Core i3 or i5 Laptop, with good build quality - Minecraft, light video editing, imagine editing... e

UKFX · 30 Sep 2011 at 15:12

I've been looking around for a laptop for ages... checked Minecraft wiki last night, apparently, though the Core i5 2410m runs miles better than the Core i3 2310m, with the Core i5 and Intel HD 3000 graphics at 1366x768, Minecraft runs awful. Like 15-25fps maximised. Can somebody please point out why? Perhaps it's driver related?

My current PC, can play BFBC2 on Medium-High at 1680x1050, no problem at all (50-100fps depending on location/goings on), but I want to downgrade to a Notebook with good speakers, good keyboard/screen, good reliability and good build quality overall, but can handle Minecraft at least well... I mean wow, I never thought it'd be that heavy. I thought MC was made to run on as many machines as it could. Turns out, MC requirements are... spend £600 instead with a dedicated graphic card just for a indie game.

My initial budget was £600, but I've decided the highest I can go is £500, but really I'd like to spend no more than £450. Build quality, speakers and some portability (occasional travel) is essential to me. I also don't want burnt legs.

I was looking at the Lenovo Z570 with Core i3 2310m (seen 2410m laptops but figured same price point would mean worse off build quality), which got great reviews in the quality department, but after finding out that the significantly faster 2410m with HD 3000 graphic struggled on Minecraft, I was shocked, an now I'm back at square one. I was really set on it.

Please help, I'll make a purchase soon, so I need to be certain.

Edit: No Dell outlet.

DotA · 30 Sep 2011 at 17:09

Can you tell us how much ram you have please.

Having taking a look at some hardware performance tests it looks like people with a dedicated GPU such as the nvidea 520 do a lot better then the HD 3000, this is probably as they have more vram to play with and higher clocks that the HD 3000 just cant compete with.

What size laptop do you want?

reflux · 30 Sep 2011 at 17:12

No Dell Outlet?

Awwwww

Was just gonna recommend you a lovely machine with a Core i5 and GT 525m for £422

DotA · 30 Sep 2011 at 17:18

Dont do that, im waiting for my loan to kick in so i can get that one

lol

Chay525 · 30 Sep 2011 at 18:14

Do the dell refurb's come with a new battery or just the one that was originally shipped? just wondering because of battery life going down over time etc..

UKFX · 30 Sep 2011 at 21:17

reflux said:
No Dell Outlet?

Awwwww

Was just gonna recommend you a lovely machine with a Core i5 and GT 525m for £422

13.3 screen up to 15.6, but no higher or lower than those. Preferably 15.6inch screen though, I find it is the best balance. I do like a decent lifetime of battery, I can't deal with one hour, I think by todays standards that is utterly pathetic.

I went on outlet earlier I didn't find anything for £422, an Dell support is just about as good as no support, unless you have business, right? Or so I've been told on this forum once or twice. Besides, unless it's XPS, it's not going be good in build quality.

All rounder is good. I don't want exceptional graphics but poor audio, or great audio an a dodgy screen, or flimsy keyboard or flexing.

If I can get an outlet laptop, a scratch or dent must be like 0.1mm, in length otherwise those clowns shouldn't be selling stuff in the 100's. So long as it's minor.

Laptop life literally needs to last me 4 years, so I need reliability and build quality.

An yes, Chay's question was good. Battery, dodgy old, falling apart battery is not great.

I still don't understand why everyone here at OCUK love Dell Outlet so much ^^

But yes, this Antec 1200 is far too big, an the monitor and keyboard... errgh, too much space. I like to move about.

So long as I can do light gaming, have decent portability, good audio, good everything then... I'll be happy. I'm not looking for perfect in every department, but good in everything must be doable.

Thanks guys! (apologies for my old macdonald had a farm thread, that was a Notebook for £450 thread but no one took notice, an I changed my mind in needing help... now it seems I'm in a bit of a hurry lol)

UKFX · 30 Sep 2011 at 21:38

DotA said:
Can you tell us how much ram you have please.

Having taking a look at some hardware performance tests it looks like people with a dedicated GPU such as the nvidea 520 do a lot better then the HD 3000, this is probably as they have more vram to play with and higher clocks that the HD 3000 just cant compete with.

What size laptop do you want?

