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Decent laptop for around £500?

Laptop just died so looking to replace, been having a quick look but still not found anything I fancy and thought someone might be able to help.
Budget is around £500.
I'm a 2nd year CS student so mainly using for coding, apart from that just general browsing and streaming stuff, no interest in it playing games.
Specs I'm ideally looking for are an i5, 8 gig ram and an ssd, ssd doesn't have to be any larger than 128. Seeing so much negativity towards 1366x768 displays so 1080 would be preferable but not actually sure how big a difference it makws
Cheers for any help
A 1080p/i5/8GB RAM/SSD is going to be hard to find in that budget I'm afraid :frown:. There are i7 processors at that budget but with Hard Drives as opposed to an SSD (Most likely a slower 5400 RPM disc speed).

I'll do a bit of research here and there but Desktops are my forte.
The second laptop you suggested would definitely be pretty good. Although it is from Currys and PC World which are renown from their terrible customer service so if anything goes wrong with the laptop, go to a laptop repair shop rather than Currys/PC World unless you want to return the machine. Another thing is it's a big brand which means there will be Bloatware that slows down the machine. Unfortunately, some companies now install the programs (bloatware) directly to the BIOS so when you uninstall, it just quietly reinstalls itself.

Generally bloatware is not harmful, it just takes up disk space and slows your system down but a prime example of harmful bloatware is Superfish which was released with Lenovo PC's. Superfish is an ad-injection program that generates a rather greedy source of income, unfortunately it opened up lots of security holes in the system and made any system that ran with it very vulnerable to hacking.by having an insecure connection between the user and the the companies linked to the ads. Lenovo have removed it from all their systems now but I don't trust any computer with any form of bloatware nowadays.
(edited 7 years ago)
The reason Lenovo have some of the cheapest deals is because they have lots of Bloatware which helps reduce cost of the PC at the cost of security, performance etc...
Original post by 152mmOfDerp
The reason Lenovo have some of the cheapest deals is because they have lots of Bloatware which helps reduce cost of the PC at the cost of security, performance etc...


Thanks for that info I was thinking about buying a lenovo. I also need a laptop for programming still not sure.
Original post by Physicstudent
Thanks for that info I was thinking about buying a lenovo. I also need a laptop for programming still not sure.


What sort of programming? Basic programming which doesn't involve a graphical interface doesn't require an i5.
Original post by 152mmOfDerp
What sort of programming? Basic programming which doesn't involve a graphical interface doesn't require an i5.


linux stuff for data analysis in particle physics.
Original post by Physicstudent
linux stuff for data analysis in particle physics.


Something with an i3 equivalent should be fine. An SSD would surely be preferable but unfortunately, laptops don't generally sell with a low end CPU/SSD combo
Original post by 152mmOfDerp
Something with an i3 equivalent should be fine. An SSD would surely be preferable but unfortunately, laptops don't generally sell with a low end CPU/SSD combo


that's good to know what do you think of the air w/ i5 and SSD. i'm diggin it...still not sure if i should stay windows.
Original post by Physicstudent
that's good to know what do you think of the air w/ i5 and SSD. i'm diggin it...still not sure if i should stay windows.


For programming, don't even think about going with a Mac OS. It is a very restricting OS that does not tie in well with any serious coding.

On another note, I found a very good deal with the HP X0Q78ES (https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=HP+X0Q78ES) which features an i5 6200U, 8 GB RAM and a 256GB SSD. Try find a suitable price with a reputable company, for future reference, I found the laptop on this site http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/hp-250-g5-core-i5-6200u-8gb-256gb-ssd-dvd-rw-15.6-inch-windows-10-laptop-x0q78es/version.asp

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