Best Laptop under £500?
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Original post by TheKian
Much more expensive and for £500 you'll probably get less for your money
nope, you can get £500 custom laptops that are better than £500 premade laptops.
Original post by SashaF
HP pavillion
I'm looking to get one of those! Are they good? I currently have a Sony Vaio and it's showing signs of conking out haha, I've had it between 5-6 years though.
What about Macbooks?? I've applied to do Digital Film so I just thought it would make sense to buy a MacBook for all the programs like Final cut and Photoshop, Is this necessary? Is there another alternative?
Original post by laurenolivia
What about Macbooks?? I've applied to do Digital Film so I just thought it would make sense to buy a MacBook for all the programs like Final cut and Photoshop, Is this necessary? Is there another alternative?
Personally I am against MacBooks, for £1049, you'll get a slow dual core processor, with intel graphics only 256GB of storage and a tiny 12 inch screen. Barely any ports and you will struggle to fiddle with the parts if you ever want to. Even for the weight and and battery it's not worth it.
Original post by TheKian
Personally I am against MacBooks, for £1049, you'll get a slow dual core processor, with intel graphics only 256GB of storage and a tiny 12 inch screen. Barely any ports and you will struggle to fiddle with the parts if you ever want to. Even for the weight and and battery it's not worth it.
I simply just thought it would be fitting as MacBooks are often considered as good laptops for art subjects, my teacher even suggested one.
Original post by JoshDawg
For the design course I will be doing, I personally would buy a surface 3 http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msuk/en_GB/pdp/productID.316873700?VID=316873800&srccode=cii_18615224&cpncode=36-67349177-2&WT.mc_id=PLA_UK_GooglePLA
I would be careful about the i7, probably a dual core not to forget about the limitation of the on-board storage
Original post by laurenolivia
I simply just thought it would be fitting as MacBooks are often considered as good laptops for art subjects, my teacher even suggested one.
I genuinely don't think it's worth the money and if you ever go resource heavy you will find yourself disappointed for a £1000 computer. Assuming you use macs at your school, you'll just have to get another video editor or whatever you do that's windows compatible and bring your laptop to school.
Original post by goodies
nope, you can get £500 custom laptops that are better than £500 premade laptops.
Disagree, I find that you need to spend around the £600 mark before you get something which is far more competitively priced compared to premade laptops.
I can pick up a light weight Lenovo with an i5 for £300 afetr cashback.
Original post by Clytaemnestra
I'm looking to get one of those! Are they good? I currently have a Sony Vaio and it's showing signs of conking out haha, I've had it between 5-6 years though.
Look at saveonalaptops, consider lenovos flex 2 14 range as well, particularly the i5 with the full hd screen
Original post by laurenolivia
What about Macbooks?? I've applied to do Digital Film so I just thought it would make sense to buy a MacBook for all the programs like Final cut and Photoshop, Is this necessary? Is there another alternative?
Talk to the current lecturers or students about that before you decide
Original post by laurenolivia
I simply just thought it would be fitting as MacBooks are often considered as good laptops for art subjects, my teacher even suggested one.
Some models are, but being a Mac doesn't instantly make it a superior choice for arts students/professionals. The key advantage Macs have in general is that their operating system, OS X, has a wider range of software options for digital photo/music/video production/editing and it's normally the primary platform developers of these types of software have in mind, meaning they can (not always though) run better than their equivalent Windows version. However these types of programs are also typically very resource intensive, so need fairly decent hardware to run them well if they're being used for intensive work. This is what makes MacBook Pros popular among arts professionals, it grants access to OS X with enough power to use them for more complex tasks. The new MacBook is essentially a tablet processor in a laptop body, and would struggle under heavy workloads.
I just bought this for myself Its probably the best under £500 laptop you'll get. Go on to the used section as very good its basically brand new Lenova G50 i7 8 GB RAM 1TB for £380. I bought mine for £349 the price is increasing so better hurry and its selling out very fast.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B00O8SDV8I/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B00O8SDV8I/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used
Original post by Clytaemnestra
I'm looking to get one of those! Are they good? I currently have a Sony Vaio and it's showing signs of conking out haha, I've had it between 5-6 years though.
I Love it. Simple to use and not had a single problem!
Original post by doom63
I just bought this for myself Its probably the best under £500 laptop you'll get. Go on to the used section as very good its basically brand new Lenova G50 i7 8 GB RAM 1TB for £380. I bought mine for £349 the price is increasing so better hurry and its selling out very fast.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B00O8SDV8I/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B00O8SDV8I/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used
Not a real i7, dual core http://ark.intel.com/products/81015/Intel-Core-i7-4510U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_10-GHz
As someone who builds computers as a job, I get asked this a lot. The answer for me is always pretty simple: Don't buy a laptop with a hard drive, make sure it's got an SSD.
