Laptop for £500 help

[Superfly Guy]

Did you look at the link I posted, an i7 with 8GB for under £600

[Superfly Guy]

Mainly editing as I keep my photos stored on an external hard drive.

Saw this, what do you think?

http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Pr...t=ABU&sel=PCNB

Dual core

But way cheaper from Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-15-6-inch...lion+15-n235sa

[TomTom]

I am no computer genius. But I have always found Acer Aspire laptops to be good.

Suppose this would be the one you are looking for...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Aspire-...ds=acer+aspire

[Superfly Guy]

I am no computer genius. But I have always found Acer Aspire laptops to be good.

Suppose this would be the one you are looking for...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Aspire-...ds=acer+aspire

Acer have a pretty shocking reputation for build quality and customer service, they are famous for their screens giving up.

Intel never produced an i7 at 1.8ghz but close enough to it, however they are first generation and run at either 1.73ghz or 1.86ghz, either way they came out nearly 4 years ago so are old tech. The ad says the included i7 has only 2 cores which some of them did but not running at 1.8ghz (or even close to it).

Typical Acer description, would you buy a car that was described totally inaccurately by the seller and was old technology being passed off as new.

The first generation of i7 were produced between Q3 2009 to Q3 2010.

[Chris_Blue]

Yes- Acer awful. Stick with my Hewlitt Packard Pavilion DM4. Great machine except for the friction hinges

[TomTom]

Acer have a pretty shocking reputation for build quality and customer service, they are famous for their screens giving up.

Intel never produced an i7 at 1.8ghz but close enough to it, however they are first generation and run at either 1.73ghz or 1.86ghz, either way they came out nearly 4 years ago so are old tech. The ad says the included i7 has only 2 cores which some of them did but not running at 1.8ghz (or even close to it).

Typical Acer description, would you buy a car that was described totally inaccurately by the seller and was old technology being passed off as new.

The first generation of i7 were produced between Q3 2009 to Q3 2010.

Mine is a few years old now & I can see why people may question the build quality. However, I really like the keyboard on it and I haven't had any build issues with mine. Can't really comment on Acer customer services. The only problem I would say with mine is it has one speaker, which is a bit shit & it's blown, but I plug it into surround sound - so don't care.

A lot of the technical waffle does go straight over my head in all honesty, as I said.. No computer genius. I did pick this laptop by myself.

All I really used it for was general Microsoft Office stuff, internet, odd old game and back then I used to play some WoW every now and then & it could support that on highest resolution. (No idea what it can support now as I haven't been on there for years)

I think when this laptop packs up (don't think it will be any time soon in all honesty - despite it being around 6 years old, I will ask for others opinions on what to get.

[Superfly Guy]

HP do make some decent hardware, or should I say they choose decent hardware off the shelf and get decent workers to assemble it then employ decent CS operators to sort out issues. And that's all we need as punters.

Just beware that many companies pick up old hardware for discounted prices and stick it in a new style case and pass it off as new technology. Yes there are bargains if you hunt around but 9/10 its cheap for a reason.

As for games, COD4 will play on an abacus it was that well coded, unlike recent incarnations of the COD series which look poor and require hardware yet to be developed to play at a decent frame rate.

[moranphotography]

Can I ask peoples opinion on Dell? Considering using their outlet options, I got one from them years ago and that was ok

[Gazski66]

As for games, COD4 will play on an abacus it was that well coded

Yea i can get my abacus out

[Oli]

Can I ask peoples opinion on Dell? Considering using their outlet options, I got one from them years ago and that was ok

Depends which model you're think off

[Superfly Guy]

Can I ask peoples opinion on Dell? Considering using their outlet options, I got one from them years ago and that was ok

Pretty much all of the mainstream providers have access to the same kit, its can often be the customer service that sets them apart, for that you will need to spend a few hours diligently Googling.

The one thing I hate about laptops is the amount of 'bloatware' that comes pre-installed, the first thing I did with my current HP was to format the drive and reinstall a vanilla copy of Windows 7 then the specific HP drivers for my model, best way to get rid of the shite they add on.

[moranphotography]

Pretty much all of the mainstream providers have access to the same kit, its can often be the customer service that sets them apart, for that you will need to spend a few hours diligently Googling.

The one thing I hate about laptops is the amount of 'bloatware' that comes pre-installed, the first thing I did with my current HP was to format the drive and reinstall a vanilla copy of Windows 7 then the specific HP drivers for my model, best way to get rid of the shite they add on.

Thanks mate, now what you think of the attached? I know you said Intel but is this inferior to a i5 or i7?

[Superfly Guy]

Thanks mate, now what you think of the attached? I know you said Intel but is this inferior to a i5 or i7?[ATTACH]8694[/ATTACH]

As far as number crunching goes, Intel chips have been way ahead of AMD since the first Core 2 Duo's made an appearance, any form of encoding is pure maths hence why Intel CPUs are better at it. However AMD have been very clever by integrating a very powerful graphics chip onto the CPU die, this means that although the CPU itself is less powerful£ for £, its inbuilt graphics hardware is way way ahead of anything Intel has (Both the new Xbox One and PS4 use AMD APU's).

So the AMD chips are good for light laptop gaming by the graphics chip can also help the CPU on maths intensive tasks such as encoding. As to whether an AMD APU is better for photo work that just the Intel CPU is dependant on what picture software you use and how well it supports newer technologies.

So for raw encoding power then the Intel chips are faster, if the software has the ability to make use of an AMD CPU 'plus' its powerful on-board graphics hardware then it may be a better option.

By the way I run an AMD APU in my Media Centre and my daughters PC (although that has a discreet graphics card).

So look at your photo software specs and see if AMD is a better route to take.

[moranphotography]

As far as number crunching goes, Intel chips have been way ahead of AMD since the first Core 2 Duo's made an appearance, any form of encoding is pure maths hence why Intel CPUs are better at it. However AMD have been very clever by integrating a very powerful graphics chip onto the CPU die, this means that although the CPU itself is less powerful£ for £, its inbuilt graphics hardware is way way ahead of anything Intel has (Both the new Xbox One and PS4 use AMD APU's).

So the AMD chips are good for light laptop gaming by the graphics chip can also help the CPU on maths intensive tasks such as encoding. As to whether an AMD APU is better for photo work that just the Intel CPU is dependant on what picture software you use and how well it supports newer technologies.

So for raw encoding power then the Intel chips are faster, if the software has the ability to make use of an AMD CPU 'plus' its powerful on-board graphics hardware then it may be a better option.

By the way I run an AMD APU in my Media Centre and my daughters PC (although that has a discreet graphics card).

So look at your photo software specs and see if AMD is a better route to take.

Cheers mate, I'll mainly be running Adobe Lightroom and probably Photoshop elements or the full version.

Oh man I am confused and the Apple guy did a number on me in pc world lol.

This is going to take some thinking about...

Also my current laptop is a much older amd machine and that was good.

[Superfly Guy]

Sorry for the grammar but its late out here and I cant be arsed to correct it ha ha ha.

I may be wrong but im sure ive read Adobe have coded various products to work more efficiently with AMD chips.