mozo Posted July 13, 2020 Report Share Posted July 13, 2020 I'm looking at budget (£500) laptops. Lenovo Ideapad and Asus Vivobook are options. Any ideas or feedback from you kind people? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nibor Posted July 13, 2020 Report Share Posted July 13, 2020 Some rambling thoughts on picking a laptop... How are you going to use it and what do you need it to do? If you just want to run Windows, Office and a browser I'd worry more about RAM than CPU speed. 8gb min, you might be able to find one with 16gb. RAM will affect how many things you can have open at once before they all slow down. It's also worth avoiding one with a separate graphics card unless you need it, saves power. If you want to play 3d games you'll probably need a bigger budget tbh. Are you going to use it mostly at home or on the move? Usually there's a trade off between size (weight) and power and battery life because smaller means lower temperatures, lower power and better battery life. Will you have internet connectivity a lot of the time? Might get away with a much smaller drive and using cloud storage if so. I'd definitely get one with an SSD only, makes the machine feel a lot faster and old style hard disks are big heavy and hot. Do you need to plug it into a physical network with an ethernet cable or a separate screen, or connect many devices? Many smaller machines only have Wi-Fi and a couple of USB ports and need a dongle for wired networks or screens. Do you want a separate number pad on the keyboard or not? If not you probably end up with bigger keys with more space but sometimes the manufacturers do odd things like make the Home/End or Arrow keys only usable by pressing "FN" first - annoys the piss out of me personally! Check the screen resolution, many laptops are 1366x768 but 1920x1080 will seem a lot more usable IMO. FWIW both Lenovo and Asus are reasonable manufacturers, though Lenonvo did have a period of time where they were installing advertising root kits on the sly a few years back so I trust them less. Worth considering Ryzen CPUs over intel, they are beating them on all fronts these days including price. This sort of thing looks decent https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-15-6-inch-Laptop-2-6GHz-Windows/dp/B08BF7RHH6 You can get smaller form factor with 8gb RAM for about the same price. https://smile.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-VivoBook-X412DA-Processor-Windows/dp/B081NKW4MS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozo Posted July 13, 2020 Author Report Share Posted July 13, 2020 3 hours ago, Nibor said: Some rambling thoughts on picking a laptop... How are you going to use it and what do you need it to do? If you just want to run Windows, Office and a browser I'd worry more about RAM than CPU speed. 8gb min, you might be able to find one with 16gb. RAM will affect how many things you can have open at once before they all slow down. It's also worth avoiding one with a separate graphics card unless you need it, saves power. If you want to play 3d games you'll probably need a bigger budget tbh. Are you going to use it mostly at home or on the move? Usually there's a trade off between size (weight) and power and battery life because smaller means lower temperatures, lower power and better battery life. Will you have internet connectivity a lot of the time? Might get away with a much smaller drive and using cloud storage if so. I'd definitely get one with an SSD only, makes the machine feel a lot faster and old style hard disks are big heavy and hot. Do you need to plug it into a physical network with an ethernet cable or a separate screen, or connect many devices? Many smaller machines only have Wi-Fi and a couple of USB ports and need a dongle for wired networks or screens. Do you want a separate number pad on the keyboard or not? If not you probably end up with bigger keys with more space but sometimes the manufacturers do odd things like make the Home/End or Arrow keys only usable by pressing "FN" first - annoys the piss out of me personally! Check the screen resolution, many laptops are 1366x768 but 1920x1080 will seem a lot more usable IMO. FWIW both Lenovo and Asus are reasonable manufacturers, though Lenonvo did have a period of time where they were installing advertising root kits on the sly a few years back so I trust them less. Worth considering Ryzen CPUs over intel, they are beating them on all fronts these days including price. This sort of thing looks decent https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-15-6-inch-Laptop-2-6GHz-Windows/dp/B08BF7RHH6 You can get smaller form factor with 8gb RAM for about the same price. https://smile.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-VivoBook-X412DA-Processor-Windows/dp/B081NKW4MS Nibor, your help is MUCH appreciated you bloody legend! I need this for blogging/website/writing. Mainly at home but occasionally on the move. No 3D gaming. I'm not really a gamer and will probably only use Champ Manager 2001/02! Won't be watching movies, but lots of YouTube and Twitter clips. ... I reckon the Vivobook will do the job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red7 Posted July 14, 2020 Report Share Posted July 14, 2020 12 hours ago, Nibor said: I'd definitely get one with an SSD only, makes the machine feel a lot faster and old style hard disks are big heavy and hot. Definitely go for SSD, and avoid the old-style hard disks like the plague, whatever you intend to use the laptop for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 14, 2020 Report Share Posted July 14, 2020 Hard drives are Ok as long as you aren't throwing your laptop around but they tend to have a slower boot up speed, and can feel sluggish. If you are using on your lap, moving it around a lot, HDs can be corrupted due to head crashes etc. As to the spec of the machine, it's always going to be 'it depends on what you are using it for' and @Nibor has rightly pointed this out. Pick 3 you like the look of and then google the reviews. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bristol Rob Posted July 15, 2020 Report Share Posted July 15, 2020 Will you be plugging it in to your telly to stream City games? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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