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PC Help with work laptop

Coffeeshroom

Coffeeshroom

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Jan 17, 2019
Messages
4,177
Morning all

Im just looking for some input on some laptops. I'm current looking at the following.

HP 15 i5 Notebook
specs:
  • 15.6-Inch HD LED Display
  • Intel Core i5 8250U Processor
  • 4GB RAM Plus 1TB Hard Drive
  • Intel UHD Graphics 620
  • Windows 10 home
Acer Aspire 3 i5 Notebook
specs:
  • 15.6-Inch HD Display
  • Intel Core i5 7200U Processor
  • 4GB RAM Plus 1TB Hard Drive
  • Intel HD Graphics
  • Windows 10 home

Acer Aspire 3 i5 Notebook
specs:
  • 15.6-Inch HD Display
  • Intel Core i5 8250U Processor
  • 4 GB RAM Plus 1TB Hard Drive
  • Intel HD Graphics
  • Windows 10 home

Lenovo Ideapad 330 i5 Notebook
specs:
  • 14-Inch FHD Display
  • Intel Core i5 8250U Processor
  • 4GB RAM Plus 1TB Hard Drive
  • Integrated Graphics
  • Windows 10 home
They are all in the same price range or exactly the same. Only difference between them are the nr or of ports used for USB and HDMI and so on. I more inclined for one wish a good WiFi and HDMI. Will be mostly used for web designing and editing programs. And the light RPG gaming to pass time.

I'm not expecting a monster. But all these fall in my budget. Only thing i might do is upgrade ram to 8gb.
 
I for one, I have the MSI G65-Stealth, I got it for 800$, yes that's the price, I had a good deal with someone. It's my personal computer, it's pretty expensive I didn't said but it's worth.


You can try ASUS ROG's series they are very durable, very good. I mean you pay almost 2K so you get what you pay, I wouldn't buy those laptop if I were you. Integrated graphics sucks, Intel's only know for making good CPU's, not graphics cards. It's 2020, nowadays every software requires at least 8GB of ram for optimal perfomance. Don't buy ancient hardware, isn't worth. They range from 2K but they're worth.
 
My budget is 7000 south African rand. In us dollars that's roughly 500 dollars.
 
But I will keep looking. Just need a decent working horse so to speak. Nothing fancy.
 
I don't use laptops much so I don't have hands-on experience with any of the above mentioned computers, so take this with a grain of salt:

There are two Acer Aspire laptops mentioned; one with an i5 7200 U and the other with an i5 8250. The i5 7200 CPU is one generation older than the other. While the difference between the performance of these two processors is not "night and day" in terms of speed, I would expect that it would come in at a lower price point than the i7 8250 equipped unit. Personally also I would have 8 GB RAM as you suggested. Don't forget that without a dedicated graphics card you will be sharing RAM for video use and 4 GB is getting pretty tight with Windows 10.

Other than that, they seem pretty similar from the rather minimal specs you provided.

I also noticed one of the large online stores is selling refurbished models very similar to the Acer Models you listed except they included a MX-160 GPU, running at about $550.00 USD shipped to US (don't know if they ship to S A. Perhaps they might), I'd check out "that Rain forest website" and see if they will.
 
Ditch HP and Acer, total shit build quality.

Lenovo is alright but really you want a Thinkpad if your budget can push to it, even if it's a reasonable used one, plenty on eBay as companies use them as business laptops and they get sold on after, usually in good nick. My company gave me a Thinkpad and it's an excellent bit of kit, sturdy build and super fast.

I also recommend looking into Asus, I have one of their cheap laptops and it's kept on going with no hardware issues for a good few years. I use it as a secondary laptop for travelling etc or when I need to use Windows (main laptop is a MacBook Pro).

Whichever one you get, when buying any Windows laptop I highly recommend installing a clean version of Windows as the preinstalled versions come with all sorts of crapware and some of it collects data on you too. Even free antivirus often spies on you these days and that comes preinstalled on most consumer grade laptops. It's easy enough to install a clean Windows image, Microsoft made a bit of software that just downloads and flashes the ISO onto a USB for you so you don't need to do anything technical yourself. Activation is automatic as the license key is embedded in the hardware.

Or if you do feel like getting nerdy you can install Linux.

But yeah as for the hardware, if you give me a budget I can give you my own recommendations.
 
