need a laptop for university

evanbeaulieu · 18-01-2015 2:48pm #1

hi
next yr im going into uni and i need a laptop. i dont want a chromebook, and want to spend less then €1000. i would like good battery life, for it to use outlook perfectly, 13.3 inch screen minimum, not too bugged about weight, and for resolution to be relativley good.
suggestions pls

mordeith · 18-01-2015 3:09pm

evanbeaulieu wrote: »

hi
next yr im going into uni and i need a laptop. i dont want a chromebook, and want to spend less then €1000. i would like good battery life, for it to use outlook perfectly, 13.3 inch screen minimum, not too bugged about weight, and for resolution to be relativley good.
suggestions pls

What will you be using Ift for? If it's just for notetaking and assignments and stuff then less than 500e would do

Oafley Jones · 18-01-2015 3:12pm

mordeith wrote: »

What will you be using Ift for? If it's just for notetaking and assignments and stuff then less than 500e would do

If it's just that the 200 euro Dell on Bargain Alerts would be worth a look. I'd imagine the screen isn't great though. Still, half tempted to pick up one for a bit of light weight coding.

Kavrocks · 18-01-2015 6:09pm

I'd have to recommend a Macbook Air from the Apple Education Store, €966.78. I've a 13.3" Macbook Air, it got me through 4 years of college doing exactly what you want and more. Outlook can run on it, I don't use Outlook though (not sure why you would over the many better alternatives).

Granted you could get something cheaper and with higher specs but will it last? My Macbook Air is still like new 4 years down the line. Whereas most of my college mates had to buy a new laptop at some point during the 4 years. It's extremely sturdy, portable, long battery life, the SSD means 4GB RAM will do every task you want and more.

Polar Ice · 18-01-2015 8:04pm

Kavrocks wrote: »

the SSD means 4GB RAM will do every task you want

FYI: a SSD and RAM are unrelated components.

Kavrocks · 18-01-2015 9:34pm

Polar Ice wrote: »

FYI: a SSD and RAM are unrelated components.

No they aren't. Virtual Memory includes RAM and swap space stored on the hard drive, which for the Macbook Air is an SSD. The SSD greatly increases the speed of swapping in and out of RAM. This has the effect of reducing slowdowns when multitasking with several programs stored in Virtual Memory, it also increases the speed of loading programs into memory.

An SSD greatly improves the snappiness and responsiveness of a laptop.

evanbeaulieu · 21-01-2015 9:43pm

It would be for notes and outlook and for coding and for using fluid mechanics programs. Any recommendations

jaymcg91 · 21-01-2015 9:51pm

Kavrocks wrote: »

I'd have to recommend a Macbook Air from the Apple Education Store, €966.78. I've a 13.3" Macbook Air, it got me through 4 years of college doing exactly what you want and more. Outlook can run on it, I don't use Outlook though (not sure why you would over the many better alternatives).

Granted you could get something cheaper and with higher specs but will it last? My Macbook Air is still like new 4 years down the line. Whereas most of my college mates had to buy a new laptop at some point during the 4 years. It's extremely sturdy, portable, long battery life, the SSD means 4GB RAM will do every task you want and more.

Seconded, I ******* love my Macbook so much, couldn't pay me to go back now!

wheresmybeaver · 27-01-2015 7:42pm

If you're going to be carrying that laptop everywhere with you for the next few years then you will want something pretty light. A 13 inch screen in my opinion is the perfect size, and you'll know you're getting a relatively light laptop if it has an SSD rather than a traditional HDD. For what you describe you only need a middle of the road CPU. Make sure battery life as advertised is 5 hours minimum.

Before you get an Apple check to make sure that all the software you need for your course is available for mac, or you'll end up buying and installing windows too, and at that stage what's the point of a mac. Dell have the excellent xps 13 2014 and 2015 range, HP have some nice options, and the Lenovo yoga range is great too. But watch that you don't go to cheap or as someone else said its a false economy; it wont last half as long.

K.O.Kiki · 27-01-2015 9:18pm

Might I suggest against a MacBook Air unless you buy a Safedock?

The MBA doesn't have a Kensington lock slot, and nothing's worse than someone swiping your laptop!