The issue simply isn't that "macs are better" because they do the same stuff it's just that one has a really nice casing around it and you pay an extra £300 for it. Not worth it tbh.
Hard drive systems will slow down with time, it's inevitable and SSD systems do not and are always super quick (starts up in under 30 secs guaranteed). RAM isn't that crucial as well, Windows copes fine on as little as 2GB of ram and (but OSX (mac) only copes well with 8 gigs)
If you like white, I've found the perf laptop:
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-v3-371-13-3-laptop-white-10029103-pdt.html
It's got a great processor, graphics and it'll start up and run super-quick. The only drawback with having an SSD is that the capacity isn't that grest (note the 120GB space) However, this is plenty for your apps and music etc. There's plenty of budget left for something like a 1TB external hard drive. If you have a large movie collection you might want to get one because the chances are that you won't be able to fit your entire collection in 120GB.
If you're after something to take notes on, may I suggest something like a Surface 3. It's power won't knock your socks off but it's ingenious design will, it's like a super-ipad. However, it doesn't come with the pen or keyboard cover and with both (you may not need both idk what your situation is) then it comes to something ridiculous like ~£560.
You'll get people on here comparing all sorts of stuff, but I think you'll be pretty happy with the first one, I know I would be
EDIT: read through the thread and noticed your preference for 15" laptops. You can quite happily get one for this price but the issue of course is that you also want to take your laptop around with you. 13 inch laptops are better for this because they are lighter and tend to be thinner. Maybe 13" isn't ideal for gaming, but if you wanted to do serious gaming I would recommend a desktop anyway, 13" is perfect for your laptop to be a laptop and after having one, you'll think that everyone else's 15" laptops are too big.
The issue simply isn't that "macs are better" because they do the same stuff it's just that one has a really nice casing around it and you pay an extra £300 for it. Not worth it tbh.
Hard drive systems will slow down with time, it's inevitable and SSD systems do not and are always super quick (starts up in under 30 secs guaranteed). RAM isn't that crucial as well, Windows copes fine on as little as 2GB of ram and (but OSX (mac) only copes well with 8 gigs)
If you like white, I've found the perf laptop:
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-v3-371-13-3-laptop-white-10029103-pdt.html
It's got a great processor, graphics and it'll start up and run super-quick. The only drawback with having an SSD is that the capacity isn't that grest (note the 120GB space) However, this is plenty for your apps and music etc. There's plenty of budget left for something like a 1TB external hard drive. If you have a large movie collection you might want to get one because the chances are that you won't be able to fit your entire collection in 120GB.
If you're after something to take notes on, may I suggest something like a Surface 3. It's power won't knock your socks off but it's ingenious design will, it's like a super-ipad. However, it doesn't come with the pen or keyboard cover and with both (you may not need both idk what your situation is) then it comes to something ridiculous like ~£560.
You'll get people on here comparing all sorts of stuff, but I think you'll be pretty happy with the first one, I know I would be
EDIT: read through the thread and noticed your preference for 15" laptops. You can quite happily get one for this price but the issue of course is that you also want to take your laptop around with you. 13 inch laptops are better for this because they are lighter and tend to be thinner. Maybe 13" isn't ideal for gaming, but if you wanted to do serious gaming I would recommend a desktop anyway, 13" is perfect for your laptop to be a laptop and after having one, you'll think that everyone else's 15" laptops are too big.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by yama_
As someone who builds computers as a job, I get asked this a lot. The answer for me is always pretty simple: Don't buy a laptop with a hard drive, make sure it's got an SSD.
The issue simply isn't that "macs are better" because they do the same stuff it's just that one has a really nice casing around it and you pay an extra £300 for it. Not worth it tbh.
Hard drive systems will slow down with time, it's inevitable and SSD systems do not and are always super quick (starts up in under 30 secs guaranteed). RAM isn't that crucial as well, Windows copes fine on as little as 2GB of ram and (but OSX (mac) only copes well with 8 gigs)
If you like white, I've found the perf laptop:
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-v3-371-13-3-laptop-white-10029103-pdt.html
It's got a great processor, graphics and it'll start up and run super-quick. The only drawback with having an SSD is that the capacity isn't that grest (note the 120GB space) However, this is plenty for your apps and music etc. There's plenty of budget left for something like a 1TB external hard drive. If you have a large movie collection you might want to get one because the chances are that you won't be able to fit your entire collection in 120GB.
