but there will not be much in it. The extra screen size will need to be taken into consideration Vs the compact and all in one nature of the laptop.
 
Sorry, I didn't mean to steer this off topic, but I do find quite often that casual computer users don't use much space at all, the lack of computer use also means the windows folder doesn't grow in size too much. Sure you might save £20 buying the normal drive over the SSD, but 90% of the space on the drive will go to waste.

The big advantage of a SSD for these users is you can have a fairly aggressive anti virus running without it destroying the pcs performance, it also helps a great deal in those situations where they finish using the PC and want to switch it off only to be greeted with "1/15 updates installed, do not switch off", which often leads to the PC being turned off at the plug :o
 
Think i'd agree with maybe wacking an SSD in it instead of a mechanical. Its probably even worth spending a bit extra on a slightly larger SSD if a 60GB would cause space issues.

I suggested a trinity build above.
 
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