Moving from a desktop to Laptop
Discussion
My genuine thoughts on the subject
As the OP says TRY before you buy, does the keyboard feel right for both of you or whoever will be using it. Does it flex too much do you like the size of the keys?
A backlit keyboard can make a great difference. My beloved Dell Latitude was bought at a bargain price second hand and after a quick reinstall of windows removal so it was MINE the other difference I made was fitting a backlit keyboard. A backlit keyboard is important to me it may have no significance to you. Different strokes etc
Don't be pressured into buying Office or an anti virus for your new machine. You can probably extract the office key from your old one and re install There are several free anti virus products that work well.
Don't have any qualms about using PC World for this in my experience that good at selling.
If you find one you like note carefully the model number. Its been found by people that the PC World bargain may not quite be what it seems. For example a year or so ago they had an i3 version with 8gb of ram where for the same money you could get an i5 version which is faster.
AS others have said for what you want you will easily satisfy yourself on the budget.
Now a tale about Office don't think you have to have the very latest version I run Office 2010 at work and its great I have Office 365 at home. Try and reuse your existing office if you
If buying it heres a thought. I installed Office 365 this way I signed up for 30 day free trial during that month I looked on e bay and found a genuine seller selling Office 365 for 5 machines in the box thing at £55 that was cheaper than paying a monthly subscription and as it approaches the end of its year this December I will then use the code form a new box and do the same for next year.
As the OP says TRY before you buy, does the keyboard feel right for both of you or whoever will be using it. Does it flex too much do you like the size of the keys?
A backlit keyboard can make a great difference. My beloved Dell Latitude was bought at a bargain price second hand and after a quick reinstall of windows removal so it was MINE the other difference I made was fitting a backlit keyboard. A backlit keyboard is important to me it may have no significance to you. Different strokes etc
Don't be pressured into buying Office or an anti virus for your new machine. You can probably extract the office key from your old one and re install There are several free anti virus products that work well.
Don't have any qualms about using PC World for this in my experience that good at selling.
If you find one you like note carefully the model number. Its been found by people that the PC World bargain may not quite be what it seems. For example a year or so ago they had an i3 version with 8gb of ram where for the same money you could get an i5 version which is faster.
AS others have said for what you want you will easily satisfy yourself on the budget.
Now a tale about Office don't think you have to have the very latest version I run Office 2010 at work and its great I have Office 365 at home. Try and reuse your existing office if you
If buying it heres a thought. I installed Office 365 this way I signed up for 30 day free trial during that month I looked on e bay and found a genuine seller selling Office 365 for 5 machines in the box thing at £55 that was cheaper than paying a monthly subscription and as it approaches the end of its year this December I will then use the code form a new box and do the same for next year.
Thanks, I'm aware the dsg group get there own product codes to get special prices and so others cannot price match. I think our version of office is many many years old .... Possibly something like 2003 :lol:
I think an i5 or i7 is the way to go, and then either 1tb or 256 if ssd, 8gb memory .... John Lewis is my preferred shop for the 2 years warranty you get from new.
I think an i5 or i7 is the way to go, and then either 1tb or 256 if ssd, 8gb memory .... John Lewis is my preferred shop for the 2 years warranty you get from new.
V8A*ndy said:
If you are dead set on a Laptop invest in one with the best screen for budget.
Doesn't have to be super high res just good and bright with decent viewing angles.
Some laptops have great specs but are terrible to work on due to poor screens.
XPS would get my dosh. Not sure if in Budget though.
I've been looking at XPS lappys, but brand new they start at £800-900; the outlet does save you a few £££ but they are still around £600+. Inspiron would be worth a look. Doesn't have to be super high res just good and bright with decent viewing angles.
Some laptops have great specs but are terrible to work on due to poor screens.
XPS would get my dosh. Not sure if in Budget though.
With computers you surely do get what you pay for. Buy a £2K machine and will be astonishingly quick and beautifully made. Buy a £300 lappie and it will be slow and plastiky.
The reason I suggested the Mac Mini is that you can reuse all your desktop bits, thereby getting more grunt for less money. You could do something similar with a windows machine, too.
The reason I suggested the Mac Mini is that you can reuse all your desktop bits, thereby getting more grunt for less money. You could do something similar with a windows machine, too.
steve-5snwi said:
Lenovo 510s with 256mb ssd and i5 at £599 seems a good buy at the moment, just trawling through the dell site too.
I have a Lenovo 510s which I bought about a month ago. I got the cheaper i3 at around £450 though.My main reason for getting it was I wanted something that at least had a 1080p screen. nothing around that price point had one. PLus it had the benifit of an SSD, which many didn't have. I used to have a Dell XPS15 that was £600 5years ago but I broke it.
For me the lenovo is fine, lighter, quieter with a backlit keyboard (my dell had one and i would never go without). My only gripe however is the screens RGB quality, it's nowhere near as good as the RGBLED screen my old dell had, I was really spoilt with that.
For what you intend to use your laptop anything with at least an i3 will do the job fine. I have no problems using my lenovo for browsing/watching live streams/youtube. IMO if you're spending £600 You're entering entry level gaming laptop territory, many of which can come with a much better looking screen and speakers (most with a subwoofer).
For general day to day use my 510s more than fits the bill. It's capable & light. But I have sacrificed on a pretty screen, nice speakers & GPU. If I was spending £600 or so on a laptop I wouldn't bother with the 510s.
Salesy said:
Haha, he did say "£500 ideally". I was merely highlighting that buying a crap windows laptop is not always cost effective, i purchased a few around £3-400 and they only lasted a little while.
