Which laptop?
 

Hi,
I would like some advice please from the computer gurus on here ,looking to purchase a new laptop for the youngest tiddly-wink who will be going off to Uni in September .

My daughter is on a 5 year course so with technology being what it is, is it better to try and purchase at the higher end now to hopefully last the distance or look to renew say in 2/3 years time ?

How much difference is there in the Intel i-3/-5/and 7 when considering what to go for ?

Any recommendations?

Many thanks,
Steve

Windows 10 is actually running on some old-hat tech pretty well, go for i5 rather than i3, I would suggest spending between £250-350 and look to renew if needed in 2/3 years - especially if your youngens are accident prone / etc

The major difference that matters between the intel core i3.5.7 will be the price. Depending on what your daughter intends on doing with it an i3 with about 4-8gb ram will see her through to the end. I bought a cheap acer about 3 years ago it's an i3 and have upgraded to 8gb ram and it's still going. I do all my documents and emails pictures music etc from it and it's fine. i5"s and i7's although the are quicker on paper you won't notice a difference on normal day to day stuff unless you are doing video editing or picture editing either of which you would be better off with a laptop that has dedicated graphics.
Hope this helps.

If I was buying anything under £350 will be adequate but it's not worth spending more than £400 if it's for basic uni work use.

Ha Jodie beat me to it curse my damn keyboard for being slow lol

Here's an i5, £329 http://www.ebuyer.com/717118-hp-250-laptop-n0y97es-abu

To be honest, an i3 is not so bad if they're not going to be doing anything too demanding on it.

I'd go with i5, I have all three and the i3 does a good job but seems a bit average, i5 I deploy a lot to businesses and never felt one under perform, i7's are only really good if you get a quad core and need some muscle for multi task/virtual machine situations.

Hard disks that are ssd's will make the most traumatic difference, these really do make a massive difference to performance.

Good choice of words. I find PC's traumatic whenever you install something new on them ;). They never bloody do it as easily as they should:kickbutt:

Keeps me in a job though Scott.

Thanks everyone for your replies, really appreciate the feedback.:ok:

Steve

I got a laptop about a year ago and upon looking the latest offerings, mine is old . technology now. They move ahead so fast so get the best you can afford

Here's a nice portable solution ;-)

http://cdn.instructables.com/FNT/VXE...XTX.MEDIUM.jpg

I consider entry level Windows laptops to be largely landfill fodder these days but for this price, how bad can this be?

http://www.dabs.com/products/lenovo-...o%20b40&src=16

Might wheeze a bit on 2GB RAM though, after it's been bloated out with iTunes and the other usual gumf that teenagers use.

2gb or ram is not enough especially with Windows 10. Also by the time you get antivirus programs on there and a few other things it will be overwhelmed quite easily

Maybe if you use **** like norton or mcafee, thankfully there are lightweight alternatives. Besides adding additional RAM is not expensive nor impossible.

However the machine i pointed out has more than 2gb anyway.

Buy a MacBook, wouldn't change mine for anything else now.

i5 but try to set SSD or Hybrid drive and 4gb min ram.

Sorry for the late reply, I've been abroad getting hot ....

I would suggest getting a laptop which will meet her needs. If the 5 year course uses special software that places high demands on the CPU of requires large amounts of data storage then choose a better CPU etc.

If most of its usage will be Word, basic Excel and internet use then any of the cheaper to middle CPUs will do i3 or AMD equivalent. I would avoid basic CPUs such as AMD E series or Intel Celeron.

RAM - Min 4 Gb. RAM is very cheap now and you could get a laptop with a better CPU and add more RAM if necessary

HDD - Min 500 GB unless looking at SSD. SSD is much, much quicker but way more expensive preinstalled and price per GB is poor. I have bought laptops with HDDs and changed them over for SSDs when a customer wants more speed.

Don't ignore AMD CPUs. I've had brand new laptops working side by side where the same windows updates have been much quicker on an AMD based laptop compared to an i5.

Finally, I would be realistic about how long the laptop will last in a student environment. I see plenty of laptops that suffer from drink spills, broken screens, missing keys, damaged HDDs etc and it may be more sensible to buy a cheaper laptop knowing it will last 2/3 years.

If there are Windows 8 deals out there, then buy one as it is a free upgrade to Windows 10.

Macs are very nice, but VERY expensive and unless you have a specific requirement I would not recommend them.

Hope some of this is useful .... and I'm too late and you've already bought one ... ;-)

Cheers guys not yet purchased but I've been told "we are buying one tomorrow apparently! :fight:

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