Just saw your other comment your budget is roughly $500.

You can get a decent mid-range Asus or a pretty recent used Thinkpad for that. If you don't mind a used laptop, you will likely get more bang for buck outta the Thinkpad. If you want something brand new you can get a decent Asus.

What's this laptop gonna be used for? It says work laptop in the thread title, so if it's gonna be mostly emails and MS Office you don't need top end specs, and while 8GB RAM is nice, 4GB is honestly fine for basic office stuff. And as far as CPU's go, honestly even the 8th gen i3 is a very good little chip. I have an NUC running on an i3-8109U and I use it for all sorts of things that are pretty resource intensive (e.g. media transcoding) and it does it all flawlessly. I do have 16GB RAM in that, but only because I use ramdisks for specialist niche stuff.

Only thing I will say is most new laptops these days have soldered down components, which means you can't just open a flap and swap out the RAM like you could on older ones. There's sometimes exceptions so you can see if the exact model you're looking at can be upgraded, but that's the direction most laptops have gone in recent years unfortunately.

On my Asus I have an HDD bay for extra storage since it only has 32GB built in, so I stuck a decent SSD in there, but the RAM cannot be upgraded unless I'm willing to take the thing apart and force the RAM off the mobo. But then despite only having 2GB it's still fine doing most common tasks like internet browsing, media playback, document editing etc in Windows 10 without very much lag at all because it's running off an SSD. Wouldn't use it for anything intensive but for what most people use laptops for it's fine.

On my Thinkpad it's a similar story. It's a top spec laptop with 16GB RAM (totally unnecessary since it's used mostly for Outlook and Chrome but hey the company paid for it) but you can't upgrade the RAM, however you can upgrade the storage. But this is the X1 which is an "ultrabook" model. Most Thinkpads are known for being highly upgradable. I have an older model I got off eBay for only £80 that I upgraded, but it is a bit of a brick. That's the tradeoff - laptops that can be upgraded are thicker and heavier, because having everything soldered onto the mobo is what allows OEM's to make thinner laptops.

If upgradability is important, look into Dell as well. They have some decent laptops that still allow you to open up and upgrade them. Their entry level stuff is pretty crappy but their mid-range business laptops should fall into your $500 budget while being fairly sturdy and reliable and upgradable. Dell also is very good at Linux support if that matters to you.
 
If you can, add 200$ to your budget. So you can get a Dell G13. It's has 8gigs of DDR4, NVIDIA GTX 1050 3GB GDDR5, i5-9300H up to 4.1GHz, 1TB and slot for additional SSD's, although you could run it for a while like this until you can get a SSD so you can have the OS on the SSD and your stuffs on HDD's, how's normal. In my view, Dell G3 it's the best budget laptop you can get, for a decent perfomance that can hold you up. And my advice, who tells you to buy used laptops/graphics cards, get away from him, he's lying. Especially when it comes to laptops.


You can find it by clickin on THIS
 
Shady's Fox said:
And my advice, who tells you to buy used laptops/graphics cards, get away from him, he's lying. Especially when it comes to laptops.
Click to expand...

Why? You often get more for your money if you get a used flagship product from a couple years ago vs. a brand new midrange product. This is true for pretty much any technology. Laptops, smartphones, tablets, whatever.
 
I don't wanna exaggerate but there were people that did jail for buying used products because you never know what are you buying. You can replicate almost anything that would be 1 and second would be that it's better to have something new. Even if I don't have money because I ain't rich either belive me because if I were I would already be dead but even if I don't have $, I don't buy USED things.
 
Shady's Fox said:
I don't wanna exaggerate but there were people that did jail for buying used products because you never know what are you buying. You can replicate almost anything that would be 1 and second would be that it's better to have something new. Even if I don't have money because I ain't rich either belive me because if I were I would already be dead but even if I don't have $, I don't buy USED things.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but this makes no sense. Who has gone to prison for buying used things and why?

I buy almost exclusively used phones (I ain't spending over a grand on the new iPhone fuck that) and never had a problem. I also got two used laptops, both work fine and I'm clearly not in jail...
 
