Any advice for purchasing a new Laptop? Are there any deals?

[blinkypoo]

I am searching for an ideal budget laptop and primarily concerned with entertainment. I use my laptop constantly for business and pleasure. Work, internet browsing mainly, but also TV/movies and a bit of gaming.

I currently have a HP G6 A8, so I am comparing various features to this model. I know the HP G6 A8 is not considered a budget laptop, but it was about same price as my budget now at the time of purchase two years ago.

These are my ideal features:

-- £150 - £300 budget, but the cheaper the better
-- 14'' - 15"+ screen.
-- Good speakers and sound.
-- A decent discreet GPU. Nothing crazy, but with enough power to run Counter Strike Source, DOD Source, and the older Battlefield games (BF2 and BF 1942). These games are quite old now, and should not be graphically demanding.
-- 5hrs+ battery life
-- An AMD CPU is okay, but I'd prefer to have an Intel i3 or i5 processor. I am not sure about the integrated graphics on the Intel CPUs. Also I'm not well versed in technicalities of Intel VS quad-core AMD CPUs.
-- I'd like a quad-core CPU if possible and still have the above my listed features. Battery and budget is ultimately the most important.
-- 320gb -500gb HDD. I do not need an SSD.
-- 4gb RAM. It depends on the processor, but 4gb is enough right?
-- 500mb or 1gb video/graphics ram. I am clueless on this topic sorry.
-- 1.5kg+ weight. The lighter the better, as i travel a lot.
-- Screen resolution is not a big deal to me. I know it won't be high considering my budget.
-- I do not need an optical disc drive.

Of course I've spent days shopping around, but I still don't fully understand how well i3's or i5's are for playing the games I mentioned above.

One thing I do know is that I'm looking for a Chromebook-style Windows laptop.

The Asus E402ma is very cheap and has great battery life, but it has basically no HDD and the processor with only 2gb of RAM is to under-powered for my needs. What a deal though!


I thought the Lenovo Essential B50-80 was good at first, as it supposedly as excellent battery life, a speedy dual-core processor, and weighs only 2.15kg, but it unfortunately has pretty bad reviews on other sites.

Do any of these models stand out?

Cheers guys and thanks for the help!

 

[hang-the-9]

Why are you looking for another laptop? Nothing in your price range will be any better than your current one with the AMD A8 chip.

If you need to replace it, probably the Asus X555LA-XX290H is the best one from the article. You just have very little picks in any sort of quality in a Windows system in your budget. I would not bother replacing the HP you have though, nothing will be an improvement unless you go to the over 500 range.

 

[blinkypoo]

Why are you looking for another laptop? Nothing in your price range will be any better than your current one with the AMD A8 chip.
If you need to replace it, probably the Asus X555LA-XX290H is the best one from the article. You just have very little picks in any sort of quality in a Windows system in your budget. I would not bother replacing the HP you have though, nothing will be an improvement unless you go to the over 500 range.

Ok i see what you mean, but my HP A8-4500M (Radeon HD graphics) was not far off the same budget when i bought it 3years ago! (it was a great deal back then)
hmm possibly i could buy a new battery for it, and new hdd (as i alrady binned the battery-too heavy and couldnt revitalise it, and hdd is slowing my whole system down these days)

...but this would add up to the same price for a new low-end laptop right??

...but any suggestions on laptops meeting my requiremnts above (at least near to my budget then/or ignore the budget completely for now) would be fantastic!!!

thanks again

 

[hang-the-9]

New battery is under $100, hard drive is likely fine, what you may need to do is a clean Windows setup on the system after backing up your data. Or get a cheaper solid state drive, 120 gig or so if you don't keep many files or large games on the system. Battery and drive would be a bit over $100, half to 1/3rd the cost of a new laptop.

This is not bad, 8 gig of RAM and faster CPU than in your laptop http/www.ebuyer.com/723849-hp-probook-455-g3-laptop-p5t06ea-abu

 

[blinkypoo]

This is not bad, 8 gig of RAM and faster CPU than in your laptop http/www.ebuyer.com/723849-hp-probook-455-g3-laptop-p5t06ea-abu

Ya, i was looking at that hpA10 last night... sadly its a little on the heavy side and battery life is poor apparently.

I'm leaning towards purchasing a new laptop, as my HP one has been with me in all kinds of environments in dif countries /humidity/dust etc. ..including flying off my motorbike one time,last year (got some impressive air-time, ha!), and despite suffering a little, cracked plastics/hinge/cd-rom side damage, still worked fine up until 2months ago.

surely you have seen laptops after 3years? ...forgive me if i sound ignorant, but i thought general laptop advice is to replace after 2years if you use your laptop every day each month etc.
if light use, then 3years.

 

[hang-the-9]

There is no general laptop replacement thought, the idea is really about software and game ability. Over time, the requirements for software and running games goes up, that is about 3 years before new things start to take toll on a low end system. I have used 10 year old laptops that run fine, and most of the laptops in my house are 3 years old or more. Business also run on about a 3-4 year life cycle but that is for support reasons, and also the longer it takes to do a task, the more it costs, so if the business is smart they keep their employees productive with fast systems that run instead of old slow ones that need fixing or upgrading and taking time out of work day for that. If a person making $50 an hour has a bad computer for a few hours, then you have a tech making $20-$30 an hour fixing things, you lose the cost of a new computer in a day of lost productivity.

If you are looking for a sturdy system, look for Lenovo T for full size or X for portables. They just don't die unless you are really rough on them. Only thing is that in some models the hard drive fails, but that is due to the drive model. A used T420s or T420 is about $300 for a good specimen with a strong battery, same thing for an X220 smaller model. They are not pretty like a system made for 20 somethings that needs to be sharp and silver because they are used to Apple product ads but they have the best construction on the market outside of a fully rugged laptop.

 

[prtaylorwichita]

Hang-the-9 said it well. Here in the U.S. I tend towards refurbished computers for personal use in the laptop arena. You can get higher end equipment for low end prices. They aren't bleeding edge but good solid systems. However, there are a number of refurbished/off-lease Lenovo desktops out there if you want something that gives you more flexibility. What I find interesting here is that while a number of brands have refurbished, Lenovo has the most here, which speaks to their durability. I have not killed one yet (and I have only bought refurbished for use at home), I have replaced them because they outlived their usefulness on modern software.

As far as gaming, unless you are buying a very expensive gaming class laptop nothing will perform stellar. That said anything with a core i5 will out perform your A8. I use a Lenovo x220 and added a 240 GB solid state drive and maxed ram to 8 GB all for about $250 USD buying refurbished system. Plus I have a docking station for more USB ports and a large 24 inch monitor connected via the DisplayPort so dual screen when not on the road. The 24 inch monitor was preexisting and had HDMI input; while the X220 came with the docking station. The system will play Borderlands, Borderlands2, and Pre-Sequel without difficulty although the CPU fan really screams at times, just to give you a reference and I set graphic opts low on Borderlands Pre-Sequel.

Benchamrk for an A8 7410 is 2598: https/cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+A8-7410+APU&id=2537
Benchmark for my X220 with Core i5 2540M is 3742: http/www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-2540M+%40+2.60GHz
Benchmarks aren't everything having a solid state drive and adequate RAM (or maxing it out for a laptop) and knowing the limits of what is reasonable for your system to do are important. Don't buy a bicycle and expect Triumph Trophy performance and comfort.