13.3" - 15.6", no more, no less. Prefer 15.6", plus good build quality and reliability. Good audio and keyboard important. RAM would be 4GB. I'd imagine the most MC would use when using higher res texture packs would be 1GB. I know that because I set that option in the MC patcher when I ran 128x128 texture packs. In default, I think MC only uses up to 512mb. Could be wrong. It doesn't have to be a powerful laptop, but just play MC an a few other old games at 1366x768, at least better than 15-25fps, which is very naff.

UKFX · 1 Oct 2011 at 15:23

Hello? :|

reflux · 1 Oct 2011 at 18:50

UKFX said:
I went on outlet earlier I didn't find anything for £422, an Dell support is just about as good as no support, unless you have business, right? Or so I've been told on this forum once or twice. Besides, unless it's XPS, it's not going be good in build quality.

It's the XPS L502x you want. They disappear very quickly because they are so cheap. There are some on their atm. The price listed does not include VAT or shipping, but shipping is free atm.

UKFX said:
If I can get an outlet laptop, a scratch or dent must be like 0.1mm, in length otherwise those clowns shouldn't be selling stuff in the 100's. So long as it's minor.

Laptop life literally needs to last me 4 years, so I need reliability and build quality.

Each one says whether it's scratch/dent or certified refurbished (which iirc means it's just a return).

UKFX said:
An yes, Chay's question was good. Battery, dodgy old, falling apart battery is not great.

I don't know about the batteries, but they should be fine... each machine gets a year's warranty as standard anyway which is upgradable iirc.

UKFX said:
I still don't understand why everyone here at OCUK love Dell Outlet so much

Cos it's very very very cheap. I got an XPS L502x for £600 with Core i7, 8GB of RAM and GT540m... goes for around £900 new.

Andrei23 · 1 Oct 2011 at 20:51

Just get a Thinkpad Edge 525 with a AMD A8-3500M for £465 and you should be good.

UKFX · 1 Oct 2011 at 21:43

I'd of got this - http://h40059.www4.hp.com/uk/homelaptops/product.php?id=LX272EA&experience=direct if MineCraft played well with the Intel HD 3000 graphics, but sadly not. The build quality is great, the screen is great, the speakers. I know because my Grandad has had many HPs and they are well made, an well laid out. Kind of annoying really. I doubt I'll get that elsewhere.

Thinkpad Edge? I've checked Lenovo, I've heard their build quality is pretty good n all, but didn't notice anything worth it when googling their products for prices. Maybe I didn't look hard enough.

I'll take a look at it now. I'll get back to ya'll!

UKFX · 1 Oct 2011 at 22:26

I like AMD. They suck for Linux, so there's never any hope of dual booting in the future, which isn't a big deal I guess, because I tend to get bored of Linux's lack of decent functionality with whatever I use - even if it has improved over the years. My current PC is a Phenom II X4 955BE 3.2ghz on, Crosshair III Formula, with 4GB Corsair Dominator 1600mhz DDR3 (@ 1333mhz), with 1GB XFX Radeon HD 4870 (GDDR5 256bit), which is good. But that processor has no L3 cache, which sucks.

My thoughts would be that in terms of Minecraft, that processor you mentioned would perform similarly to the Intel 3000 HD that the 2410m has. Was there any other reason you suggested it other than price?

The base clock is a bit rough though. Assuming this increases battery life, an the thinkpad edge has speakers which don't distort if you turn them up (nothing makes you more disappointed than hearing rumbling an cracking, when you turn a pair of cheap speakers up a bit). According to notebook check the screen is a bit naff, but as expected the workmanship is high.

Hmmm. Too many choices. Why can't decisions be simple... oh that's right... I'm not rich. My bad.

lol

UKFX · 2 Oct 2011 at 00:04

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Hardware_performance

Might get the HP after all. Assuming it really does run like that on MAX settings, at Maximised. Be disappointed otherwise. Bought Minecraft in February, fantastic game, be a real annoyance if I get a new laptop, an it doesn't run well, only then having to wait another 4-5 years before I can actually replay it comfortably.

Couldn't find A8-3500m at a reasonable price. Came across a A6 at £460 though, an a lower A6 at £420.

Hmm... tough choices.

Andrei23 · 2 Oct 2011 at 01:15

the integrated gfx in the A8-3500 will smash the intel hd 3000, hence the reason I recommended it to you

UKFX · 2 Oct 2011 at 06:03

Yes but for the A8-3500, I couldn't find a friendly price.

According to one guy with the Core i5 2410m, an Intel HD 3000, he got 80-100fps, by getting the Java 64 executable. As far as I've been aware, I've always used that, an when using the MC Patcher for Minecraft Mods, it always had an option to extend the usable memory to 1024mb. On my relatively beefy rig here anyway.

