Best laptop for under £500?
Discussion
Evening all,
Birthday is coming up and girlfriend was looking to buy me a laptop to get me off hers!
She has a budget of around £500
What would be a good laptop for that price and for:
General internet browsing
Photoshopping
Downloading Music
Uploading Photos
Skype
Unfortunately an apple is out of budget unless went for a second hand one.
Thanks!
Birthday is coming up and girlfriend was looking to buy me a laptop to get me off hers!
She has a budget of around £500
What would be a good laptop for that price and for:
General internet browsing
Photoshopping
Downloading Music
Uploading Photos
Skype
Unfortunately an apple is out of budget unless went for a second hand one.
Thanks!
I'd go for a 2nd hand MacBook Air 13". The best laptop I've ever owned, even better than the 13" Retina model I replaced it with.
To give you an idea of how good Apple's support for their hardware can be, I bought a 3 year old MacBook Pro off eBay and it developed a fault after a year or so. I took the 4 year old machine into the Apple store and they gave it a brand new logic board free of charge as there was a recall on that model. The recall was so old that it had actually expired some months previously but they did it anyway.
You can always take out AppleCare if you're worried.
To give you an idea of how good Apple's support for their hardware can be, I bought a 3 year old MacBook Pro off eBay and it developed a fault after a year or so. I took the 4 year old machine into the Apple store and they gave it a brand new logic board free of charge as there was a recall on that model. The recall was so old that it had actually expired some months previously but they did it anyway.
You can always take out AppleCare if you're worried.
You should just get a new Lenovo Thinkpad for that kind of money. They are massive in the business world , used by nasa and feature some clever technology to keep your data safe.
We have had a number of thinkpads over the years(I series , R50 , R60 , R61e , R500 and L412 ) . All were bought used and none have failed me despite proving there water resistant keyboards with a cup of coffee and their anti shock system. I am using my 5 year old R500 now and regularly use it for what you want it for.
If you go used you will get a great spec machine that will blow away anything apple offer used at the same price.
Used
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/IBM-Lenovo-T520-Laptop-1...
We have had a number of thinkpads over the years(I series , R50 , R60 , R61e , R500 and L412 ) . All were bought used and none have failed me despite proving there water resistant keyboards with a cup of coffee and their anti shock system. I am using my 5 year old R500 now and regularly use it for what you want it for.
If you go used you will get a great spec machine that will blow away anything apple offer used at the same price.
Used
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/IBM-Lenovo-T520-Laptop-1...
nickofh said:
used by nasa
I love how people desperately cling to this as some kind of justification of it's supreme excellence.Lenovos are typically bought by enterprises on the merit of the backhanders. They are no more or less reliable than their Dell, HP, Toshiba or Samsung equivalents.
That's not to detract from a perfectly usable laptop, but using Nasa as some kind of holy grail of IT systems when the majority of their kit that people hold in high regard bears so little semblance to what we use at home as to render it irrelevant is just comical.
Easyjet (used to?) use Panasonic Toughbooks. The majority of the NHS runs on Dell. Some of the largest retail organisations in the world run on HP or IBM.
Nasa use them because Lenovo wanted the business. The same way as all of the above worked. Period.
I had a T520, a T410 and T420, and a W530. All of them felt unnecessarily plasticky and the driver support on the T*20 series was utterly abysmal. Blue screen central. It doesn't mean that others haven't had success with them and enjoyed using them, but they're a long way from this perfect laptop that people try to doll them up as!
Edited by Randomthoughts on Wednesday 27th August 09:26
Randomthoughts said:
I love how people desperately cling to this as some kind of justification of it's supreme excellence.
Lenovos are typically bought by enterprises on the merit of the backhanders. They are no more or less reliable than their Dell, HP, Toshiba or Samsung equivalents.
That's not to detract from a perfectly usable laptop, but using Nasa as some kind of holy grail of IT systems when the majority of their kit that people hold in high regard bears so little semblance to what we use at home as to render it irrelevant is just comical.
Easyjet (used to?) use Panasonic Toughbooks. The majority of the NHS runs on Dell. Some of the largest retail organisations in the world run on HP or IBM.
Nasa use them because Lenovo wanted the business. The same way as all of the above worked. Period.
I had a T520, a T410 and T420, and a W530. All of them felt unnecessarily plasticky and the driver support on the T*20 series was utterly abysmal. Blue screen central. It doesn't mean that others haven't had success with them and enjoyed using them, but they're a long way from this perfect laptop that people try to doll them up as!