If you're after something to take notes on, may I suggest something like a Surface 3. It's power won't knock your socks off but it's ingenious design will, it's like a super-ipad. However, it doesn't come with the pen or keyboard cover and with both (you may not need both idk what your situation is) then it comes to something ridiculous like ~£560.
You'll get people on here comparing all sorts of stuff, but I think you'll be pretty happy with the first one, I know I would be
EDIT: read through the thread and noticed your preference for 15" laptops. You can quite happily get one for this price but the issue of course is that you also want to take your laptop around with you. 13 inch laptops are better for this because they are lighter and tend to be thinner. Maybe 13" isn't ideal for gaming, but if you wanted to do serious gaming I would recommend a desktop anyway, 13" is perfect for your laptop to be a laptop and after having one, you'll think that everyone else's 15" laptops are too big.
The issue simply isn't that "macs are better" because they do the same stuff it's just that one has a really nice casing around it and you pay an extra £300 for it. Not worth it tbh.
Hard drive systems will slow down with time, it's inevitable and SSD systems do not and are always super quick (starts up in under 30 secs guaranteed). RAM isn't that crucial as well, Windows copes fine on as little as 2GB of ram and (but OSX (mac) only copes well with 8 gigs)
If you like white, I've found the perf laptop:
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-v3-371-13-3-laptop-white-10029103-pdt.html
It's got a great processor, graphics and it'll start up and run super-quick. The only drawback with having an SSD is that the capacity isn't that grest (note the 120GB space) However, this is plenty for your apps and music etc. There's plenty of budget left for something like a 1TB external hard drive. If you have a large movie collection you might want to get one because the chances are that you won't be able to fit your entire collection in 120GB.
If you're after something to take notes on, may I suggest something like a Surface 3. It's power won't knock your socks off but it's ingenious design will, it's like a super-ipad. However, it doesn't come with the pen or keyboard cover and with both (you may not need both idk what your situation is) then it comes to something ridiculous like ~£560.
You'll get people on here comparing all sorts of stuff, but I think you'll be pretty happy with the first one, I know I would be
EDIT: read through the thread and noticed your preference for 15" laptops. You can quite happily get one for this price but the issue of course is that you also want to take your laptop around with you. 13 inch laptops are better for this because they are lighter and tend to be thinner. Maybe 13" isn't ideal for gaming, but if you wanted to do serious gaming I would recommend a desktop anyway, 13" is perfect for your laptop to be a laptop and after having one, you'll think that everyone else's 15" laptops are too big.
The extra £100 that is saved when buying that laptop can also be used for another SSD, like this one:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/256gb-sandisk-ultra-plus-7mm-slim-25-ssd-sata-iii-6gb-s-read-530mb-s-write-445mb-s-82000-iops-max
However that laptop hasn't really got a good CPU and it's GPU is quite bad. It must be noted that Broadwell chips will be released in the next few months and rumours have it that the integrated graphics will be beating low end discrete GPUs, however I'm guessing that it will be too late by the time Broadwell is released.
Has the OP considered getting a laptop with an AMD APU?
I got a HP Envy under £500. It's absolutely awesome.
Buy a 13 inch refurbished Macbook Air - trust me it's worth it.
For £500, you could buy this - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/131523922980?limghlpsr=true&hlpv=2&ops=true&viphx=1&hlpht=true&lpid=108&chn=ps&device=c&rlsatarget=&adtype=pla&crdt=0&ff3=1&ff11=ICEP3.0.0-L&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=108
The Macbook Air range, like it or not (I hate the lack of retina screen), has the best battery life, and an ecosystem which is designed to LAST.
For £500, you could buy this - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/131523922980?limghlpsr=true&hlpv=2&ops=true&viphx=1&hlpht=true&lpid=108&chn=ps&device=c&rlsatarget=&adtype=pla&crdt=0&ff3=1&ff11=ICEP3.0.0-L&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=108
The Macbook Air range, like it or not (I hate the lack of retina screen), has the best battery life, and an ecosystem which is designed to LAST.
Original post by yama_
As someone who builds computers as a job, I get asked this a lot. The answer for me is always pretty simple: Don't buy a laptop with a hard drive, make sure it's got an SSD.
The issue simply isn't that "macs are better" because they do the same stuff it's just that one has a really nice casing around it and you pay an extra £300 for it. Not worth it tbh.
Hard drive systems will slow down with time, it's inevitable and SSD systems do not and are always super quick (starts up in under 30 secs guaranteed). RAM isn't that crucial as well, Windows copes fine on as little as 2GB of ram and (but OSX (mac) only copes well with 8 gigs)
If you like white, I've found the perf laptop:
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-v3-371-13-3-laptop-white-10029103-pdt.html
It's got a great processor, graphics and it'll start up and run super-quick. The only drawback with having an SSD is that the capacity isn't that grest (note the 120GB space) However, this is plenty for your apps and music etc. There's plenty of budget left for something like a 1TB external hard drive. If you have a large movie collection you might want to get one because the chances are that you won't be able to fit your entire collection in 120GB.
