£500 laptop for SQL, MATLAB etc

[tutmonster]

Hi,

I currently have a 6 year old Acer Aspire 5536 with 4gb of ram running Windows 7. I am using it for web design including handling SQL operations and also for MATLAB. It is handling this but only just and is very slow. Therefore I would like some opinions for the best laptop to replace it please.

My budget is up to £500 (preferably closer to £300) but something that will last another 4 or 5 years. It needs to be able to handle these tasks and an added bonus would be the ability to handle some gaming.

Thank you in advance.

 

[velo3100]

I know that matlab is not intensive on the cpu or the gpu, sql operation can be depending on the software. Try this laptop: http/www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/ultraNoteII-14/
onfigure it with an i5 - 4310 and 4 gigs of ram and it should be able to do what you need.