Speccing a laptop - first time, no idea where to start

Forensik · 16 Oct 2014 at 13:49

Okay so, as the title says, I'm trying to spec a laptop for less than £700.
I'm not very knowledgeable in the field of creating cheap laptops so help would be much appreciated.

The laptop will be used for graphics processing (nothing particularly fancy, just some general Photoshop), as well as playing a few simple games like Portal (nothing greatly graphics intensive).

A spec would be above awesome, but even just some general help on where to start would be appreciated.

Thanks.

zakblood · 16 Oct 2014 at 14:13

OC don't do custom laptops, so it's what ever they have got in

Online System Configurator doesn't atm work with laptop, and tbh may not for the future either as it's supply and demand

as i can't post link to competitors either, sorry cant help, as they have none for that budget either

and thats a tight budget as well, but i'll see what i can do

zakblood · 16 Oct 2014 at 14:29

17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-4340M (2.90GHz) 3MB
8GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
INTEL® HD GRAPHICS MEDIA ACCELERATOR 4600
1TB SEAGATE HYBRID GEN3 SSHD Drive, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (5400 rpm)
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence

£694.00 inc VAT and Delivery

but video is too poor tbh and as your views are double edged (nothing greatly graphics intensive) but then you mention photoshop which is

i'd alter it and then go over budget

now you have a poor cpu but better vga

Intel® Core™i3 Dual Core Mobile Processor i3-4110M (2.60GHz) 3MB
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 840M - 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
and rest the same, at £698.00 inc VAT and Delivery

keep the i5 or lowest i5 with it and its £726.00 inc VAT

you could drop the screen size down, go for a smaller res, but i wouldn't do either, i'd get a desktop before cutting those corners, sorry can't help

Forensik · 16 Oct 2014 at 15:19

zakblood said:
17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-4340M (2.90GHz) 3MB
8GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
INTEL® HD GRAPHICS MEDIA ACCELERATOR 4600
1TB SEAGATE HYBRID GEN3 SSHD Drive, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (5400 rpm)
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence

£694.00 inc VAT and Delivery

but video is too poor tbh and as your views are double edged (nothing greatly graphics intensive) but then you mention photoshop which is

i'd alter it and then go over budget

now you have a poor cpu but better vga

Intel® Core™i3 Dual Core Mobile Processor i3-4110M (2.60GHz) 3MB
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 840M - 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
and rest the same, at £698.00 inc VAT and Delivery

keep the i5 or lowest i5 with it and its £726.00 inc VAT

you could drop the screen size down, go for a smaller res, but i wouldn't do either, i'd get a desktop before cutting those corners, sorry can't help

Even though you said you couldn't help, you did, so thanks for that.
By using Photoshop I meant basic graphics, not rendering large HD files or anything, but oh well.

Again, thanks for your help, at least this has given me some idea on what I can expect and your build was nice as well as on budget. Thanks.

EDIT: Also, OS wasn't necessary, forgot to mention that, already got my own.