Help explain laptop specs for me? £350

[davestar_delux]

Hi, I am looking for a new laptop and not sure what specs or features I should be looking out for? I am reading as much as I can on this forum but don't understand a lot of the terminology now, it used to be just pick the most MHz and most GBs, what are i3 and i5 and i7 and how do these compare to multiple cores etc?

Also, what are good graphics cards? And is a seperate one necessary if not playing games? Does it help films?

 

[MumboJumbo]

Most important thing to pick first is screen size and resolution. At £350 you aren't going to be getting a discrete graphics card and instead it will be an onboard one so you likely aren't going to be gaming unless it's something oldschool like css. You don;t need a discrete gpu to watch films either, though the laptop may likely not come with a hdmi output if it doesn't have a discrete gpu. Something to check if you wish to plug your laptop up to a tv.

So at your price range you're looking for a laptop at a 15.6" size or smaller (probably smaller) which has a decent battery when watching films and browsing the web. Therefore 4gb of ram is all you'll need at most and the cpu isn't really hugely important now days. An i3 is most likely what you'd get and it would do what you want just fine. If not, you may want to pay a bit more.

 

[davestar_delux]

Games aren't a big issue - I don't play any although might try out a few retro ones. I like the odd film and would like to output to a TV when at parents or friends only but not a massive issue. It will mainly be used for programming/development though.

I figured about the 15' screen, what is a good resolution likely to be?