Firstly , I am not desperately clinging to anything it is not as if use by nasa is the only quality of their product. I am Simply sharing my opinion and some facts about my recommendation. Many people buy Omega watches for their selection by nasa and as watches and computing are a couple of my interests, I choose to combine them if possible.Lenovos are typically bought by enterprises on the merit of the backhanders. They are no more or less reliable than their Dell, HP, Toshiba or Samsung equivalents.
That's not to detract from a perfectly usable laptop, but using Nasa as some kind of holy grail of IT systems when the majority of their kit that people hold in high regard bears so little semblance to what we use at home as to render it irrelevant is just comical.
Easyjet (used to?) use Panasonic Toughbooks. The majority of the NHS runs on Dell. Some of the largest retail organisations in the world run on HP or IBM.
Nasa use them because Lenovo wanted the business. The same way as all of the above worked. Period.
I had a T520, a T410 and T420, and a W530. All of them felt unnecessarily plasticky and the driver support on the T*20 series was utterly abysmal. Blue screen central. It doesn't mean that others haven't had success with them and enjoyed using them, but they're a long way from this perfect laptop that people try to doll them up as!
Edited by Randomthoughts on Wednesday 27th August 09:26
I am fully aware that many decisions are made based on budget and I would most certainly think that the is the case for the NHS as it was for the company I worked for previously ( dell was the lowest bidder ). I understand that the NHS also use toughbooks probably for the same reason as easyjet.
You are wrong when it comes to your comments on computer reliability especially with Dell , In my personal experience they are more reliable than Dell , but a quick search from anyone confirms this to be fact in many years of computer reliability surveys. Samsung has come on greatly in recent times though I am not sure how they compare price wise.
Your own experience of thinkpads is clearly in the minority for some reason - I expect that it is just a disliking or you just wish to start an argument ( except with the plastic comment , I accept they are rather plastic. )
No laptop is perfect , nothing is. In my opinion however they come closest for the price. Why don't you try and help the OP rather than targeting my advice and information.
Edited by nickofh on Wednesday 27th August 18:14
Edited by nickofh on Wednesday 27th August 21:07
nickofh said:
You are wrong when it comes to your comments on computer reliability especially with Dell , In my personal experience they are more reliable than Dell , but a quick search from anyone confirms this to be fact in many years of computer reliability surveys. Samsung has come on greatly in recent times though I am not sure how they compare price wise.
Love it. My opinion is 'wrong'.Here's a clue. I work with enterprises. Not tens of devices, or the three or four you've bought, not even hundreds. The last set of laptops I rolled out was a couple of thousand Dell Latitudes.
I can safely assure you that whether you buy Lenovo, HP, Dell, Toshiba or Samsung you're no more or less likely to see a high percentage of DOA, and you're no more or less likely to see mass recalls or failures. They're tested to the same standards, go through the same certifications and are built of the same core componentry.
In short; pick the f
king pretty one.djneils98 said:
why do you like the non-retina more than the retina?
It's a bit of a weird one, I've gone from - 15" MacBook Pro core 2 duo, alu body, DVI socket to
- the above with SSD (this was the one that felt the fastest weirdly)
- 15" Unibody
- 13" Air
- 13" Retina
The final one was the only one that didn't feel like an upgrade in every way. The Retina screen is amazing, but makes all other displays look rubbish, so when you get to work and plug into my 20" Dell flat panel (really nice one with 1600x1200 and a 4:3 ratio) it feels worse. It's significantly thicker and heavier than the Air, but there's still no DVD drive.
All in all, I found the 13" Air to be best of all worlds. It's a really powerful machine but just incredibly thin. I also ran Windows on it as my main 'work' OS via Bootcamp and found it to make a fantastic Windows laptop.
The only thing it doesn't have is a slot for a 3G sim card, why Apple don't offer that I don't know.
Joel
Randomthoughts said:
Love it. My opinion is 'wrong'.
Here's a clue. I work with enterprises. Not tens of devices, or the three or four you've bought, not even hundreds. The last set of laptops I rolled out was a couple of thousand Dell Latitudes.
I can safely assure you that whether you buy Lenovo, HP, Dell, Toshiba or Samsung you're no more or less likely to see a high percentage of DOA, and you're no more or less likely to see mass recalls or failures. They're tested to the same standards, go through the same certifications and are built of the same core componentry.
In short; pick the fking pretty one.
To me your opinion sounded more like a statement of fact, hence me informing you that you are wrong. Here's a clue. I work with enterprises. Not tens of devices, or the three or four you've bought, not even hundreds. The last set of laptops I rolled out was a couple of thousand Dell Latitudes.
I can safely assure you that whether you buy Lenovo, HP, Dell, Toshiba or Samsung you're no more or less likely to see a high percentage of DOA, and you're no more or less likely to see mass recalls or failures. They're tested to the same standards, go through the same certifications and are built of the same core componentry.
