Help choosing first laptop

Tachyon · 8 Apr 2012 at 08:29

Have never had a laptop and thought I'd pick one up. Just want it for browsing, watching films and if it could run something maybe like Minecraft that my son could play with. Don't really know what I'm looking for so I've been trying to muddle my way through various specs I see. Does this look any good for the price? If I was to get my budget down to maybe £500 it would be ideal but don't mind paying the price quoted in the below system if it's worth the extra.

ASUS N55SL-S2012V @ £585

Processor Intel® Core™ i5-2430M Dual Core (2.4GHz, Intel Sandy Bridge Architecture, 3MB Cache, Intel Turbo Boost up to 3GHz)
Screen 15.6" (Asus Color Shine 1600x900)
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit
RAM 6GB (DDR3 1333MHZ)
Hard Drive 500GB
Optical Drive Blu-Ray (Blu-Ray HD Play back + DVD-RW & CD-RW)
Graphics Dedicated (NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 635M with 2GB DDR Dedicated Memory)
Wireless LAN Wireless (802.11b/g/n Wireless)
Network Card 10/100/1000 Gigabit Fast Ethernet
Integrated Webcam Integrated Webcam with Microphone
Card Reader 4-in-1 card reader (MS, MS Pro, MMC, SD)
USB Ports 2x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0
Bluetooth Bluetooth® 3.0+HS
Speakers Integrated Bang & Olufsen ICEpower Stereo Speakers
VGA Port 1 External VGA Port
Kensington Lock Kensington lock slot
Charge Time 2.5 Hours
HDMI 1x HDMI Port
Warranty ASUS 1 Year Global Hardware Warranty
Battery Life 3-4 Hours (up to 4 hours with power management)
Weight 2-3 Kg (This Model 2.72kg)

Feel free to list any alternatives, all help appreciated.

Tachyon · 8 Apr 2012 at 20:26

No one with any advice? I'll assume it's standard enough and will have a look over the next few days to see if anything else takes my fancy. It seems to tick the boxes with having a blu ray and possibly decent speakers that I can watch films etc... If nothing else takes my fancy and no one jumps in to say I'm wasting money I'll maybe go ahead with that one.

CEUOTC · 9 Apr 2012 at 08:17

Hi Tachyon, I own the later model N55SF with the 1600*900 matte screen, i7 2670QM and the GT 555M (GT 635M is a rebadge of the GT 555M) etc, at 585 it's a steal

good quality bit of kit, the keyboard is not to everyone's taste. All in all a good bit of kit. Sound is good to

Plays MW3/Skyrim/Wot at native med/high settings

Have added 4*2 gig of ram (Kingston HyperX Plug in and Play DDR3) + 1TB Samsung HN-M101MBB HDD

does everything l need and more, better than using two monitors, l run it in conjunction with my desktop

The i5 model should just be as good imo

Disco Boy · 9 Apr 2012 at 11:59

That looks really quite good. Good processor, decent graphics, blu ray drive, USB 3.0.

Also it has a decent resolution screen which is so refreshing for laptops at this price!

Just make sure that it's HDD is 7200 rpm (it may well not be). If it isn't then give it a try and replace it if you find it slow.

Tachyon · 9 Apr 2012 at 13:15

Thanks for advice folks, appreciate it. Bit of a problem though, I must have pulled that price out my back side or something as I've been looking through my browsing history to see where I seen that and can't find it anywhere. It's about £100 more than I quoted it for so possibly a typo on my part, apologies for being misleading.

I'll go back to the drawing board but I know what's going to happen, I keep getting drawn in to "Oh that looks nice and so on" and I'll go way over my budget. The Dell XPS systems look really nice.

CEUOTC · 9 Apr 2012 at 18:56

Tachyon said:
Thanks for advice folks, appreciate it. Bit of a problem though, I must have pulled that price out my back side or something as I've been looking through my browsing history to see where I seen that and can't find it anywhere. It's about £100 more than I quoted it for so possibly a typo on my part, apologies for being misleading.

I'll go back to the drawing board but I know what's going to happen, I keep getting drawn in to "Oh that looks nice and so on" and I'll go way over my budget. The Dell XPS systems look really nice.

Asus N55SL is a quality bit of kit, however if you can get your hands on a refurb XPS 17 L702 with the 3gb GT555M you would see better fps, however the N55SL i5 and i7 come with a BR fitted as standard

Makes my ST collection look and sound great

Disco Boy · 9 Apr 2012 at 19:10

Tachyon said:
Thanks for advice folks, appreciate it. Bit of a problem though, I must have pulled that price out my back side or something as I've been looking through my browsing history to see where I seen that and can't find it anywhere. It's about £100 more than I quoted it for so possibly a typo on my part, apologies for being misleading.

I'll go back to the drawing board but I know what's going to happen, I keep getting drawn in to "Oh that looks nice and so on" and I'll go way over my budget. The Dell XPS systems look really nice.

DELL have an outlet which is very highly rated. New stock comes up at about 3.30 every day.

CEUOTC · 9 Apr 2012 at 19:13

Dayzed&Confused · 11 Apr 2012 at 21:01

To be honest, if you want your son to be able to play Minecraft on there, the more ram the better. In my experience a minimum of 8gb is ok, but more is preferable.

Amp34 · 11 Apr 2012 at 21:58

Do you have a desktop as well or will this be your main computer? If you have your own desktop I would go for a smaller laptop, 13" for example as it's lighter and more likely to be actually used on your lap. Do you think you can get a Dell XPS 14z in your budget? Otherwise I would recommend an ultrabook but it would be way out of your budget.

neoseal · 13 Apr 2012 at 07:57

If you have missed the deal, a similar N55SF is available in PC world (Refurbished), moreover it has 640GB hard drive....I have ordered one now. Nice spec....