Looking for a mainstream laptop

[Adam Zilizi]

Hi guys!

I'll be buying a laptop for my mother.
It won't be used for gaming at all (ok, maybe solitaire ).
It'll be mainly used for Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint,...), checking email, Facebook, YouTube, browsing the web and some very light multitasking (all of these mentioned before).

I'm from Slovakia but the eshop it'll be bought in has got an english website too.
Here it is: https/www.alzashop...ck-d2417642.htm
The specs are pretty decent for that price imo. Every other laptop in that price range has got worse specs.

But of course my father had to complain about the looks, he likes the looks of this:
https/www.alza.sk/...er-d2368599.htm(sorry, no english website for this one)
The specs are significantly worse for the same price, 4GB of RAM, 500GB HDD, integrated graphics (even though I don't know how does the R5 M330 perform, I couldn't find any benchmarks).

Both would be a huge step up from her old Acer Extensa 5235 (Celeron, 1GB RAM, Intel GMA 4500).
And if you can, give me some feedback about these brands (Lenovo, Acer). I mostly heard good things about them.

I couldn't find any info about the display panel types in these notebooks, but I suspect TN.
That old Acer mentioned before has got very poor viewing angles, hope these ones don't.

 

[GeRgY]

Hello mate,
This Acer V15 looks good but i dont like this economy processors (Intel Core i5 5200U you shoud know that "U" means economy and lower working). For this price you should watch over for Dell or Toshiba or something. If you dont have time get this V15 but with another CPU !
Good luck

 

[jaguarskx]

The 1st link does not work for, but the Acer Aspire V15 should be fine for your mother's need. The Intel HD 5500 graphics core is more than enough to watch videos. She does not need a dedicated Radeon R5 M330 at all.

The Intel HD 5500 can be used to play some games on low settings and resolution; for example I decided to use the Intel HD 4400 in my laptop instead of the Radeon HD 8850m to play Skyrim just to see how it can handle the game. With some tweaks to the SkyrimPrefs.ini file I can get pretty decent performance (above 30 FPS average) at 1600x900 resolution. If an Intel HD graphics core can do that, then it can handle whatever everyday tasks your mother wants to do.

 

[Adam Zilizi]

Hello mate,
This Acer V15 looks good but i dont like this economy processors (Intel Core i5 5200U you shoud know that "U" means economy and lower working). For this price you should watch over for Dell or Toshiba or something. If you dont have time get this V15 but with another CPU !
Good luck

Why is the Acer V15 better than the Lenovo B50-80?
And all notebooks in this price range have got an ULV CPU.

 

[Adam Zilizi]

The 1st link does not work for, but the Acer Aspire V15 should be fine for your mother's need. The Intel HD 5500 graphics core is more than enough to watch videos. She does not need a dedicated Radeon R5 M330 at all.

The Intel HD 5500 can be used to play some games on low settings and resolution; for example I decided to use the Intel HD 4400 in my laptop instead of the Radeon HD 8850m to play Skyrim just to see how it can handle the game. With some tweaks to the SkyrimPrefs.ini file I can get pretty decent performance (above 30 FPS average) at 1600x900 resolution. If an Intel HD graphics core can do that, then it can handle whatever everyday tasks your mother wants to do.

Here: www.alzashop.com/lenovo-ideapad-g50-80-black-d2417642.htm

I know that the Acer notebook is pretty nice, but for almost the same price the Lenovo comes with better specs.

 

[jaguarskx]

Since your mom does not play games the Radeon R5 M330 is not a big deal. As I stated earlier, the Intel HD 5500 will be able to handle all her needs.

Why not ask her which one she would prefer unless it is a surprise gift. Both are budget laptops so I don't think build quality is much different between the two. The Lenovo G50-80 does have a larger hard drive though (1TB vs 500GB). Judging just by the looks, the Acer is more attractive because it is black and silver while the Lenovo looks a bit "boring" because it is all black.


Here's another option, the Toshiba Satellite L50-B-16V gold for €583.57 which is basically the same price as the Lenovo. It has a 1080p IPS screen which means it will have better viewing angles than the other two laptops. It only has a 4th generation Core i5-4200u CPU, but the performance difference between 4th and 5th gen is really small. 5th gen Intel CPUs do consume a little less power which means longer battery life, but it doesn't make much difference if it is only going to be used at home or in the office. it also has a Radeon R7 M260 graphics card for those intense solitaire gaming sessions.

https/www.alzashop.com/toshiba-satellite-l50-b-16v-gold-d1571761.htm

 

[velo3100]

Could you give me your budget?