Laptop Spec

lemonkettaz

lemonkettaz

lemonkettaz

Soldato
Joined
28 Nov 2005
Posts
13,017
Hi,

I'll be in the market for a laptop next week, I'm not sure what my budget will be, but probably no more than £500 although that isn't set in stone,

It's going to be used for music, watching films/tv shows, however the hard drive doesnt have to be huge as I store all my films etc on an external drive.

I was looking at macbooks at first but to be honest for what I use it for it's just too much money, however It'd be nice if it didn't feel cheap if you know what I mean.

Any help will be great thanks, I'm well out the loop with laptops haven't had one for years.
 
- What form factor you prefer? 13'' (mobiler, possible all day battery life) 15'' (versatile) 17'' (desktop replacement)?

- Standard resolution (13,15'' -> 768p, 17'' -> 900p) / High resolution (1080p)?

- Gaming / light gaming / no gaming?

- bluray / Optical Drive / No Optical drive (external)?

- all day battery life / standard battery life / not bothered by batery life?

- Macbook style metal chassis / business style / not bothered by plastics?

- Top performance / good all round performance / standard productivity (browsing, office work)?

- High capacity drive (500GB 5,400rpm) / medium capacity drive (320GB 7,200rpm) / small SSD drive (120GB) sufficient?

- Ideal / maximum budget? < £500, < £700, < £1000?
 
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Probably 15"

No gaming at all really, maybe football manager but thats about it.

Erm not sure about bluray, probably not because I'll rarely use it seen as I have a ps3 for that, I'll probably use dvd once in a blue moon, but yeh definitely some sort of optical drive.

Decent battery life, no good if it only lasts an hour.

Would like it to look decent, not to look cheap or feel cheap, like I said I did look at a macbook/pro but can't justify spending that much on a laptop.

I'll use it for internet and watching video, also storing my music.

Anything from 320gb +

I reckon my max budget is £500
 
Will be hard to find a notebook that will not look cheap for under £500 (meaning, same quality as a macbook).

Best approximations are the HP dm4 (metal chassis), the Samsung Q430 (more like £600), Lenovo Edge 14 / Edge 15, Sony Vaio's have good quality, but bad battery life, the Samsung R530 / R580, more representative of what you could get for that amount of money.

Maybe if you can have a look locally (purple stores) and see the quality for yourself. Many models share the same build but have difference configs, so maybe they'll propose some tired Core Duo, and we can find a i3 equivalent online.

But imo, a i3, and a low range dedicated graphics card should be achievable, in a laptop that wont fall to pieces after 2 months.

Also, between a 15'' and a 14'', I'd go with 14''. You usually get exactly the same in a smaller, lighter package, and a bit more rigidity. Also note that laptop speakers are more often than not, utterly crap, so music is OK as long as you plan on using an external HiFi, headphones and so on. They usually have only a stereo output through mini-jack and not much else.
 
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