What can I get for around £800?

sjt269

sjt269

sjt269

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Joined
11 Dec 2004
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Hi all,

I'm in dire need of a new laptop, as my 5-year old Macbook Air is starting to struggle. I've recently ended up doing a lot of numerical simulations for my work (research scientist), and while I have access to a large workstation for 'proper' runs, the Mac Air just isn't cutting it for test runs. Additionally, the (small) hard drive very quickly gets filled up with data files, and as it's my only laptop, I have to keep deleting my own documents/music/photos to free up space and I'm getting fed up of trying to juggle work and play on a single laptop.

The ideal would be to ask my work to buy me a more powerful Macbook Pro and keep my trusty Air as a personal laptop, but I think that's unlikely as we're constantly on a shoestring budget. I often work from home, so I'm thinking of buying a new personal laptop with enough processing grunt to handle the simulations I have to run, plus music recording/production software and a bit of light gaming. Portability isn't a huge factor, as I've got the Air for that, so I'm looking for something more along the lines of a desktop replacement.

Budget is around £800 - lower would be better, of course, but ideally I'm looking for an i7 with 8Gb RAM, a GTX1050, an SSD + HDD. There are a few MSI and Asus options I've seen on sale for this price, or a few i5 models that are a little cheaper. I like the look of Dell's offerings, but new they're out of my price range, and the [place that sells refurbed Dells] won't ship overseas (I live in France, but I'm not keen on buying a laptop here with a French keyboard layout...).

I'm leaning towards an MSI GL62M-7RDX which is currently £800 (from a competitor), which seems to tick all the boxes, but reviews are mixed on its keyboard and trackpad. I'm a massive fan of the keyboard on my Mac Air, so I'm loathe to buy anything described as spongy or unresponsive, but obviously I've got to accept the limitations of my budget, so I'll compromise where necessary.

It's been years since I've bought a laptop, so comments and advice would be welcome!

Cheers,
Steven

:edit:

Removed potential competitor name...been so long since I've been active on these forums, I nearly forgot the rules! :eek:
 
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Dell don't ship their refurbished models outside of the UK, sadly, and I'm not likely to be back in the UK for a while. :(
 
Cheers for the heads up on the Asus, I'd missed that one! I do like the look of the MSI, although it's now only £50 more for the model with an i7 and an SSD from elsewhere, still bringing it in under budget and in a more capable config for what I'm after.

I like the look of the Gigabyte Sabre, and with the current deals I could get the model with an i7 and SSD from OcUK for just £50 more than the one you've linked (here), though that's still over budget by £100. The 1050Ti would be nice, but I'm not sure it's worth the premium over the aforementioned MSI. (Although the Sabre arguably looks a bit more professional than the MSI, which would be nice for if I had to take it in to work from time to time!)
 
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