Personal laptop

[Little-Miss]

As those few poor souls that follow me on Twitter (I don't recommend it) will know, i have been trying to choose a laptop for myself, rather unsucessfully. For some reason, i am finding this particulary challenging.

 

I find a laptop i think i'd like, and then i read a review. I'm starting to wonder whether they are actually a help or a hinderance.

 

So, I have a budget of £500 to possible £600. With some convincing i may be able to go higher, though people have said "why not Mac!" but i really need some convincing as to why i should shell out that extra £300.

 

So, what i'd really like is a good chunk of memory, a good chunk of storage and a 4th gen intel processor. I'd like to be able to do some casual gaming and the usual Office type stuff.

 

Anyone already got a laptop that they recommend? I was looking into Lenovo's and Dells but am happy to look elsewhere if someone can recommend a brand.

 

And no, it doesn't have to be a purple, but one of those nice slim ones would be nice!

[Roberto]

I really like my macs. They've always been a pleasure to use, the support has been top-notch (I know @Norphy just got a fault fixed on his imac by applecare warranty support, even though its out of warranty) and they've never let me down.

 

As for the extra money, yes they cost more up front but every mac laptop I've purchased, I've kept for at least 3 years and managed to sell for a very good price afterwards because they hold their value. the last macbook pro I had, I purchased it in 2008 for about £1300 and my sister-in-law purchased it last year for my niece to use in college. They offered me £500 for it and my niece is absolutely delighted with it.

[witch]

As for the extra money, yes they cost more up front but every mac laptop I've purchased, I've kept for at least 3 years and managed to sell for a very good price afterwards because they hold their value.

 

I've done that with good spec PCs, still can't see the justification for the extra money.

I would still recommend the Lenovo i5's from ICT-Direct. Cracking kit for a very good price Failing that, the Fujitsu Lifebook A532s I have just bought for school are very robust and not too expensive either

[arwen]

Ignore the fact it is from pc world, this looks pretty nice. ACER Aspire E1-572 15.6

I love my little Acer (not that model) , battery life isn't the best but I have never had a problem with it.

 

 

As for macs.... my opinion is their build quality has dropped so much in the past few years that they do not last as long as they used too. Better buying a laptop every 3-4 years rather than hoping a mac will last 6 like it used to.

[Quackers]

Go for the Mac, its the best thing i ever did. Its just a pleasure to use and unlike any laptop i have used. £891.60 will get you a 13.3" Mac Book Air (with edu discount), its what i got couple of years ago when i did the conversion to the Mac world. Up to 12 hour battery, 128GB SSD, decent res screen, best trackpad ever, soft illuminated keyboard. If you still have some Windows only apps you need the buy Parallels Desktop for it and use Coherence mode to make the apps look like they are running within the Mac OS.

[Roberto]

I've done that with good spec PCs, still can't see the justification for the extra money.

I would still recommend the Lenovo i5's from ICT-Direct. Cracking kit for a very good price Failing that, the Fujitsu Lifebook A532s I have just bought for school are very robust and not too expensive either

 

Absolutely have a lot of time for the lenovo laptops as good workhorses myself. I'd totally look at one for a personal Windows laptop, I agree. Still personally prefer a mac though; when I say that macs last better in my experience, I'm not just talking about them groaning into life in their 4th or 5th year, I'm talking about them still being an absolute pleasure to use at that age.

[Norphy]

I have an original Macbook from 2006 at home which is still in daily use. It can't run the latest and greatest version of OS X any more and it won't set any performance records but it's still a perfectly usable machine which I've been delighted with over the years that I've owned it.

[VeryPC_Colin_M]

How about a VeryPC Thinbook configured to your own spec @Little-Miss ? We'd do you a deal, just because it's you.

[witch]

I have an original Macbook from 2006 at home which is still in daily use. It can't run the latest and greatest version of OS X any more and it won't set any performance records but it's still a perfectly usable machine which I've been delighted with over the years that I've owned it.

I have a Dell. Same age. Works perfectly well and is still in one piece and unmarked.

Always amazes me how fast an old machine will go when it isn't on a network!

[3s-gtech]

There's a lot of Mac loving going on in this thread, so I'll contrast.

 

For your needs and budget, don't get a Mac. Especially if you want to game (though this is improving with Steam and general non-Windows support improving). You may well find that the Macbook you can get in your budget is not a great spec - depends on your idea of casual gaming (Facebook games, older games and modern titles on lower settings will be fine).