In short; pick the f
king pretty one.You could have simply said something to the OP along the lines of " I work with dell on a large scale and in my extensive experience they perform just as well as the other brands mentioned, I suggest OP that you buy a DELL Latitude". Instead you chose the nitpicking route.
Plenty of computer reliability surveys say that you are more likely to see some brands more than others DOA , or failing within their warranty period. Suggesting that all the brands are the same is rather silly IMO. Some have a reputation for reliability others do not. Just like some car manufacturers have a reputation for reliability where others do not.
" In short ; pick the pretty one " Finally some good honest advice for the OP.
Randomthoughts I think you need a holiday!
nickofh said:
To me your opinion sounded more like a statement of fact, hence me informing you that you are wrong.
You could have simply said something to the OP along the lines of " I work with dell on a large scale and in my extensive experience they perform just as well as the other brands mentioned, I suggest OP that you buy a DELL Latitude". Instead you chose the nitpicking route.
Who said I work for Dell? Where did I say buy a Latitude?You could have simply said something to the OP along the lines of " I work with dell on a large scale and in my extensive experience they perform just as well as the other brands mentioned, I suggest OP that you buy a DELL Latitude". Instead you chose the nitpicking route.
f
k me, some people can be hard work. People think this forum has become more aggressive, instead it's got the same problem as SP&L in that everyone that bought a computer once is a fking expert.For reference, I don't work for Dell. I work for a reseller who shifts around 250,000 units a quarter across HP, Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba, Samsung and Asus. I don't bleat about Asus because their support has been quite poor on occasion, and their failure rate for us last quarter was about .4% higher than the rest, who all rounded to the same tenth of a percentage. Lenovo weren't the worst, but they weren't the best. Hence why I can say quite comfortably that regardless of 'consumer survey' results, from an environment where someone who knows their arse from their elbow the manufacturers are nearly dead even.
I'll give you a hint why; it's because the same manufacturers build system boards and displays for all of them, and the rest is all parts-bin special; Intel supply the entire processor and wireless card, Hynix or similar provide the RAM... They're all a sum of their components, and their components differ in only two or three places.
And Consumer Satisfaction surveys are b
ks. Some fktard fills their laptop up with malware and the laptop is st because it's gotten slow. Someone drops it and it's unreliable because a few months later the hard disk dies.I'm sure you'll get over it, but I'd highly recommend having more than 'but 1,000 uneducated morons said that their Dell/HP/LingLongIndustries were less reliable' as a fallback.
Industry reviews are biased (see Chris's Ferrari incident to find out why) and occasionally even fixed because there are freebies involved, and 'group tests' are about as accurate as the AV ones, funded by someone in particular who has an edge in one component (see the multitude of XPS 15 tests because Dell knows their screen is currently unmatched).
So, back to my advice in the very first post, it doesn't really matter what brand you pick; pick the one you like.
P.S. as a consultant, running around with laptops for all of the last 15 years of my professional life, I've had to have two of three Lenovos fixed, one of six Dells fixed and two of four HPs fixed. I also had to send back a Samsung because it was so badly performing. I could quite comfortably sit there in muggle's pub armchair and bleat about how terrible a brand is 'because I had ONE'.
But I don't count my experience; I haven't had enough of any to form a decent sample size...
But I don't count my experience; I haven't had enough of any to form a decent sample size...
Randomthoughts said:
Who said I work for Dell? Where did I say buy a Latitude?
fk me, some people can be hard work. People think this forum has become more aggressive, instead it's got the same problem as SP&L in that everyone that bought a computer once is a fking expert.
For reference, I don't work for Dell. I work for a reseller who shifts around 250,000 units a quarter across HP, Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba, Samsung and Asus. I don't bleat about Asus because their support has been quite poor on occasion, and their failure rate for us last quarter was about .4% higher than the rest, who all rounded to the same tenth of a percentage. Lenovo weren't the worst, but they weren't the best. Hence why I can say quite comfortably that regardless of 'consumer survey' results, from an environment where someone who knows their arse from their elbow the manufacturers are nearly dead even.
I'll give you a hint why; it's because the same manufacturers build system boards and displays for all of them, and the rest is all parts-bin special; Intel supply the entire processor and wireless card, Hynix or similar provide the RAM... They're all a sum of their components, and their components differ in only two or three places.
And Consumer Satisfaction surveys are bks. Some fktard fills their laptop up with malware and the laptop is st because it's gotten slow. Someone drops it and it's unreliable because a few months later the hard disk dies.
I'm sure you'll get over it, but I'd highly recommend having more than 'but 1,000 uneducated morons said that their Dell/HP/LingLongIndustries were less reliable' as a fallback.
