Recommend Me A Star In A Reasonably Priced Laptop Chassis (New or 2nd Hand)
carnivalist
Posts: 4,565 Forum Member
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I'm looking for a new laptop. One major requirement is watching video - both HD and SD -and multitasking. For example I'm the sort of user that habitually has millions of tabs open while watching a video and am usually too much of a lazy git to close them. To that end I'd prefer an HD screen, although a good quality SD screen might be OK.
I currently have a Samsung R540 with an i3 M350 processor (2.27Ghz) with 4GB RAM. It's been fine in many ways, but it can sometimes struggle with 1080p video, depending on what else is running. The screen is also mediocre. Not only is it uninspiring in terms of appearance, but it doesn't seem to be so good with fast motion like football - there's a lack of fluidity if that makes sense. I guess its the common issue that LCDs with low refresh rate suffer from.
I guess ideally I want something with a better processor than I currently have - presumably an i5 or the AMD equivalent (what is that BTW?) - and an HD or good quality SD screen that renders fast motion well.
It must be easily upgradeable like my current laptop - none of this ASUS X515 nonsense where you virtually have to rip the thing apart simply to upgrade the RAM. Consequently the amount of RAM and hard drive space is not a major issue.
There are two options that I'd consider.
- an older model that could be upgraded.
Even something as old as my current laptop (4 or 5 years) but a step or two above might be acceptable if I could be confident of picking one up dirt cheap, say sub-£200. I'd like to limit myself to about £350 for something newer.
- a new model
For this I'd prefer to have a cap of £500 - but obviously the cheaper the better!
If I'm being unrealistic then please feel free to recommend as you see fit.
Many thanks in advance.
I currently have a Samsung R540 with an i3 M350 processor (2.27Ghz) with 4GB RAM. It's been fine in many ways, but it can sometimes struggle with 1080p video, depending on what else is running. The screen is also mediocre. Not only is it uninspiring in terms of appearance, but it doesn't seem to be so good with fast motion like football - there's a lack of fluidity if that makes sense. I guess its the common issue that LCDs with low refresh rate suffer from.
I guess ideally I want something with a better processor than I currently have - presumably an i5 or the AMD equivalent (what is that BTW?) - and an HD or good quality SD screen that renders fast motion well.
It must be easily upgradeable like my current laptop - none of this ASUS X515 nonsense where you virtually have to rip the thing apart simply to upgrade the RAM. Consequently the amount of RAM and hard drive space is not a major issue.
There are two options that I'd consider.
- an older model that could be upgraded.
Even something as old as my current laptop (4 or 5 years) but a step or two above might be acceptable if I could be confident of picking one up dirt cheap, say sub-£200. I'd like to limit myself to about £350 for something newer.
- a new model
For this I'd prefer to have a cap of £500 - but obviously the cheaper the better!
If I'm being unrealistic then please feel free to recommend as you see fit.
Many thanks in advance.
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Comments
I looked up the specs of your Samsung R540 just to get a better idea of what you have now, so I could see where the likely shortcomings were coming from. It has the i3 M 350 dual core no turbo CPU with a benchmark speed of 1912 and has the higher performance integrated Intel GMA 5700 MHD graphics (underutilised with the Samsung).
The screen is 1366x768 and as you say 4GB RAM and probably a 500GB 5400rpm hard drive. You might have the blu-ray drive? The CPU dates from 1st quarter 2010.
From what you said your uses are I wouldn't bother with doing up a laptop of the same period as upgrading would be difficult, time consuming, with no or minimum performance benefit, and cost more than a new laptop.
The problem for me is that you want to able to work on upgrading a new laptop internally and I have no idea which laptops are easy to work on. I think you are being unrealistic here unless you want to spend hours downloading detailed service manuals or checking out Youtube vids.
You could fairly easily though swap the mechanical hard drive (HDD) for a solid state drive (SSD), and there are several recent threads about how to do this, and this would considerably speed up Windows loading times from boot and disc operations and processing.
If you bought a laptop with 8GB RAM installed this would be adequate for you I think so no need to update internally.
When it comes to Intel CPUs as you guessed, an Intel i5 (4th or 5th gen with turbo) would be the way to go, with comparable integrated HD graphics or a low end dedicated graphics card. With a dedicated graphics card you wouldn't have to share the system RAM with the CPU.