 

There are some very nice deals around. Having bought a couple of Fujitsu models recently for friends, I can recommend something like:

VFY:AH544M7562GB | Fujitsu LIFEBOOK AH544/G32 4th Gen Core i5 8GB 1TB Windows 8.1 Laptop in Black - Laptops Direct

 

There are slightly cheaper versions of this model, but this hits your Haswell/RAM/storage/casual gaming needs.

[john]

How about a VeryPC Thinbook configured to your own spec @Little-Miss ? We'd do you a deal, just because it's you.

 

Spray it all in purple and stick hedgehogs on it she will buy it

 

I would suggest having a look at some HP or Lenovo kit I keep thinking I should replace the NC10 I have with a laptop and will look at those two when I save up enough to do so

[MatthewL]

I stopped look at reviews online as been looking at household appliances and I have gone with stuff I have used in the past that I know to be reliable same as I do laptops.

 

I still recommend that ASUS @Little-Miss that I recommended, had one go to Australia and back 6+ times and it still runs sweet as. It's been heavily used and still performs well even with all the crap my friend has managed to get on it, due to clean it up this week to keep it running longer.

[SYNACK]

The hp envy gear is quite nice and may be worth a look.

[Little-Miss]

Spray it all in purple and stick hedgehogs on it she will buy it

 

Add a bit of glitter and i'm sold!!

 

Why have i got it in my head that HP are bbbaaaddd?....

Edited November 5, 2013 by witch

[witch]

I have HPs. They are OK if a bit flimsy - except on some the keyboard layout is dreadful and people are forever hitting caps lock by mistake. And if you lean on the case near the trackpad, all hell breaks loose

[SYNACK]

Add a bit of glitter and i'm sold!!

 

Why have i got it in my head that HP are bbbaaaddd?....

 

It all depends on the model you get, anything with Compaq in the name means trouble, like all brands they have some stinkers. The huge thing I like about HP is their support, for instance drivers, we have had machines 7 years old I could still easily get drivers for with later versions of Windows unlike Toshiba, Fujitsu or Lenovo where even finding the drivers for the version of windows it came with is an epic journey rivalling the journey to mordor. Tech level is also something nice, HP has real efi, a new Toshiba I had to deal with a month ago still had an actual bios and a stack of other out-dated hardware in it. HP stuff is generally engineered rather than thrown together from rebranded parts like some other vendors.

 

In conclusion, as with anything, pick a solid looking one from the line and you should be good. I only suggested the envy line as they are reasonably well put together and pretty. If you want something robust the elitebooks are solid and the probooks are ok if you need to bring the cost down.

[Little-Miss]

I haven't bought a laptop for myself for a few years. Am I that out of the loop that £500 is classed as budget?

 

I quite like the HP Envy TouchSmart 15-j051sa. But £800?! Is that the price we're paying for decent kit these days? Yeesh..

[Norphy]

Generally speaking you get what you pay for. That £800 may sound like a lot of money but you will probably get a much nicer machine out if it.

[Little-Miss]

Oh yeah. I totally get that, just didn't realise how expensive things had got! Lol

[VeryPC_Colin_M]

And 20% of that's the governments margin anyway.

[john]

I haven't bought a laptop for myself for a few years. Am I that out of the loop that £500 is classed as budget?

 

I quite like the HP Envy TouchSmart 15-j051sa. But £800?! Is that the price we're paying for decent kit these days? Yeesh..

 

That be a posh laptop that's why with a touch screen

 

How about this - HP ProBook 450 G0 Laptop - Laptops | Ebuyer.com and has a cool trade-in offer I'm sure you have an old unit kicking around you could do that to?

[Little-Miss]

Yeah. I'm not sold on touch screen yet. But it's got a 4th gen and nvidea...unless these days I won't have the same issue with intel graphics and games refusing to work because of it?

[Norphy]

Depends on the Intel graphics. The new Retina MacBooks have the Iris Pro in the base model and generally speaking, graphics performance and compatibility is generally similar to the previous model which had a discrete graphics card. Intel graphics are improving massively. Get a 4th gen Core with Iris Pro and it'll be adequate at least for most games which is a helluva lot more than you can say for previous generations.

 

N.b. to all of the Mac haters out there, I'm sure this is obvious but I'm not recommending that Little-Miss buys a retina MacBook , I'm just trying to compare Iris Pro with discrete mobile graphics cards and the rMBP just happens to be a handy example

[3s-gtech]

Iris Pro does seem to give the top AMD APUs a run for their money, it's true. Problem is the price to performance ratio! It's worth looking at any Haswell powered laptop and checking what graphics core is on the CPU, some are better than others - e.g. the HD4600 and up aren't half bad, bear in mind their drivers though.

[Little-Miss]

Haswells seem to have HD 4000's....