There you go. You bought crap ones and they weren't very good.Buy something equivalent like a decent spec Lenovo ThinkPad (the ThinkPad range is MUCH nicer than the lower ranges) and they're much more comparable.
As people have said - you get what you pay for.
I've just picked up one of the 2012 model year Mac Minis for £400. These were the last ones that were easily upgradeable. Mine has the maximum 16gb of RAM and a 1Tb fusion drive (part SSD, part HD) and it's just awesome. Totally silent, boots up in seconds, looks good and will hopefully last longer than any Windows equivalent. Definitely recommended.
Jimmy Recard said:
There you go. You bought crap ones and they weren't very good.
Buy something equivalent like a decent spec Lenovo ThinkPad (the ThinkPad range is MUCH nicer than the lower ranges) and they're much more comparable.
As people have said - you get what you pay for.
I love the Trackpoint you get with Thinkpads, I even bought a Thinkpad wireless keyboard to use with my desktop. The last Thinkpad I bought (about 5 years ago) had an atrocious screen however, so that is definitely something to check before buying.Buy something equivalent like a decent spec Lenovo ThinkPad (the ThinkPad range is MUCH nicer than the lower ranges) and they're much more comparable.
As people have said - you get what you pay for.
If it says "IPS screen" in the description, the screen is probably decent.
Dolf Stoppard said:
looks good and will hopefully last longer than any Windows equivalent
Sorry to burst your bubble, it'll last long enough but won't outlast any similar Windows machine.That said, for the use the OP is describing, any decent machine will do him right the next 6 years easily.
AlexC1981 said:
I love the Trackpoint you get with Thinkpads, I even bought a Thinkpad wireless keyboard to use with my desktop. The last Thinkpad I bought (about 5 years ago) had an atrocious screen however, so that is definitely something to check before buying.
If it says "IPS screen" in the description, the screen is probably decent.
I have a T530 - it's probably a model or two back but it has a great screen for the time. It's not the best out there now but it's bright and decent resolution.If it says "IPS screen" in the description, the screen is probably decent.
I'm not sure what it's listed as, but it was an option rather than the basic one
ZesPak said:
Dolf Stoppard said:
looks good and will hopefully last longer than any Windows equivalent
Sorry to burst your bubble, it'll last long enough but won't outlast any similar Windows machine.That said, for the use the OP is describing, any decent machine will do him right the next 6 years easily.
My bubble is therefore well and truly intact.
Interested in this also - have an iMac as my main machine but want a windows laptop as an addition and have been looking at both the Lenovo 510S and the 14" Ultranote III from PC Specialist - with the CPU upgraded to an i5 and an SSD drive, it comes in at around £500 too. Not had enough time to check the reviews of it though and see if it's actually decent.
Im looking at this very thing. Sold my Mac as it was gathering dust. I want touch screen, 14 inch screen or thereabouts and ideally something that could play FIFA
Uses are : using at home or away, a bit of simple music production using Reaper or Cubase, general surfing or you tubing, and playing a bit of FIFA on when I want to kill some time. My choice was the Lenovo Yoga 510 or 710 but both have integrated GPU. Im not prepared to shell out an extra £200 just for some occasional gaming though.
Uses are : using at home or away, a bit of simple music production using Reaper or Cubase, general surfing or you tubing, and playing a bit of FIFA on when I want to kill some time. My choice was the Lenovo Yoga 510 or 710 but both have integrated GPU. Im not prepared to shell out an extra £200 just for some occasional gaming though.
There's a lot of choice. I use a 14" T420 i5 ThinkPad from about four years ago, the last one with the full travel keyboard, I believe. About £150 on Ebay.
Has space for a DVD or a second hard drive, two SSD's, backs itself up to the other disk and has Sierra Wireless 3G built-in.
There's a ThinkLight (tm) for keyboard illumination. Endless spare keyboards on Ebay, plus a ThinkPad desk dock (£12.00) which powers two monitors.
A bit heavy for travelling, but seems unbreakable. Lenovo still providing hardware driver updates.
Desktop is an HP 6200 Pro SFF workstation, i7 and 16 Gb RAM. Quadra 2D card. Now £100 for a quad-core model, dropped in the i7-2600K from my last idiotic £800 Dell purchase. Runs 24/7 and refuses to die.
Both can be rejuvenated from Ebay for peanuts so it looks like they will see me out. Very 'old-skule' though.
Etc Etc.
For the Excel-ists amongst you there's the Excel speed test here which hammers the waffle out of laptop tests:
http://exceltrader.net/excel-benchmark/
Has space for a DVD or a second hard drive, two SSD's, backs itself up to the other disk and has Sierra Wireless 3G built-in.
There's a ThinkLight (tm) for keyboard illumination. Endless spare keyboards on Ebay, plus a ThinkPad desk dock (£12.00) which powers two monitors.
A bit heavy for travelling, but seems unbreakable. Lenovo still providing hardware driver updates.
Desktop is an HP 6200 Pro SFF workstation, i7 and 16 Gb RAM. Quadra 2D card. Now £100 for a quad-core model, dropped in the i7-2600K from my last idiotic £800 Dell purchase. Runs 24/7 and refuses to die.
Both can be rejuvenated from Ebay for peanuts so it looks like they will see me out. Very 'old-skule' though.
Etc Etc.
For the Excel-ists amongst you there's the Excel speed test here which hammers the waffle out of laptop tests:
http://exceltrader.net/excel-benchmark/
Edited by Slushbox on Sunday 2nd October 11:27
Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff