Laptop for £800

Shikkaka · 21 Apr 2009 at 10:50

Hi all,

I'm researching this on behalf of a work colleague. His daughter is after a laptop for Uni. She is doing a CAD course.

She has her eyes set on the HP Pavilion DV 7-1125EA. The basic spec is as follows and the price tag is £800.

Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 - 2.26GHz processor speed - 3MB L2 cache
4GB RAM. (max 8GB)
17in WXGA High-definition AG with BrightView Infinity display - Resolution 1440 x 900 pixels
320GB SATA hard drive
nVidia GeForce 9600M GT graphics card
Upto 1791MB total graphics memory with 512MB dedicated.

It comes with a Blu-Ray player which isn't essential. Would this bump the price up considerably?

Basically he wants me to find as cheap as possible without compromising spec.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Minimoke · 21 Apr 2009 at 11:13

Hey there,
Yeah the blu-ray drive will be at least £100 of that price, probably close to the £150 mark. If I were you I'd have a look at the new Samsung Q range, OcUK have them in stock. I've read the reviews as I'm considering one myself, and they are stunning; amazing battery life, specs the sae as the HP you're looking at, and very stylish. There's a few options, and since it will be for uni it will need to be portable, which the Samsungs certainly are. 17" in my opinion is way to big to be lugging around all day, a 12" would be ideal, 15.4" being the max I would ever go to. Just giving my opinion. The specs of that laptop are very good, but I bet the battery life suffers because of that. She'll need the battery life. Cheers, Chris.

Shikkaka · 21 Apr 2009 at 11:18

Minimoke said:
Hey there,
Yeah the blu-ray drive will be at least £100 of that price, probably close to the £150 mark. If I were you I'd have a look at the new Samsung Q range, OcUK have them in stock. I've read the reviews as I'm considering one myself, and they are stunning; amazing battery life, specs the sae as the HP you're looking at, and very stylish. There's a few options, and since it will be for uni it will need to be portable, which the Samsungs certainly are. 17" in my opinion is way to big to be lugging around all day, a 12" would be ideal, 15.4" being the max I would ever go to. Just giving my opinion. The specs of that laptop are very good, but I bet the battery life suffers because of that. She'll need the battery life. Cheers, Chris.

Thanks for the reply Chris. I'll have a look at those.

I think she chose that screen size because she is doing CAD. Generally it makes things easier with a bigger screen.

Minimoke · 21 Apr 2009 at 14:15

Ah I didn't notice the CAD bit, yeah that's a good idea to get a bigger screen. Because she's doing CAD you'll want a half decent graphics card, not just the average Intel onboard jobbie. Try and go for a 9xxx Nvidia, much like the one in the laptop you listed. Have you dismissed Dell yet? Have a look at their stuff, they do a Studio model that has a 17" screen, and they come out at a reasonable price. Cheers, Chris.

DB_SamX · 26 Apr 2009 at 20:02

For CAD, you should be aiming for best graphics + highest RAM (4gb min) + 17" screen at least.

utherpendragon · 27 Apr 2009 at 10:11

although it's not ideal, why not try a decent sized notebook (12-14") combined with a stand alone monitor? That's what i'm doing atm with a dell studio xps 13, its a lot easier than lugging around a monster in lectures/presentation, etc but you still have a quality, well sized screen to do work on for extended periods.

alternatively, look at the dell studio xps 16. quality notebook, with decent graphics and and and excellent screen (1080p)