For AMD APUs you could consider an A10 series. Intel and AMD aren't directly comparable because the designs are totally different, but for integrated chips usually Intel are better on performance and AMD better on graphics. You can compare roughly via the benchmark speeds, using cpubenchmark.net's performance tables.
Also I would recommend you look for a better HD screen, either 1600x900 or Full HD 1920x1080.
I haven't looked at loads of laptops because I've run out of time tonight, and I'll have another look tomorrow if I get the time, but here's two to be going on with up to your max budget of £500.
1) Lenovo Z50 from PC World. It has the quad core AMD A10-7300 APU 1.9GHz (turbo boost to 3.2GHz) with a benchmark speed of 2986: https://cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+A10-7300+APU&id=2287, and has the integrated Radeon R6 7300 graphics.
It seems that the A10-7300 is roughly comparable to the 4th gen i5-4200U or 4210U, so the Intel is slightly faster processing but the AMD has better HD graphics.
There's 8GB RAM, a Full HD 1920x1080 screen, 1 x USB 3.0 slot and 2 x USB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI, a 1TB 5400rpm HDD and Dolby Home Theatre. Yours for £380: http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/lenovo-z50-15-6-laptop-black-10108701-pdt.html#cat-0
Note some Z50 models may have Superfish preinstalled.
How to determone whether you have Superfish: http://news.lenovo.com/images/20034/remove-superfish-instructions.pdf
Superfish removal tool: http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/superfish_uninstall
2) HP Envy 15-j151sa. It has the quad core AMD A10-5750M 2.5GHz (turbo to 3.5GHz) benchmark speed 3386: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+A10-5750M+APU, again Full HD 1920x1080, 8GB RAM, Bluetooth 4.0 and HDMI, but then you have a dedicated graphics card with 2GB memory AMD Radeon HD 8750M, 4 x USB 3.0 ports, a hybrid 1TB 5400rpm SSHD drive, and Beats Audio with SRS 3D, 4 stereo speakers and 2 subwoofers, £500: http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/hp-envy-15-j151sa-15-6-laptop-silver-10011520-pdt.html
From Amazon
Has a high rez matt screen, I5 cpu - Windows 8.1 is very nice with the Classic shell.
Would the graphics performance of the AMD chip affect the fluidity of the video, or is that primarily down to the CPU (and the screen)?
Keep 'em coming boys!
The whole system rather than one specific component will govern the performance of the movies, as indeed for other operations as well. As long as the CPU is reasonably fast, and there's plenty of RAM you should have no worries. A hybrid drive (SSHD) or an expensive solid state drive (SSD) as mentioned in my previous post will also help with access times.
That PC World HP laptop with the SSHD would be ideal for you and the price is very good for what you get. HP also make the Envy with a 4th gen (the CPU starts with a 4) Intel i5-4200M CPU and Nvidia GeForce GT 840M 2GB graphics card otherwise same spec as the AMD version, but this is a lot more expensive and more than you need imo. The M suffix denotes low efficiency higher performance as opposed to the U suffix which is high efficiency lower performance.
A dedicated low to mid range graphics card will breeze through anything you can throw at it movie wise, and with a good Full HD screen it'll look fantastic. Generally speaking any mid range laptop should have no problems playing HD movies without lag but the bog standard 1366x768 screens won't do them justice and then you've got the sound to consider.
The Envy does seem like a good price - its what I paid for my Samsung R540. I'm a bit dubious though, given that the reviews I've found flag up problems - e.g nearly all the reviews I could find claim the fan is very loud and persistent. I'd find that really annoying and occasionally I use it late at night in the vicinity of someone who goes to bed early and is a light sleeper. They get disturbed by the fan noise of my Targus laptop pad which is quite silent IMO. There's also some question as to the quality of the screen - even though the resolution is good the screen itself seems to have issues (blue cast, very poor viewing angles etc).
In a dilemma now!
This Lenovo Thinkpad is a pretty nice machine
From Amazon
Has a high rez matt screen, I5 cpu - Windows 8.1 is very nice with the Classic shell.
and it has a DVD writer
And is available in 1600 x 900