It says on the HP page here... http://h40059.www4.hp.com/uk/homelaptops/pdf/g6-1155sa_ds_ene.pdf - Up to 1.66GB for the GPU. Leaving me with 2.3GB to play with. Assuming the guy wasn't lying to make himself happy over his own purchase, then this isn't that bad. On the Minecraft Wiki Performance Page, those are user submitted, so I'm not sure if it's accurate.

I won't pay extra, or sacrifice on quality/sturdiness, for the sake of a few extra games. Sims 3, Sim City 4, Stalker Collection and Oblivion can just sit on the shelf for another 4-5 years lol.

Where can I supposedly get this A8-3500 for super cheap. I'm genuinely intrigued.

Thanks for your help so far.

UKFX · 2 Oct 2011 at 12:27

Really starting to wish I hadn't read the horror stories of HP support...

...great.

So it still holds true about Toshiba and Asus. Marvellous. Reliable and good support, but their laptops cost more.

Oh joy.

Andrei23 · 2 Oct 2011 at 19:48

It's very easy to find, go to the lenovo uk website, select a thinkpad edge 525, customise it with the A8-3500, profit....

UKFX · 2 Oct 2011 at 20:33

What's the build like? Are the speakers any good? Anti Glare or Vibrant View? I'll obviously be picking 6GB RAM, 2GB these days isn't enough.

1.5Ghz for Minecraft. :| - MC is utilised by one core, if I am not mistaken. That'd result in it running like a 3 legged dog, right? :|

I agree though, definitely get more for your money getting a Thinkpad Edge, even with 6GB of RAM, 5400 RPM drive, an processor with decent integrated graphics, but the base clock speed is concerning, likewise is the speaker audio quality.

Andrei23 · 2 Oct 2011 at 20:36

UKFX said:
What's the build like? Are the speakers any good? Anti Glare or Vibrant View? I'll obviously be picking 6GB RAM, 2GB these days isn't enough.

1.5Ghz for Minecraft. :| - MC is utilised by one core, if I am not mistaken. That'd result in it running like a 3 legged dog, right? :|

I agree though, definitely get more for your money getting a Thinkpad Edge, even with 6GB of RAM, 5400 RPM drive, an processor with decent integrated graphics, but the base clock speed is concerning, likewise is the speaker audio quality.

the cpu has turbo boost, it goes much higher than that don't worry

build quality is generally good on lenovo laptops, I've owned a couple and I can vouche for it. The speakers are not really outstanding although i have't owned that model so I don't know what they are like for sure. I would go for anti glare personally but vibrant view works -and has better colour reproduction - if you don't work in direct sunlight a lot

UKFX · 2 Oct 2011 at 21:24

Yeah I listen to a lot of music, so speakers which don't crackle or sound tinny would be nice, even more so if it's turned up a bit (ok not that much music but I like good sound, bad sound is distracting). Nothing more disappointing than paying hundreds of quid to hear poor quality. I'd of got the HP DV6-1155SA but apparently HP support is just dreadful. Toshiba and ASUS have been doing great for years, in reliability and customer support, but their laptops cost more. Scary stuff.

Yeah I've heard a lot about Lenovo's build quality. They always use 'rock solid', 'reliable', 'well-built' claims quite boldly, an I haven't heard many say otherwise, so that's nice to know.

I know gloss screens can be a pain in the ass but that fabric-type anti-glare stuff tends to get dirty and dulls the colours.

Is there even such a manufacturer which at least scores a 7.5/10 in each category, including reliability and support, for a reasonable price? It seems one company or another misses at least, a few things. Like yay awesome speakers, OH NO, terrible keyboard, or flexing. or WOW amazing screen, an oh no it burns ya legs! etc etc, an so it continues. lol

In regards to turbo boost, is that not based on temperature and current usage? The max boost being limited to one core? :| - What is the turbo speed over the 4 cores? - I would be very disappointed if Minecraft run terribly since it's pretty much the only game I want to play.

Thanks again for your help. I do appreciate the help.

Also, how long are those insane web prices about for? According to the Lenovo UK site, picking the Thinkpad Edge 525, A8-3500, 6GB of RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium, 5,400rpm 320 drive, 720p webcam and 3 year warranty, it's about £507. Saving like £480. I'm sure it's an exaggeration on there part, but I'm at least 2-3 weeks from ordering a laptop anyway. I just wanted to be certain of my choices.