Buying a budget laptop with i3/i5 and upgrading with SSD etc.

[alexander0884]

Hello,

I am looking to buy a budget laptop with an i3 or better yet an i5 processor if its roughly in the price range.

Id like to eliminate any garbage such as the optical drive. I wont be needing it, and probably replace the part with an SSD for the operating system.

I live in the UK and have been looking on websites such as ebuyer.com and scan.co.uk.

There are some i5 machines going for around £400, Im just wondering if its worth the hassle, id like to keep the price as low as possible.

Any suggestion?

Best Regards,

 

[Solandri]

The only advantages the i5 has over the i3 are Turbo Boost, and some obscure virtualization and encryption functions. For most current Intel mobile CPUs, Turbo Boost is about 500 MHz extra on a 2.6 GHz CPU, or about a 19% speed boost over a 2.6 GHz i3. Everything else is the same as the i3 - 2 cores, hyperthreading, 256 kB L2 and 3 MB L3 cache, same integrated graphics, same graphics clock speed. Heck, even Intel's retail pricing for the two are identical. I would not pay more than about $25 extra for the i5.

People's infatuation with the i5 comes from desktop processors. The desktop i5 is a quad core whereas the i3 is a dual core. Unfortunately, people assume the same performance jump exists in the mobile processors, when it's simply not the case. The laptop manufacturers are guilty of letting this misbelief continue too, typically charging $50-$100 more for an i5 version even though it costs them almost nothing over the i3 and doesn't really give the end user much.

Paradoxically, omitting the optical drive will probably drive the price up. It's generally the thinner, lighter notebooks which don't have an optical drive. And thinner/lighter = more expensive.

If you're ok with refurbished, you may want to check out Dell Outlet and Lenovo Outlet. I believe they have UK versions of their outlet stores. The refurbs aren't necessarily customer returns. Many of them are orders which were canceled before shipping. Once a custom order is boxed for a customer, the companies aren't allowed to sell them as new anymore. I've been buying from them for a few years for friends on a budget, and all of them have been indistinguishable from new. Both Dell and Lenovo offer their regular 1 year warranty on refurbs (although your credit card may not extend the warranty since it's a refurb). Inventory varies, and sometimes you can get some spectacular deals. I've picked up several Dell i3 systems for $250-$270, and a Thinkpad E430 for $325.

An SSD is the best upgrade you can make to speed up a notebook - the smaller 2.5" 7200 RPM drives and especially the 5400 RPM drives are the slowest thing on the computer. Keep an eye out for notebooks which have an mSATA port. Most of the newer ones do. With rare exceptions, these will let you plug an mSATA SSD into them. It's a real SATA port so the SSD will show up and act just like a regular drive in addition to the default hard drive. Put the OS and programs on the SSD and you can get SSD speeds, while still retaining the storage capacity of the built-in hard drive. For systems which ship with a mSATA SSD cache, you can retain the cache, or replace it with a larger SSD and use it as a system drive.

 

[alexander0884]

Brilliant idea, havent thought about refurbished but should do the trick.

Also thanks for heads up on Mobile I5 vs M I3