Best <$500 laptop for movies & Internet

Lancerx on 17/06/2015 - 23:58
Last edited 17/06/2015 - 23:59

Hi all,

I've always been a desktop PC person, and only ever had a lousy Acer netbook for travelling.

But now I'm gonna be relocated to a remote work site, so I need a laptop to bring my digital entertainment with me.

Which laptop would you recommend for me to buy now? especially coming EOFY..any good bargain for good quality laptop <$500? Can stretch if really need, but rather not, cuz it's just a 3 month shift..

Just really use it for internet and movie streaming/playback mainly.. I play fair bit of Bluray or HD content, so good quality playback is a must …a bit of FPS games too that's all..

No macbook for me please..just never used to it lol

Appreciate your advice..Cheers!

Computing

Comments

  • pennae on 18/06/2015 - 01:01
    +1

    Why a laptop? Sounds like an iPad would fit the brief! Buy Wish gift cards through ent book and use at Big W to get a discount on it.

    • Lancerx on 18/06/2015 - 01:20

      got Ipad but it's just too hard for work and multitasking, and not very user friendly in term playing outside content..

        • Lancerx on 18/06/2015 - 12:06

          Thanks mate…but what's the original price…never bought refurbished stuff, but if it comes to that, I wanna make sure I save a lot ..

        • scotty on 18/06/2015 - 17:28
          +1

          Latitude 12 is already gone. At $499 it's a great price for a business grade Latitude.

        • frowny on 20/06/2015 - 00:18

          @Cheap Charlie:

          Just looking at the spec sheet, I can't see how the Latitude 12 5000 Series can really be selling for $1500. Why wouldn't you just buy a Lenovo at that price point?

  • iridiumstem on 18/06/2015 - 01:24

    Do you need an ODD? I will probably go check out Dell Outlet and look at latitude line.

    • Lancerx on 18/06/2015 - 01:26

      heard of it, but never seen one before..for bluray disc?

      My guess is I probably won't be able to get with that budget …

      • iridiumstem on 18/06/2015 - 01:32

        I was suggesting it because it's Dell's business laptop line and Outlet usually has them for cheaper price.
        Not many laptops come with ODD nowadays, hmmm, that'd be something hard to find.
        I will give you 2nd hand Thinkpad x, t, w series recommendation as well (as they are Lenovo's business laptop line).

        Though given your usage, if you don't mind getting a tablet, internet and movie streaming/playback can be done with tablets (as pennae suggested).
        Windows tablet have awful resolution unless you go onto Chinese ones, though it might be something that could be something inbetween a tablet (an ARM tablet) and a laptop.

        • Lancerx on 18/06/2015 - 14:53

          nah, definitely not tablet..not my thing for surfing the net…in fact I never find tablet appealing to my every day use..only time I use tablet is probably on the plane lol

  • dallandra on 18/06/2015 - 09:11

    on a similar search to the OP

    basically looking for similar price range . primary usage is working from home by connecting via RDP into work PC which has 1920x1080 res monitor. so i want to keep the same desktop space when connected via my laptop

    is it the case that all these low end laptops (<seems to be <$800) do not have separate graphics cards (ie only use have onboard /inbuilt graphics) and thus will only support max res of 1388x766 ??

    • gmatht on 18/06/2015 - 11:54

      A low end laptop should be able to support 1920x1080. It might be slow playing a 3D game at 1920x1080, but I'd expect support for at least 1920x1200.

      I'd recommend this laptop for including deliver:
      https://www.kogan.com/au/buy/kogan-atlas-x14fhd-laptop-with-…

      It has 1920x1080 built in screen, 4GB of ram, ac wifi and a quad-core CPU that is very good relative to what you'd expect for a sub $500 laptop (which isn't saying much but still fine for movies and basic internet) all for $369 (~$391 including delivery).

      • Lancerx on 18/06/2015 - 12:05

        wow..didn't know kogan actually do laptop too….but it's kogan though…….. :S

        Spec look pretty awesome though

        • gmatht on 18/06/2015 - 12:28

          Made by Clevo. I understand that Clevo laptops aren't particularly slick or light, but are well regarded for having reasonable no-nonsense quality. More discussion at:
          https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/191975

          Although this is "quad-core", it is not as fast as a dual-core i3 (let alone i5/i7). However, it should be fine for playing 1080p movies, and most basic task fine if you get the $369 version with 4GB of ram. The 2GB version is only $10 cheaper and somewhat cripples an otherwise decent laptop.

      • dallandra on 18/06/2015 - 12:18

        thanks!
        first sub-$500 i've seen with 1920 x 1080

        pretty good for the price… according to http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Pentium-N3540-Notebook-Pr…

        "Thanks to 4 CPU cores and a clock speed of up to 2.66 GHz, the Pentium N3540 is significantly faster than previous Intel Atoms. Overall, the performance is similar to the AMD Kabini APU A6-5200. "

        so at least on CPU it betters the majority of other quad-core intel atom processors at the $500 laptop mark??

        ditch the HDD for a SDD and i think i might have a very efficient lappy for under $500

        • Lancerx on 18/06/2015 - 14:12

          wonder if it's easy enough to swap the HDD to SSD?

        • Lancerx on 18/06/2015 - 15:14

          now just gotta wait for free delivery =) You're right, for that price & spec, I think $369 is worth the punt

        • Lancerx on 19/06/2015 - 19:17

          @Droid11: Wow..i'm Awesome! I was just saying free delivery yesterday…and today Kogan has free shipping storewide ;)

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