Best cheap laptop for things like blender and general use.

[Nesquik321]

Looking for a fairly cheap laptop that will run blender well and do other general taks. Mabye a bit of light gaming on the side aswell.

 

[rgd1101]

how cheap is cheap?
fill this out http/www.tomsguide.com/forum/50797-35-laptop-buyers

 

[Nesquik321]

1. What is your budget? Around £500-700

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? Preferably 15

3. What screen resolution do you want? 1920

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? No

5. How much battery life do you need? Atleast 6 hours. I will be taking it to lessons

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)? Not really. Mabye a few hear and there but i have my pc

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) General use

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? Above 250gb

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? As long as possible

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. 
Not really bothered. Would like a respecred brand though

13. What country do you live in? Uk

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

 

[madmatt30]

Battery life is going to be the killer here for you.

You get these,specs on laptops stating 8 & 12 hour battery life & yet really with fairly medium usage you'll rarely see past 3-4 hours tops.

https/www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/lenovo-v330-intel-core-i7-8550u-8gb-256gb-ssd-15.6-inch-windows-10-laptop-81ax00ccuk/version.asp

Really that's a bang up deal , the 8550u is a seriously powerful mobile cpu.

Comes at the expense of battery life though.
Although with power saving settings in,windows you can limit down to 10w or so.

Thing is if I were buying a laptop now that's the cpu if be going for.

Dropping £100 only takes,you down a hyperthreaded dual core 7*** series i5/i7 whereas the 8550u is a fully fledged 4c/8t chip.

 

[Nesquik321]

Looks nice. What are the integrated graphics on it like?

 

[madmatt30]

Intel hd 620

Not gaming graphics but it is possible,to game at lower settings even on modern titles (maybe dropping to 720p fur some of the more graphically strenous stuff)

Just put 'Intel hd 620 gaming' into YouTube & you'll get some decent example videos up.

 

[Nesquik321]

Yeah i just have. Doesnt look to bad. What is the life span of laptops these days? All my previous ones deteriorated really fast

 

[madmatt30]

Cpu on that one ??
Id say fairly limitless time wise in all honesty.

If you're going about actual lifespan of the laptop before it dies who knows.

They've become more efficient power & temp wise so youd expect lifespan to be longer than models from 3-4 years ago.

Mrs had an Acer 2014 , died last year, I have a dell from 2012 , still runs,like new (well beter than new because I fitted an ssd last year)

Reliabity wise I'd always take dell or Lenovo personally.

 

[Nesquik321]

MERGED QUESTION
Question from Nesquik321 : "Looking for a laptop that will suport blender for £600"

I am looking for a new laptop as i have started lessons on blender. I am wanting a laptop that will last. I have been recommended the v330 i7. Not sure if you need a good graphics card for it or not. Also want a xecent battery life but not important

 

[CryoWolf]

https/www.scan.co.uk/products/156-asus-fx503vm-dm042t-fhd-i5-7300hq-8gb-ddr4-128gb-m2-sata-ssdplus1tb-hdd-3gb-gtx-1060-win10

If you can stretch for something like this that is currently on offer you get a an i5 quad core which is not to bad along with the dedicated graphics. When it comes to 3d rendering I know for sure in blender as that where I live, that graphics card rendering is always faster than cpu rendering, that this 1060 within the laptop should render twice as fast as the i7s available in the other laptops. As long as you set the tile to large you will be well on your way. Its fine and dandy having a beafed up CPU but with eevee that supposedly will be able to utilise both the GPU and CPU your best bet is to find a balanced laptop at this rate. I.e I5 + dedicated GPU. Story short, you can render, do tasks, use cuda acceletated apps, play games. Lastly I don't think any laptop would do a render and hold up a long battery life.