Help Finding/Picking a Laptop $500 (I know you guys must be sick to death with these type of threads)

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  scrimshaw on 29/07/2013 - 23:39

  $499 for a Pentium seems a bit…. ordinary. You can get Core i3 Ivy Bridge for less than $500, or even an AMD A6 + 7670m discrete GPU lappie for $499.
  http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/notebook.pdf

  Hd4000 is more than enough for Youtube though.

  • 

    KBZ on 30/07/2013 - 00:34

    Oh I completely forgot about MSY, thanks for the list.

    laptops stood out for me
    Aspire Touch V5-571P-33214G50 Intel 3rd Generation Core i3-3217U 1.8GHz
    Aspire Touch V5-571P-33224G50Mass Intel 3rd Generation Core i3-3227U 1.9GHz
    HP 650-D7Y54PA Intel 3rd Generation Core i3-3120M 2.5GHz

    Samsung NP355V5C-S04AU AMD A6-4400M 2.70GHz(Turbo 3.20GHz)

    I don't know how reliable CPUboss.com is good but I compared on that site and the i3s edged out the AMD but I don't know if it factors in the turbo that MSY lists it as.

    Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the CPU was the important in whether the system can play higher quality video files (720p/1080p) and not the video card? If not do you reckon the HD4000 could play video files of that quality.

    • 

      Riczter on 30/07/2013 - 00:49

      I'd probably go the samsung myself. Acer and HP's low end dont have the best rep, and although your gf prob wont need it, the samsung has better integrated graphics, which may come in handy. Though the aspire touch is good because the touch screen can be very handy on a windows 8 laptop once you get used to it :)

    • 

      scrimshaw on 30/07/2013 - 01:47

      The CPU isn't really the deciding factor since the usage is mostly web browsing and videos. Most of the time the the CPU will be under-utilized, so just choose whatever has the best build quality and if portability is a factor, the best battery life.

      The 13 inch HP Probook 4340s @$499 got fairly positive review and the build quality was said to be pretty decent. That's a good option if you don't mind the smaller screen size, however the upside is that the Probook series are business notebooks and usually have better build quality.

      If you want a 15 inch I would probably get the Samsung too, however the battery life won't be as good as competing options with i3-U series processors.

    • 

      _Bruce_ on 30/07/2013 - 07:33

      Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the CPU was the important in whether the system can play higher quality video files (720p/1080p) and not the video card? If not do you reckon the HD4000 could play video files of that quality.

      Pretty much any video of that size will be encoded with h264. In the old days this took a lot of CPU power (relatively) to decode, which is what you are thinking of. Now every GPU (even on the cheapest celeron) has hardware h264 decoding which does all the hard work.

      Short version: Any new laptop will play 1080 video.

      • 

        KBZ on 30/07/2013 - 14:18

        Ah thanks for the clarification Bruce, yeh cause the last laptop I bought was core 2 duo near the low end and always stuttered on 1080p files.

        Thanks Riczter and Scrimshaw, yeh the samsung is looking good at the moment I'll have to ask her what she thinks.

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  KBZ on 30/07/2013 - 14:50

  Do you think it's worth going up to the $1000 range for a laptop?
  She's had her current one for 5 years so I think she's looking to get one to last as long as that.

  • 

    scrimshaw on 30/07/2013 - 19:16

    +1

    God no. The price of the laptop has zero impact on how long it lasts. You might as well save the extra $500 for a new laptop purchase several years down the track when your current budget Samsung dies / stops being fast enough.

    You cannot future proof a computer by simply throwing more money at it. You could spend $1000 now and buy a Core i7 with discrete GPU but it's just never going to get used since she doesn't game. And like all tech it will become obsolete, no matter how high end it is. What's the point of the extra $500 spent? Nothing.

    • 

      KBZ on 31/07/2013 - 00:53

      Awesome that's what I thought as well. Thanks.

    • 

      Riczter on 31/07/2013 - 18:48

      On the other hand, spend a little extra and buy an SSD, and get a laptop with a decent processor and you have a laptop that is going to be much more pleasurable to use for those 5 years if it lasts that long.

      But that's just me (impatient).