Liam O · 27-01-2015 11:34pm

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/S551LN-CJ149H-ASUS-VivoBook-S551LN-CJ149H-UltraBook_1671352.html

I'm looking at this, there must be some sort of drawback to it? Seems very well priced for everything else like it but might be a bit big, seems slim enough though. Might still be too much for me to drop though.

emy · 28-01-2015 5:13pm

Liam O wrote: »

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/S551LN-CJ149H-ASUS-VivoBook-S551LN-CJ149H-UltraBook_1671352.html

I'm looking at this, there must be some sort of drawback to it? Seems very well priced for everything else like it but might be a bit big, seems slim enough though. Might still be too much for me to drop though.

Lack of good resolution, the 1366x768, HD is the worse ever. I had to hide the bottom task bar to see the next of the window while installing software.
I would not take it even for free.

jungleman · 28-01-2015 5:21pm

Not a great selection of laptops compared to about four or five years ago! If I were you I'd have a serious look at HP laptops. You're not just looking for processor and memory, but you need a laptop with a good build quality. HP laptops are really well made, they have fantastic screen quality and a nice keyboard layout.

Next best for me would be a Samsung, I used to always choose Samsung laptops. Only thing is, they seem to be hard to come by now. They must have reduced their range of laptops recently?

Best place to buy a laptop is Argos. They always have fantastic deals, really good discount. The HP Pavillion I'm using now came with i-3 processor @2.40 GHz, 8.00 GB RAM, 1 TB disk space. I got it reduced from around €650 down to €500. It hasn't given me a minutes trouble. Good battery life too, it's still charging up well and hasn't lost any battery life in the last two years. Winner.

devnull · 29-01-2015 10:13am

The latest HP Models have awful screens.

Even the Premium HP Envy 15 has a terrible screen that is on par with a budget laptop rather than a premium one. The viewing angles are atrocious.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Envy-15-k010ng-Notebook-Review.127625.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-HP-Envy-15-j011sg-Notebook.108254.0.html

The current J series was as failure and the soon to be launched k series at least fixes the brightness, but struggles in all other areas still as far as a screen goes.

Build quality and the speakers and keyboard etc are generally great on the Envys, but it is a disgrace that they put such a cheap screen in their premium line.

But bad screens in laptops habve become more common the last few years, as companies start to use much cheaper companies than before, LG used ot be a strong and common screen maker but the Chinese companies have took over lately and with far worse quality.

IPS Screens are the way to go, but you need to pay a bit more for tose and pretty much zero of the bricks and mortar shops sell IPS Screened laptops.

devnull · 29-01-2015 10:14am

emy wrote: »

Lack of good resolution, the 1366x768, HD is the worse ever. I had to hide the bottom task bar to see the next of the window while installing software.
I would not take it even for free.

The vast majority of full HD machines in cheaper laptops are of very questionable quality. I like a higher resolution as much as anyone, but there is a lot of box ticking going on where a company will put a cheap FULL HD screen with terrible brightness, door effects and viewing angles and grainess in just to say it's full HD, rather than a good HD screen.

jungleman · 29-01-2015 1:00pm

devnull wrote: »

The latest HP Models have awful screens.

Mine is the HP pavilion g6, the screen is pretty good. It's a couple of years old, not sure about the newer models, but I find it to be high enough quality. Not a patch on my old Samsung though, they used to make fantastic screens.

OP, whatever you do, do not make the typical student choice and go for a cheaper Acer laptop. They are simply atrocious. They're cheap, but that doesn't mean they are value for money. I cannot stress how bad they are. On every level.

devnull · 29-01-2015 1:52pm

Yeah, the older HP stuff and the stuff out in 2013 had better screens without doubt.

It's not just a HP thing though, generally whats happened is in the mid-range most manufactuers have switched from average to good 1366x768 part HD screens to low quality full HD screens recently,

As far as viewing angles are concerned the full HD Screens are of a worse quality than the standard HD Screens they replaced in most models, they show a sharper image, but the colour production on them is worse, washed out and not as consistant and the viewing angles are catastrophic.

To be sure of getting a good quality screen with decent colour reproduction and viewing angles and good contrast levels you really need to get IPS Screens these ays or pay for them.

For an example, on the Envy models, it is almost impossible to get an even colour on the screen from any angle the angles are so bad, the top of the screen of text could be black, but the lower half would be a dark grey for instance, which is very noticeable and no matter how much you adjust the angle of the display yoiu can never get an optimal result.

need a laptop for university

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