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Laptop for university

I’m looking to study biological sciences at university and I really don’t know anything about laptops so I’m not sure how much memory I need or what sort of laptop I need?
Thanks

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gimme a budget and I'll give you the laptop.
Reply 2
Original post by HorribleDude
gimme a budget and I'll give you the laptop.


The best possible that’s not gonna break the bank too much... willing to pay more if it’s actually worth it and going to benefit me
well...give me a rough estimate...500...800...1 grand...what's the max you are willing to spend...cuz I'll be getting myself one as well for uni...but i'll go for something 2k+...so it all depends on the budget you have...+/- 100 lets say
Reply 4
Original post by HorribleDude
well...give me a rough estimate...500...800...1 grand...what's the max you are willing to spend...cuz I'll be getting myself one as well for uni...but i'll go for something 2k+...so it all depends on the budget you have...+/- 100 lets say



I’d say max 750 ish but I don’t want to spend that much if I can help it but also don’t want something that’s going to run out of memory or something if you get what I mean
right...so 700...gimme a few minutes.
right...i forgot to ask...would you like more power...but you would have to carry the power brick with you to classes and hunt for an outler after 2-3 hours...or do you want less powerful but with no need to hunt for an outlet?
https://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-15-bc250na-15-6-gaming-laptop-silver-10156895-pdt.html
there you go...got you both in 1 and it's £200 off as well now..if you want to get your laptop soon.
(edited 5 years ago)
Look for something from the Dell Latitude or Lenovo Thinkpad ranges on eBay. Anything from the last 10 years will work fine with windows 7/10 or Linux. Don't waste money on a new laptop just for university, keep it cheap because someone might steel it or it might get water spilled on it, etc.

Just make sure that you don't get a Pentium 4 as they get really hot and use lots of power
or you can buy what they said...i gave you the best performace/battery/storage package you could get right now for your max budget. now if you are not going to play any games other than lol and 2000 graphics...or use any programs that are using the gpu a lot...you can get an ultrabook with an i7 8550u...and somewhat of a bigger battery...plus at least a 1080p ips panel and you are set.
(edited 5 years ago)
Original post by Ril3y
I’m looking to study biological sciences at university and I really don’t know anything about laptops so I’m not sure how much memory I need or what sort of laptop I need?
Thanks


Hi,

So long as you're not going to do anything extremely demanding, you'll probably be fine with a Core i3 (or equivalent) CPU from the last year or two. If a Core i5 is cheap enough, and you want to do some casual gaming, then get the Core i5, but for most student tasks (such as browsing/social media/office documents/videos/skype/hangouts etc) a Core i3 from the last two or three generations should be perfectly fine.

As for RAM, get a laptop with at least 4GB, preferably 8GB if you want to run multiple programs at once, use multiple tabs at once on your browser, or want to do some casual gaming. Anything over 8GB won't be required unless you intend on doing anything very intensive (though if that was the case, you'd need more than an i3 anyway).

The other major question is storage - how much storage do you need, do you want exceptionally fast boot times and/or load times? For the average user, a 500GB or 1TB mechanical hard drive will be fine, giving you plenty of storage for your documents, as well as any music, videos, photos, programs/other files etc. If you want faster storage, you can get an SSD, but you'll only get 128GB or 256GB maximum (unless you want to pay extra), which won't give you too much storage unless you use cloud storage options such as OneDrive/Google Docs etc.

You'll also want a laptop with a decent battery life. Many manufacturers are making their devices thinner and lighter, and therefore having smaller batteries. Anything with a rated life of 6 hours or more should be enough for student use.

You'll also be looking at Windows 10 as standard (unless you get a Macbook, or decide to install Linux). Some older laptops have Windows 7 still, but support will be ending within the next 2 years for Windows 7, so I'd go for Windows 10.

Hope that helps, let me know if you need more assistance :smile:

For example, this laptop will meet all of your requirements: https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/lenovo-ideapad-320s-14ikb-14-laptop-grey-10164438-pdt.html

However, if you are concerned about running out of memory/storage then this is better: https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/dell-inspiron-15-6-laptop-black-10169862-pdt.html as it has more RAM and a larger storage.

@Ril3y
(edited 5 years ago)
Indeed; I only got the i7-4510U in my laptop as it wasn't much more than the equivalent i5, yet offered slightly more performance. In fact, even for gaming, a decent i5 will do well enough; I have an i5-4460 in my gaming PC and it's fine for what I require. And of course, more modern CPUs such as 7th or 8th gen will perform better in terms of both performance and power savings.
Literally any laptop on the shelves in PC World will be sufficient for the OP's needs.
Original post by spotify95
Indeed; I only got the i7-4510U in my laptop as it wasn't much more than the equivalent i5, yet offered slightly more performance. In fact, even for gaming, a decent i5 will do well enough; I have an i5-4460 in my gaming PC and it's fine for what I require. And of course, more modern CPUs such as 7th or 8th gen will perform better in terms of both performance and power savings.


Go for Windows 7 over 10
Buy a Chromebook. Quick, very cheap, never lose any files, does all the basics.

Normally they can be a little plasticky, but recent models have bucked that trend.
13 inch macbook pro
I'm not a tech expert but, for what it's worth, probably the best purchase I've ever made was a 2013 Macbook Air with every possible upgrade (except storage space, 256 gb was fine for me on a laptop). It's still going strong now, after five years of heavy use. It's light in my bag, feels nice to use, the battery probably wants replacing but it still lasts a good while, and, thanks to the RAM and SSD and... so forth, it doesn't keep me waiting to e.g. open my 8th word document while I'm running no end of chrome tabs etc, which for me is crucial.

Based on that only, I recommend making a possibly OTT investment so that you can (a) get something you really like and (b) won't have to think about it again for a few years, even if your usage changes a bit.
DELL

Don't ever touch a MacBook.
Windows 10 is full of spyware and automatically updates whenever it wants to, with Windows 10 Microsoft own your computer, not you
Macbook air

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