Soldato
- Joined
- 23 May 2005
- Posts
- 2,964
- Location
- Auckland, New Zealand
Hi all, I'm looking for a laptop for work. requirements are:
- small and light-ish (I've been looking at 13.3" and 14" screens)
- reasonably fast (I5s)
- Discrete graphics. Preferably switchable for power saving
- NO SSD. I already have a 128GB crucial M4 I plan on putting in it so would not like to pay for another.
- Good build quality
- Ok screen.
- Should be quiet doing light tasks such as web browsing
- Budget of < £800
My search started with the Dell XPS 14z. looks good on paper but slightly expensive for what it is and I've heard a lot of horror stories about the XPSz series.
This took me to the thikpad Edge E320.. This is customisable to have an I5 2450M and Radeon HD 6630M (switchable), but apprently the build quality isn't top notch and the screen isn't the best. Plus I can't find anything about how noisy the thing is. Seems like the E320 is relatively undiscovered in the wild. £600 after discounts
Then I moved onto the VAIO SA series. This can be customised to pretty much the same spec as the Edge E320 but add a carbon lid and a slimmer frame plus a higher resolution screen, DVD drive and simply the fact that it is a vaio.. I thought I'd found the dream laptop but after reading into it, the SA series is apparently very loud even with light tasks and build quality doesn't live up to the VAIO name. £700
It looks like the further I search, the further I'm getting from my goals. I've briefly looked at the ASUS U36D/G laptops. They look ok but I'm not sure about how well they're built.
Ideally, if someone asked me to build a laptop, I'd take the Lenovo E320 at £600 and with the remaining £200 I have in my budget, I'd add a better screen and better materials.
Is there anything else I should be looking at?
Annoyingly, when I look at laptops at the top end of my budget, I'm confronted with mandatory SSDs and graphics cards loose peformance in favour of stability for business applications.
April 8th is the date I've heard for Ivy Bridge, which is unfortunately too far away.
- small and light-ish (I've been looking at 13.3" and 14" screens)
- reasonably fast (I5s)
- Discrete graphics. Preferably switchable for power saving
- NO SSD. I already have a 128GB crucial M4 I plan on putting in it so would not like to pay for another.
- Good build quality
- Ok screen.
- Should be quiet doing light tasks such as web browsing
- Budget of < £800
My search started with the Dell XPS 14z. looks good on paper but slightly expensive for what it is and I've heard a lot of horror stories about the XPSz series.
This took me to the thikpad Edge E320.. This is customisable to have an I5 2450M and Radeon HD 6630M (switchable), but apprently the build quality isn't top notch and the screen isn't the best. Plus I can't find anything about how noisy the thing is. Seems like the E320 is relatively undiscovered in the wild. £600 after discounts
Then I moved onto the VAIO SA series. This can be customised to pretty much the same spec as the Edge E320 but add a carbon lid and a slimmer frame plus a higher resolution screen, DVD drive and simply the fact that it is a vaio.. I thought I'd found the dream laptop but after reading into it, the SA series is apparently very loud even with light tasks and build quality doesn't live up to the VAIO name. £700
It looks like the further I search, the further I'm getting from my goals. I've briefly looked at the ASUS U36D/G laptops. They look ok but I'm not sure about how well they're built.
Ideally, if someone asked me to build a laptop, I'd take the Lenovo E320 at £600 and with the remaining £200 I have in my budget, I'd add a better screen and better materials.
Is there anything else I should be looking at?
Annoyingly, when I look at laptops at the top end of my budget, I'm confronted with mandatory SSDs and graphics cards loose peformance in favour of stability for business applications.
April 8th is the date I've heard for Ivy Bridge, which is unfortunately too far away.