Techy Laptop Advice

Right Peeps!

Who out there knows about good laptops?

I need a new one. Been searching online and the possibilities are so endless I need some kind of starting point - that's where you folks come in! I need your advice and recommendations, if you have any.

- I've got a budget of £500 (so, Macs are out of the question)
- I need something that can comfortably run Adobe products like After Effects & Photoshop (so, probably with a good processor and 6GB+ RAM)
- Needs to be portable and preferably light (this sounds obvious for a laptop but my current one has a 17" screen and weighs a ton!)
- Preferably with USB 3.0
- Half decent battery life
- I have no intention of playing games or watching blu-rays etc, I have my PS3 for that

With so many brands out there - Toshiba, Acer, Asus, Samsung to name but a few, has anybody got any reason to favour or disparage any of these or any particular processors?

GO!

I picked up an Acer on a phone contract about four years ago and it has been suprisingly good and reliable. I run Linux on it which might be hiding a drop off in speed but when I occasionally run Windows it seems to be ok.

I have had a succession of Dells for work and they were all awful. Hot, prone to crash, shut down problems, poor battery life. Shite.

I once had a Lenovo Think Pad for a project, it was like lugging a PC and monitor around.

My current laptop is an Acer and after three and a half years and some serious abuse it is starting to have a few problems. It's been great though, so I'm quite tempted by another.

Cheers for your input Kamuza and for confirming what I suspected about Dell too.

For those not using Macs but are using laptops, what brand are you using and can you recommend them or not?

Much obliged.

I've got a Dell. Not the best laptop. I've heard Acer are decent. It would be worthwhile sending SteWells a PM as he knows his stuff

This one seems to tick a lot of the right boxes except the weight. Do you know what your current laptop weighs to see if this would be any improvement?

Also think about the operating system. Windows 8 is just being released but looks awful to me. I can imagine many people looking for Windows 7 computers in the same way that people kept looking for and buying XP computers after Vista was released.

Acer Aspire V3

Also consider this one. Let down perhaps by the amount of RAM and compromised for some people by the lack of a DVD drive it looks good in lots of other ways. Sold as an ultrabook despite its 15.6" screen size because of its light weight it has an SSD drive alongside a conventional HDD drive, a 3rd generation i5 processor. Beats Audio speakers and sound and 2 of the 3 USB ports are 3.0.

Tempting if you can live without the DVD drive as i've heard upgrading laptop memory is not too difficult.

HP Envy 6-1010sa

Im a computer science student. Go with Lenovo, ideally, a Lenovo Thinkpad.

Arkay v2.0 wrote:For those not using Macs but are using laptops, what brand are you using and can you recommend them or not?

Much obliged.

Lenovo. Purely for durability reasons. They are very long lasting like Macbook's. I would not buy any other brand than Lenovo or Apple. If it came down to an alternative I'd build my own using a custom case. Sony Vaio's top end use good cases but then you are paying more for a brand than actual specifications.

4GB RAM min.

Cheers Toastie! That Acer was one of the ones I was considering but the HP mixes it up a bit.

Pixie will check out Lenovo too.

Thanks all!

Ok, here's another one for you techies. Which one is likely to give me better performance?

An Intel Core i5-3317 - 1.7GHz with 8GB RAM

or

an Intel Core i5-3210 - 2.5GHz with 6GB RAM

Essentially, what's more important here, the processor speed or the RAM?

Also, weirdly, all the Windows 8 laptops coming out this Friday are proving to be cheaper than the identical model Windows 7 Home Premium ones. Anybody had any experience of W8 yet? Is it any good or a total ?

Help RBMBers - you're my only hope...

I have heard Windows 8 continues the tradition of every other Microsoft release being dross.

I personally think that Windows 8 looks epic..really fresh and different. I had the consumer preview running on my laptop for a while and was quiet impressed.

Although it is different and takes some getting used to, no start button for example, it really is quiet innovative. It is by far the best socially integrated platform - think smart phone level of integration but on a laptop.



Also, the tile format looks great imo.


Finally, I have had a Asus laptop for the last 3 years and it still runs like a dream!

Rhys wrote:I personally think that Windows 8 looks epic..really fresh and different. I had the consumer preview running on my laptop for a while and was quiet impressed.

Although it is different and takes some getting used to, no start button for example, it really is quiet innovative. It is by far the best socially integrated platform - think smart phone level of integration but on a laptop.



Also, the tile format looks great imo.


Finally, I have had a Asus laptop for the last 3 years and it still runs like a dream!

Interesting. It does seem to be geared more toward tablets and a touch based UI, so I'm curious to see how it works on a laptop. I like the idea of the tile format as I love a clean interface (*cue Valley Trash dirty joke here*) but continually switching between a desktop setup and the tile format might be a little grating after a while depending on how quickly it responds. Did you find that at all? As I'm still using Vista, could you say it is a definite improvement on that?

Anybody have any thoughts on the hardware question above?

Sorry for the pestering but I'm on a strict budget and got to get this purchase right as it is pretty key to my job as Grave Digger/Manicurist/Patagonian Cult Leader*

(*delete as appropriate)

Stop teasing us on the job thing!