Hey everyone. Thanks for the feedback so far. But something to keep inmind. My budget might be R7000 south african rand and if convert it to dollars its roughly 585 dollars. But electronics ourside is very expensive. What you can get for 500 dollars that side works out to 700 dollara when converted. So its hard to choose when just making a dir3ct coversions on money as for budget. Plus i want to buy something from my own country so its easier if somethimg goes wrong and i need to use the warranty/guarantee doe repairs or anything in that line.

So its hard to work with my budget and an american budget as prices are completely different.

Anyhow. Im thinking about increasing my budget to R8000 ZAR. And hopefully that can help with getting at least 8gb ram. Dedicated graphics and maybe a ssd.

But overall the laptop will be usexd for web designing. Editing programs from music to video and then the odd low class gaming like some rpg's and fps that dont need high performance laptops. Another for me is a hdmi connection, decent wifi, different usb slots. Think that is more or less i need.

Thanks in advance
 
Coffeeshroom said:
Morning all

Im just looking for some input on some laptops. I'm current looking at the following.

HP 15 i5 Notebook
specs:
  • 15.6-Inch HD LED Display
  • Intel Core i5 8250U Processor
  • 4GB RAM Plus 1TB Hard Drive
  • Intel UHD Graphics 620
  • Windows 10 home
Acer Aspire 3 i5 Notebook
specs:
  • 15.6-Inch HD Display
  • Intel Core i5 7200U Processor
  • 4GB RAM Plus 1TB Hard Drive
  • Intel HD Graphics
  • Windows 10 home

Acer Aspire 3 i5 Notebook
specs:
  • 15.6-Inch HD Display
  • Intel Core i5 8250U Processor
  • 4 GB RAM Plus 1TB Hard Drive
  • Intel HD Graphics
  • Windows 10 home

Lenovo Ideapad 330 i5 Notebook
specs:
  • 14-Inch FHD Display
  • Intel Core i5 8250U Processor
  • 4GB RAM Plus 1TB Hard Drive
  • Integrated Graphics
  • Windows 10 home
They are all in the same price range or exactly the same. Only difference between them are the nr or of ports used for USB and HDMI and so on. I more inclined for one wish a good WiFi and HDMI. Will be mostly used for web designing and editing programs. And the light RPG gaming to pass time.

I'm not expecting a monster. But all these fall in my budget. Only thing i might do is upgrade ram to 8gb.
Click to expand...
you aren't telling me anything i hate laptops really

so

do you have an external monitor or other gear you plan on using or is this IT, for travel/out of home/whatever?
 
Captain.Heroin said:
you aren't telling me anything i hate laptops really

so

do you have an external monitor or other gear you plan on using or is this IT, for travel/out of home/whatever?
Click to expand...
Its more for convenience and travel but also entertainment. Readon i want a hdmi connection so i can hookup to any tv in the house lol. For movies or the odd porn :ROFLMAO: .
 
Anyhow i came across the following

ASUS VivoBook 15 AMD R5 15.6" HD Notebook - Grey
Specs:
  • AMD Ryzen 5 2500U Processor
  • AMD Radeon Vega 8 Graphics
  • 4GB Onboard Memory
  • Screen Size : 15.6" HD
  • 1TB 5400 rpm SATA HDD Storage
  • Windows 10
  • Backlit Keyboard
Once again um gonna ask to upgrade the ram to 8gb so that will be my only extra cost
But falls under my new extende budget. Bleh
 
ok they all have hdmi i am assuming [too fucked] i'll tell ya which one i'd get

I'd go HP the other brands are mehhh i wouldn't trust i like custom building a desktop i'm so 90's this shit'll never end

laptops are just trash to me honestly i'm not high class enough for one, desktop or nothing really
 
Wilson Wilson said:
I'm sorry but this makes no sense. Who has gone to prison for buying used things and why?

I buy almost exclusively used phones (I ain't spending over a grand on the new iPhone fuck that) and never had a problem. I also got two used laptops, both work fine and I'm clearly not in jail...
Click to expand...
Don't bother trying to decide this person's gibberish.it never makes sense.im not sure if it's English not being a first language or a mind that jumps around and can't focus but it never fully makes sense.
 
Well my search will continue..

Just as a side note: im a desktop person myself but when i build a desktop pc i dont hold back. My knowledge with laptops arent that great reason im asking.

Anyhow i will still take about a week before deciding, as by that time i want to be back in business again. No work, no pay..
 
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