localzuk Posted February 20, 2017 Posted February 20, 2017 I am helping a friend choose a laptop for their son's 18th birthday. I've narrowed it down to 2 possibles. HP 255 G5 AMD Laptop Z2Y29ES - Laptops at Ebuyer Lenovo Essential B50-50 Laptop - Laptops at ebuyer The thing that's got me wondering is the SSD with the AMD one, vs the HDD with the Intel. Which would you go for? The budget is £330 absolute max.
bossman Posted February 20, 2017 Posted February 20, 2017 @loculzuk I know you stated £330 max but for £60 more you could get this cracking laptop which has a much higher spec: Buy Acer Aspire E5-575 15.6 Inch Intel Core i5 8GB 1TB Laptop at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for Laptops and netbooks, Laptops and PCs, Technology. I know a few people who have bought this and have had nothing but high praise. If they cannot stretch any further then I would go with the Intel model as they can always buy a SSD later on.
sted Posted February 20, 2017 Posted February 20, 2017 the last amd equipped laptop i used was awful took something like 90 mins to install office (granted on a hp install not a fresh install but still. Id get the intel one and buy an ssd later when you can afford it
witch Posted February 20, 2017 Posted February 20, 2017 intel, definitely. An SSD is a bonus but not absolutely necessary IMHO
hallb15 Posted February 20, 2017 Posted February 20, 2017 Why not go for one with a hybrid SSHD drive? https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/80S2000QUK-Lenovo-B50-50_1894138.html My daughter has had a Lenovo B50 for nearly a year and its been great. Save on laptops also have the same HP model you mentioned for £20 less.
localzuk Posted February 20, 2017 Author Posted February 20, 2017 Why not go for one with a hybrid SSHD drive? https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/80S2000QUK-Lenovo-B50-50_1894138.html My daughter has had a Lenovo B50 for nearly a year and its been great. Save on laptops also have the same HP model you mentioned for £20 less. The B50 line is the one I usually recommend to everyone really - in the last few years, every person I've advised as bought one. Its just the SSD that has thrown my judgement this time. However, the one you listed above looks ideal. The SSHD is a good compromise.
MrEprise Posted February 20, 2017 Posted February 20, 2017 We have about 20 of the HP 255 G5 models that we bought for our Sixth Form recently. On the one hand, I find AMD's mobile A6 APUs surprisingly good (as their mobile CPUs have been relatively sub-par in the past) and @sted if office took about 90 mins to install it was probably either one of their terrible essentials processors (or earlier models) or that you were installing on a hp install (or both) as we've found it to take a lot less (10-15 mins) on the ones we've got. However, we haven't been that impressed with them as several of ours have noisy fans for the first 5 mins of turning them on, the keyboards have very little travel in the keys and you have to take the entire bottom portion of the laptop apart to upgrade both hard disk and memory (which we did as we bought them without SSDs.) We have had Lenovo B50-30's (similar to B50-50 but without cooling fans as the celerons in them are low power) which have a significantly better feel to them. Keyboard still feels a little cheap but there is a bit more travel in the keys over the HP, and there is an easily accessible panel underneath which allows access to both RAM and Hard Disk as laptop normally should have. So it's probably better to buy the Lenovo and then upgrade it to an SSD after.
sted Posted February 20, 2017 Posted February 20, 2017 On the one hand, I find AMD's mobile A6 APUs surprisingly good (as their mobile CPUs have been relatively sub-par in the past) and @sted if office took about 90 mins to install it was probably either one of their terrible essentials processors (or earlier models) or that you were installing on a hp install (or both) as we've found it to take a lot less (10-15 mins) on the ones we've got. it was a year or 2 ago so it probably was one of their terrible essentials but iirc someone specified an exact model as it looked nice or some such
Fazza Posted February 21, 2017 Posted February 21, 2017 The Intel one appears to be a faster processor than the AMD one: Intel Core i3 5005U vs AMD A6 7310 You can always upgrade to an SSD in the future so I'd go for the Intel one.
3s-gtech Posted February 21, 2017 Posted February 21, 2017 The Lenovo B50s are such a good budget laptop. I have no issues with AMDs APUs in this segment (and they're still more gaming capable than the Intel equivalent, if that matters) but the HPs are a bit flimsy.
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