Laptops: Outfitting the Home?

[GunXpatriot]

So for a while now, I've had a slight Ebay addiction. Not that I compulsively buy, but when I really want something, I may bid without truly wanting it 100%. I usually figure that out before I win the auction. When I do though, I'm a good payer...

I have a bunch of computers around here. I've got my old Gateway M-1624, which overheats with the AMD Turion 64x2 TL-60. Still, it did serve me well for a while, and I still use it, since my FX-8350 build is upstairs. I've turned the coffee table into some sort of workstation, haha.

The two others I have are a Samsung NC10 netbook. 1GB RAM with an Atom n270. Not a whole lot of horsepower, but I'm thinking of turning it into a server for backup. Or something. Not sure, really. The other is an old Thinkpad T23, Pentium III 1.13GHz w/ 1GB RAM. It still performs surprising well. Somehow. 240p videos on youtube run smooth. I know that seems ridiculous, but for a 13+ year old laptop. Granted, it runs slower than the netbook. Sort of. The netbook has better video playback, but it seems like in a lot of other tasks, the T23 is better, but the N270 still has the advantage of being much more modern, so things like Google Drive work a hell of a lot better...

Anyway... Since thinkpads seem to last forever, judging by Ebay and a lot of Youtube videos, I figured, why not get a newer Thinkpad? I just won an auction on Ebay for an X61 tablet. Performance-wise, it seemed to be pretty good. Almost 1000 on Passmark, which matched my old system. I'm looking to upgrade my old laptop, and get one for my Mom and Grandpa. And since they only need enough performance to check e-mail, watch youtube videos, type some stuff up, listen to music, etc... I figured a used laptop from several years ago would be fine. I'm even thinking of getting a used ultrabook as an upgrade to my old M-1624. Thing is, now that I've looked at battery life, I'm having a bit of buyer's remorse. The battery life seems to be pretty bad. Maybe 3 hours... Maybe 4, with the extended 8 cell on the X61. Performance is OK, batter life is not... Pretty much makes the whole thing suck.

The battery life on my M-1624 (Turion 64x2 TL-60) was ABYSMAL. I remember fresh out of the box, getting maybe 3 hours (if I was lucky) in power saver mode, or whatever. The thing was a hog, it ran hot, but the performance was good when I didn't have 100GB of garbage on the HDD, and all kinds of programs to bog it down. Which why I'm going to back up and reinstall... That'll probably be given to my mom or grandpa, since they'll be on AC power anyway... Granted, I may just ignore it, because it runs so hot and is not ideal.

So essentially, I need two types of recommendations... I need a nice solid ultrabook/AMD equivalent with nice batter life and decent performance... And, I was thinking maybe a used Samsung series 9, with... i5?

And then, I'm looking for a couple decent used laptops with decent-sized screens. I guess 14" or so, preferably. But I guess 13-15 inch would work. Again, even if I have to replace batteries, I just want the end product to have good battery life and passable performance for the average older person who isn't doing any video editing, or gaming, etc. There were those AMD "ultrabooks" that were cheap, but kinda weak. Those may work...

Kind of torn on this. I just want everyone to be happy, and have something I can take with me for some quick video editing, maybe very LIGHT gaming... And a used ultrabook seems to be able to do that. But of course, I don't expect it to match an FX-8350 with 2x R9 270's.

 

[Warukyure]

Best thing to do, look for Off-lease laptops. The cheapest, best performing, useless laptop for price right now would be to find off-lease T61's. These things usually run for about $300 or less, come with 4 GB, Windows 7, and either Core 2 Duo T7500 or the better T8100. Those would be much better than a netbook, and if they're for your parents (if they are like mine) a bigger screen IS BETTER.

Other good options would be trying to find HP Pav 14's with at least an AMD A4 or A6, the A8s are too much and the E1/E2s are garbage.

As you for your M-1624, AMD Turions were bad, they got hotter than the Sun, they had bad CPU downclocking so it killed battery fast doing small tasks. As for the battery life, 3 hours was "amazing" battery life back then, unless you were willing to pay the $100-200 upgrade to a 8/9-cell battery.

Samsung's are kinda nice, I have one myself thats also an i5, but I don't like the pre-loaded stuff thats on them and the recovery software is garbage.

Heres an example of an off-lease, http/www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX53054 This one is slightly newer and a bit more expensive, but you can find less expensive ones as well that pretty much match performance.

As for yourself, if you want an Ultrabook, don't get the AMD ones unless they are fairly recent models due to higher power consumption. You might be able to find cheap HP Envy ultrabooks with like an i5-3000U series CPU and those are pretty good (though maybe a no-go for you since don't have replaceable batteries or easily accessible RAM/HDD bays). Toshiba Tecra or Portege's are also good, a bit thicker than most Ultrabooks but easy to replace batteries/parts. I have a old Toshiba Protege R830 and it works well despite being a few years old.