If you're after something to take notes on, may I suggest something like a Surface 3. It's power won't knock your socks off but it's ingenious design will, it's like a super-ipad. However, it doesn't come with the pen or keyboard cover and with both (you may not need both idk what your situation is) then it comes to something ridiculous like ~£560.
You'll get people on here comparing all sorts of stuff, but I think you'll be pretty happy with the first one, I know I would be
EDIT: read through the thread and noticed your preference for 15" laptops. You can quite happily get one for this price but the issue of course is that you also want to take your laptop around with you. 13 inch laptops are better for this because they are lighter and tend to be thinner. Maybe 13" isn't ideal for gaming, but if you wanted to do serious gaming I would recommend a desktop anyway, 13" is perfect for your laptop to be a laptop and after having one, you'll think that everyone else's 15" laptops are too big.
The issue simply isn't that "macs are better" because they do the same stuff it's just that one has a really nice casing around it and you pay an extra £300 for it. Not worth it tbh.
Hard drive systems will slow down with time, it's inevitable and SSD systems do not and are always super quick (starts up in under 30 secs guaranteed). RAM isn't that crucial as well, Windows copes fine on as little as 2GB of ram and (but OSX (mac) only copes well with 8 gigs)
If you like white, I've found the perf laptop:
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-v3-371-13-3-laptop-white-10029103-pdt.html
It's got a great processor, graphics and it'll start up and run super-quick. The only drawback with having an SSD is that the capacity isn't that grest (note the 120GB space) However, this is plenty for your apps and music etc. There's plenty of budget left for something like a 1TB external hard drive. If you have a large movie collection you might want to get one because the chances are that you won't be able to fit your entire collection in 120GB.
If you're after something to take notes on, may I suggest something like a Surface 3. It's power won't knock your socks off but it's ingenious design will, it's like a super-ipad. However, it doesn't come with the pen or keyboard cover and with both (you may not need both idk what your situation is) then it comes to something ridiculous like ~£560.
You'll get people on here comparing all sorts of stuff, but I think you'll be pretty happy with the first one, I know I would be
EDIT: read through the thread and noticed your preference for 15" laptops. You can quite happily get one for this price but the issue of course is that you also want to take your laptop around with you. 13 inch laptops are better for this because they are lighter and tend to be thinner. Maybe 13" isn't ideal for gaming, but if you wanted to do serious gaming I would recommend a desktop anyway, 13" is perfect for your laptop to be a laptop and after having one, you'll think that everyone else's 15" laptops are too big.
You could also buy a 128GB SD Card for storage - some are made just for Macbook, for a reasonable £65. As well as this, you can buy a tiny USB 3.0 storage extension for only £30ish, such as the Cruzer Fit USB 3.0.
I use both on my 256GB SSD rMBP 15', and I could not be happier with these storage methods, despite the slow write speeds. I store all my movies on the SD, while I store all my music on my Cruzer Fit.
Original post by reppina
Looking to get a new laptop - I cant spend more than £500 though, any ideas?
Thanks!
Thanks!
MacBook pro intel core i7 18ct gold plated
My advice on the subject of Laptops is to look in the direction of manufacturers such as Dell or Lenovo, as they produce rather good quality products! Try to avoid AMD powered machines otherwise you'll end up with a radiator that is pinned at around 100*C and constantly thermal throttling! Also, I'd recommend you stick away from HP Machines, as especially over the last few years, they've had their fair share of reliability problems and almost always run at high temperatures, maybe because the Thermal Compound really isn't up to, I've not had chance to examine this fact though.
However, if you want to look trendy and run a Mac (what I would personally choose to do), then you can get hold of Refurbished Macs online these days! I bought one for £320 back in 2011, and it's still running well today! For around £500, you can get a 5 Year Old MacBook Pro with an Intel i5, and between around 4-8GB of RAM... Not mindblowing and you may consider expensive for a machine so old, but these units hold their value very well and I've found to be very reliable and a pleasure to use!
However, if you want to look trendy and run a Mac (what I would personally choose to do), then you can get hold of Refurbished Macs online these days! I bought one for £320 back in 2011, and it's still running well today! For around £500, you can get a 5 Year Old MacBook Pro with an Intel i5, and between around 4-8GB of RAM... Not mindblowing and you may consider expensive for a machine so old, but these units hold their value very well and I've found to be very reliable and a pleasure to use!
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