Industry reviews are biased (see Chris's Ferrari incident to find out why) and occasionally even fixed because there are freebies involved, and 'group tests' are about as accurate as the AV ones, funded by someone in particular who has an edge in one component (see the multitude of XPS 15 tests because Dell knows their screen is currently unmatched).
So, back to my advice in the very first post, it doesn't really matter what brand you pick; pick the one you like.
Firstly , I never said that you work for dell or that you suggested a latitude. If you take the time to re read my post you might get it into your oversized head that I was suggesting how your post could have been more helpful rather than nitpicking at my advice. If you had done than we would have never had these discussions. f
k me, some people can be hard work. People think this forum has become more aggressive, instead it's got the same problem as SP&L in that everyone that bought a computer once is a fking expert.For reference, I don't work for Dell. I work for a reseller who shifts around 250,000 units a quarter across HP, Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba, Samsung and Asus. I don't bleat about Asus because their support has been quite poor on occasion, and their failure rate for us last quarter was about .4% higher than the rest, who all rounded to the same tenth of a percentage. Lenovo weren't the worst, but they weren't the best. Hence why I can say quite comfortably that regardless of 'consumer survey' results, from an environment where someone who knows their arse from their elbow the manufacturers are nearly dead even.
I'll give you a hint why; it's because the same manufacturers build system boards and displays for all of them, and the rest is all parts-bin special; Intel supply the entire processor and wireless card, Hynix or similar provide the RAM... They're all a sum of their components, and their components differ in only two or three places.
And Consumer Satisfaction surveys are b
ks. Some fktard fills their laptop up with malware and the laptop is st because it's gotten slow. Someone drops it and it's unreliable because a few months later the hard disk dies.I'm sure you'll get over it, but I'd highly recommend having more than 'but 1,000 uneducated morons said that their Dell/HP/LingLongIndustries were less reliable' as a fallback.
Industry reviews are biased (see Chris's Ferrari incident to find out why) and occasionally even fixed because there are freebies involved, and 'group tests' are about as accurate as the AV ones, funded by someone in particular who has an edge in one component (see the multitude of XPS 15 tests because Dell knows their screen is currently unmatched).
So, back to my advice in the very first post, it doesn't really matter what brand you pick; pick the one you like.
This particular thread has become quite aggressive , which is entirely down to your aggressive choice of language and desperately trying to prove why your advice is better than mine. I am not an expert nor did I ever claim to be, I would claim to know a bit more about general computing than your average Joe as I have an interest in it. As this is an open public forum ( not a closed IT specialist area ) I chose to share my advice and experience , which is non of your concern. It is up to the OP to decide whether my advice is any use to them or just ignore it and carry on with their life.
People like you are the reason forums get a bad name , mouthing off and correcting people even when they are not wrong just because you work in the industry ( if you even do ). Do you suppose for instance that every helpful reply to an ask for help or advise is provided by someone in the industry, there is just as much chance that it comes from someone like me with an interest in the product , topic or brand. I have only bought two Subaru's yet I know a enough about them to help others , I do not have to work with them daily to provide an opinion or advice.
In your previous post you say "I can safely assure you that whether you buy Lenovo, HP, Dell, Toshiba or Samsung you're no more or less likely to see a high percentage of DOA, and you're no more or less likely to see mass recalls or failures" Yet in your more recent post you admit there is some variation , be it marginal.
Also your advise is in your first post was not " it doesn't really matter what brand you pick; pick the one you like." It was more about my nasa comment.
Hopefully we won't run into each other again too much , but if people ask the public for their opinion , then that's what I will give them if I feel I have something useful to share.
Try not to be quite so aggressive if you reply again , you will give pistonheads a bad name.
Edited by nickofh on Friday 29th August 09:10
Forums get worse names through uneducated fktards spouting crap they know very little about as gospel, and members either in the instance of a subforum such as SP&L ending up in court on bad advice, or in other areas with a piece of st that they were ill advised on.
If the masses want to hear what they want to hear, then fine. I'm done trying to save people from retards. Buy the laptop that an aeronautical and aerospatial research company use, because their research into these areas clearly makes them experts in the field of IT.
ktards spouting crap they know very little about as gospel, and members either in the instance of a subforum such as SP&L ending up in court on bad advice, or in other areas with a piece of st that they were ill advised on.If the masses want to hear what they want to hear, then fine. I'm done trying to save people from retards. Buy the laptop that an aeronautical and aerospatial research company use, because their research into these areas clearly makes them experts in the field of IT.
Edited by Randomthoughts on Friday 29th August 09:33
Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff