Sub-£350 powerful laptops discussion

oz0707

NiftyDigits wrote: »

This Toshiba Satellite L750 16L has a similar, though better spec for £229.99.

Full specifications here

Will be as new, with the normal 'as new' warranty conditions.

If wanting to spend the full £300, you should expect a second generation i3 processor(there are a few on this thread if you take a look), not a Celeron.

Just posted another thread when really should of looked here first. Will this come with Office as it seemed to from the reviews?

NiftyDigits

oz0707 wrote: »

Just posted another thread when really should of looked here first. Will this come with Office as it seemed to from the reviews?

No laptop comes with a full version of Microsoft Office for free. What they do come with is Microsoft Office Starter 2010

What end users can do with Office Starter 2010
Create and edit basic Word documents and Excel spreadsheets with 100 percent file fidelity
Open existing Word and Excel documents
Manage a simple home budget
Write letters
Create newsletters with photos and easily send them out

Bought one for my mum.

oz0707

Any idea on the price to upgrade? Sorry for being a lazy git

NiftyDigits

oz0707 wrote: »

Any idea on the price to upgrade? Sorry for being a lazy git

Haven't the foggiest.
Indicative prices
If you can't afford it, use Open Office or Libre Office.
I certainly wouldn't pay £80 for it.

Bazlovejoy

I use my current (slowly dying) laptop for general things like surfing the web, watching vids, music, downloading, word docs, etc. My current laptop doesnt run the latest footy manager but i wouldnt mind getting one that does. Im also starting to do a bit of performance analysis work as part of my job where i need to code video and film aswell, ideally in HD, my current laptop does ok with that at the moment although it could be faster.

Obviously looking to spend as little as possible but would go up to £500.

From what ive read I think i need:
- 4gb ram although 6gb would be better, faster than 2.1ghz
- dual core processor, i3 or i5
- 500gb hd
- decent battery - 5-6 hours
- I think an integrated graphics card would be ok and do a job although if i wanted to work with hd I think I'd have to get a seperate graphics card
- 15" screen

Does that all sound about right or am i talking waffle?

I'm using the Samsung mentioned earlier as a benchmark, seems to tick all the boxes, although im dubious about those kind of cashback deals.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/samsung-series-3-3530ea-15-6-laptop-silver-17291830-pdt.html?srcid=369&xtor=AL-11&cmpid=aff~HotUKDeals

Does anybody else have any other ideas or should I pull the trigger and just get the samsung? I need convincing to spend money as I'm so tight

gonzo127

Bazlovejoy wrote: »

I use my current (slowly dying) laptop for general things like surfing the web, watching vids, music, downloading, word docs, etc. My current laptop doesnt run the latest footy manager but i wouldnt mind getting one that does. Im also starting to do a bit of performance analysis work as part of my job where i need to code video and film aswell, ideally in HD, my current laptop does ok with that at the moment although it could be faster.

Obviously looking to spend as little as possible but would go up to £500.

From what ive read I think i need:
- 4gb ram although 6gb would be better, faster than 2.1ghz
- dual core processor, i3 or i5
- 500gb hd
- decent battery - 5-6 hours
- I think an integrated graphics card would be ok and do a job although if i wanted to work with hd I think I'd have to get a seperate graphics card
- 15" screen

Does that all sound about right or am i talking waffle?

I'm using the Samsung mentioned earlier as a benchmark, seems to tick all the boxes, although im dubious about those kind of cashback deals.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/samsung-series-3-3530ea-15-6-laptop-silver-17291830-pdt.html?srcid=369&xtor=AL-11&cmpid=aff~HotUKDeals

Does anybody else have any other ideas or should I pull the trigger and just get the samsung? I need convincing to spend money as I'm so tight

as ever it all depends on the programs you will be running, and what your expectations are

for gaming you will need either a AMD A series processor if using intergrated graphics (intel intergrated graphics suck) otherwise you will need a dedicated graphics card which adds to the cost

for encoding graphics wise depends on the program as some will utilise CUDA which only works with nVidia graphics chipsets, others will use openCL which works with AMD chipsets, intel intergrated graphics once again suck here

for encoding processor wise, once again depends on the program, as some programs will be heavily single threaded in which case the intel i3 are perfectly suitable and usualy decimate any AMD cpu and can equal the i5 in some cases, however if the programs utilise multithreading then a 'quad' core amd or core i5 will usually beat an i3

battery wise although its great to have a decent battery, how many people and how often do people actually use their laptops away from a power point?

screen size if doing serious analysis is a 15 inch screen really going to be enough or would a 17 inch screen be a worth while upgrade? although of course it makes portability less, reduces battery life and usually costs more it could be worth while depending on what you are doing

citycastaways

Hi everyone, Have just been on the comet website and they have a SAMSUNG-NP305U1A-A01UK-Laptop with 11.6inch Processor Model: E-450 for £279.99 with the following spec
Brand: SAMSUNG
Colour: colour
Screen Size: 11.6 inches
Processor: tbc
Processor Model: E-450
Memory (RAM): 4 GB
Storage (hard drive): 500 GB
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium
Dedicated Graphics:
Shared Graphics: AMD HD 6310
Discrete-Class Graphics:
Optical Drive Type: tbc
Bluetooth:
HDMI Port:
Battery Life: Up to 8.6 hours
Dual Core Processor
3 USB 2.0 slots
Multi-Format Digital Media Card Reader
Built-in Webcam
1366 x 768 Screen Resolution
802.11b/g/n Wireless networking

I know all the spec details are not available yet but would like to find out what people think about it
We have a fujitsu at the moment that is nearing its end and would like to get a smaller unit can anyone advise if this is a decent smallscreen unit?

any advice/comments appreciated

Thankyou

NiftyDigits

citycastaways wrote: »

Hi everyone, Have just been on the comet website and they have a SAMSUNG-NP305U1A-A01UK-Laptop with 11.6inch Processor Model: E-450 for £279.99 with the following spec
Brand: SAMSUNG
Colour: colour
Screen Size: 11.6 inches
Processor: tbc
Processor Model: E-450
Memory (RAM): 4 GB
Storage (hard drive): 500 GB
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium
Dedicated Graphics:
Shared Graphics: AMD HD 6310
Discrete-Class Graphics:
Optical Drive Type: tbc
Bluetooth:
HDMI Port:
Battery Life: Up to 8.6 hours
Dual Core Processor
3 USB 2.0 slots
Multi-Format Digital Media Card Reader
Built-in Webcam
1366 x 768 Screen Resolution
802.11b/g/n Wireless networking

I know all the spec details are not available yet but would like to find out what people think about it
We have a fujitsu at the moment that is nearing its end and would like to get a smaller unit can anyone advise if this is a decent smallscreen unit?

any advice/comments appreciated

Thankyou

If it suits... though note that it has no optical drive. It's not at all powerful, so if you don't plan to do anything demanding it will cope with the basic tasks..

citycastaways

thanks for your reply, we will wait to see all the specs before we decide. We don't use our computer for gaming just surfing the net, pics and word processing etc.

Thanks again

NiftyDigits

citycastaways wrote: »

thanks for your reply, we will wait to see all the specs before we decide. We don't use our computer for gaming just surfing the net, pics and word processing etc.

Thanks again

Why would you have to wait?
The specifications are here for all to see