thinking about making the jump to laptop, need advice

-Exodus- · 12 Jul 2010 at 00:15

As title says really i'm thinking about making the jump to a laptop cause it's a pain to transport my computer across the water for uni.

I will be using the laptop for general internet browsing, watching films, photoshopping and 3D modeling and rendering so it will need to be pretty high power. also if it could play some games it would be a nice but i've got a ps3 now so not essential.

I was looking at the Dell Outlet for refurbished Studio 15 laptops, see them going around the £400-450 mark, this seems like great value for money, are there any other laptops i should consider.

Thanks in advance.

Judgeneo · 12 Jul 2010 at 00:19

I bought a laptop for my first year an uni too, and TBH, I regret that decision and have gone back to a desktop.

If you've got a good desktop already that is capable of those tasks, I say keep it. Yes its a bit of pain to transport, but £400 is a lot of money to spend to eliminate a few hours hassle over a year...

Aod · 12 Jul 2010 at 06:39

Judgeneo said:
I bought a laptop for my first year an uni too, and TBH, I regret that decision and have gone back to a desktop.

If you've got a good desktop already that is capable of those tasks, I say keep it. Yes its a bit of pain to transport, but £400 is a lot of money to spend to eliminate a few hours hassle over a year...

agreed. i know a few people who've done the "i don't need a desktop at uni" thing and all of them have regretted it.

if you've already got a desktop, just get a less powerful/expensive laptop for when you're in and around Campus and you'll be golden.

neoboy · 12 Jul 2010 at 07:26

As above you need to evaluate whether it's really that much of an issue to transport your PC. In my first year I haven't come across a single time where I needed to have a laptop with me while at the actual uni (although that may depend on your course), there were always plenty of computers to get on for work. In my second year though I am in a similar boat as you as I'll be studying abroad so a laptop is a must since I'm not transporting no PCs through airports!

In the end I settled for Studio 15 which I got from Dell Outlet, just make sure you don't buy the first thing that appears on there. I did have to wait around 3 weeks, but in the end got an i7 one with all the bells and whistles and including 1080p screen upgrade, 9 cell battery, Win 7 Pro and red satin finish for just under £525. The GPU is a bit of a disappointment being Ati 5470, but then again I mostly just play Source stuff and it handles that well at native resolution. It does have some slight niggles though such as running hot (that pesky i7), only 3 USB ports (and ports overall aren't best positioned on it) and some people don't like slot loading DVD drive.

It's also worth checking out some Toshiba L and Samsung R series for alternatives, while I don't know much about the Toshibas they seem to get a lot of good feedback from people on here.

-Exodus- · 12 Jul 2010 at 11:18

i understand what you're saying but i need a laptop, living in NI and not having another computer at home now would mean bringing it back and forth each term, there is no alternative.

whitecrook · 12 Jul 2010 at 11:23

-Exodus- said:
As title says really i'm thinking about making the jump to a laptop cause it's a pain to transport my computer across the computer for uni.

Yo dawg , transporting your computer while you computer is a problem OCUk can solve.

-Exodus- · 13 Jul 2010 at 02:09

anyone else got an opinion?

should i go for i5 or i7?

Snapshot · 13 Jul 2010 at 07:47

Having looked at this carefully recently, I reckon a fast dual-core is better than a slower quad for most purposes and the i7-620m is the CPU to go for. There aren't many laptops with these at the moment and I've ended up with an i5-540m (or I will in a day or two when it's delivered).

neoboy · 13 Jul 2010 at 09:48

i7-620m (which confusingly enough is a dual core) is quite new too and will be well out OPs budget, when I had a loot at it, it was actually more expensive than i7-720 (which is also a quad core, but does indeed have slower clock speed). As for i5 and i7 question, first off if you do want to go for i7 then you will have to push your budget up above £400-450 by at least another £50. Secondly at that budget for an i7 machine you would also have to sacrifice a GPU so gaming performance will suffer. Around £500 you can pick up an i5/ATI5650 combo which is very good midrange combo at this point.

-Exodus- · 13 Jul 2010 at 14:24

ok. well as i said it'll be used for CAD programmes such as Solidworks, it will also be rendering. So i'm guessing quad core is better for those sort of programmes. also a decent graphics card would be necessary i would say.