Looking to buy affordable laptop

[hearmenow]

1. What is your budget?
Approx £600

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

Preferably more than 14"

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Unsure, least 1600x?

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?

currently have a good desktop rig, but need laptop for 3d university work when travelling home etc.

5. How much battery life do you need?

Doesn't matter much, can be plugged in.

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)?

Would like to play Starwars (SWTOR), prefrabbly on medium atlesat 60fps+++

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
3D software (Maya) Unreal Dev Kit / Photoshop etc...

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

Atleast 500gb + little lesss isnt much of a big deal as I can use external.

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

UK websites, Ebuyer, Amazon... Aria etc any others are fine.

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

Atleast for the next 3 years.

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

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.

I have heard Asus are great with the type of product I am after, and have had a few asus products that have served me well.

13. What country do you live in?

UK

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

Again need something that I can use Maya on perfectly find, don't need to render, as I can use my home desktop and would like to do a spot of gaming, doesn't have to be on full, just descent frame rate. Mainly SWTOR

 

[WR2]

Hello hearmenow;

The 1600x900 resolution is going to limit you to 17" models in your budget range.
Like this Lenovo IdeaPad G770 17" notebook £599
Core i5-2410M CPU, 8GB RAM, 750GB HDD, 17.3" 1600x900 LCD screen w/ AMD 6650M 2GB Graphics card.
It will run SWTOR but maybe not on medium graphics settings and you might need to reduce the resolution to keep the framerates fluid.

 

[hearmenow]

Seems like quite a good laptop, it should be able to run maya etc fine though?
also I really don't mind having a 15.4" especially if i'm going to get better hardware for my money.

Never heard of the make though... any good?

http/www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/ASUS_K53SC-SX307V_1120765.html
This one seems ok, or isnt as great as the one you linked me?

 

[WR2]

It looks as though you might be able to run SWTOR on mostly medium graphics settings with that AMD Radeon HD 6650M.

No problem running Maya and other similar packages. It's not ideal for larger rendering projects but it will run them if you have the need.

Lenovo's are well thought of - mostly the Thinkpad line that used to belong to IBM before they sold it to the Chinese.
Lenovo G770 review

 

[WR2]

In a 15" frame you'll be dropping down to the standard 1366x768 resolution.
It will be lighter and easier to carry around though - 2.5 Kg vs 3.01 Kg for the G770.
The Asus has a slightly faster CPU, but the GPU is a pretty big downgrade from a Radeon HD 6650.

 

[WR2]

GT 520M vs Radeon HD 6550M

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[hearmenow]

Yeah reviews look really good for that, although the websites im look for vary from the i5 and i7 and I think that SWTOR uses a lot of CPU power, from what i've heard.

Can't seem to track down an i5/i7 within a reasonable price.

is this quite a recent system, or is it worth me waiting a couple months for something new?

many thanks for your help btw is awesome.

 

[WR2]

Most of the MMORPGs/RPGs depend a lot on the CPU, but they also use the GPU for the nice eye-candy graphics everyone likes.
Both the Asus and Lenovo have the Sandy Bridget Core i5 CPUs.

There are some new Ivy Bridge CPUs due out in April but it will be the summer before you'll see the less expensive models start hitting the stores. I don't think you'll need to wait if you find something that meets your needs at a good price.

 

[hearmenow]

Yeah just quite hard tracking down something at the moment have always been a desktop man. The Lenovo seems pretty good, but like you said i'm not to bothered about having a smaller screen and would prefer the increased FPS, although the bigger screen size is always nice.

Although was hoping for something a little closer to £600, but above all for that price range you would strongly recommend the Lenovo ?

I'll try search out for a descent price! xD I don't really require the operating system either, I have a spare copy of Win 7 lying around.


https/www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Lenovo_IdeaPad_G770_1091020.html

is there much difference on this one compared to the one you linked? £100 cheaper =/

 

[WR2]

If you're not fussed about the 1366x768 resolution (mostly for Maya but it's nice for gaming as well) and losing the ability to run SWTOR in medium graphics settings than the ASUS K53SC is a pretty solid choice, and at £500, a pretty good bargain.

@ £650 there is the ASUS N53SV home entertainment laptop.
Core i5-2430M 2.4GHz CPU, 4GB RAM & GeForce GT 540M graphics card.
It's got a Blu-Ray player and upgraded speakers.
And a 2yr warranty plus 1yr accidental damage protection warranty (easily worth £50).

 

[WR2]

It's the same £599 M533EUK model that I linked in my first post.

 

[hearmenow]

Ah yeah sorry must mixed it up. £599 seems like the best one then I might go for that. The hardware within that tops the asus n53sv or worth spending an extra £50 for it?

again big thanks for the help, some good stuff

 

[WR2]

The n53sv CPU/GPU is roughly equivalent to the G770.
So it's mostly 15" vs 17" and LCD resolution 1366x768 vs 1600x900 that you be choosing between.

It's the 2yr warranty and accidental damage protection policy that make it worth the extra $50.