The beginners guide to buying a laptop for less than €500

dazzday

Having seen a large number of requests looking for information of purchasing a laptop within the €500 range, and having been in the same boat myself, I've compiled this small guide for the casual/novice/student laptop buyer based on my own experiences:

Where to buy

Compare prices online and instore. You will be amazed at price differences and how much you can save/upgrade if you shop around. If buying online always check out the company's reputation and customer support. For specific places to buy or bargains search the stickies and threads in the computer forums and bargain alerts.
Number one rule: do your homework.

What to buy

No laptop will suit everyone, each person will have their own personal tastes; be it colour, design, specs etc. All the well known brands have laptops in this range; Dell Inspion, Levono Thinkpad, Toshiba Satelitte, HP Pavillion, Sony Vaio, Acer Aspire etc. Netbooks include Acer Aspire One, Samsung NC, Asus EE etc. Identify your needs, budget, cetrain specs you want and then research the multitude of reviews and user comments online to get a better idea. Nothing beats seeing the model itself, so go instore and get a feel for what you are after.

Proccessor/CPU

Probably the best place to spend your cash, as the proccessor is the core of your systems performance and both difficult and costly to future upgrade. Single core systems are old technology. Always try and go for dual-core proccessors as you are essentially doubling your systems proccessing power. In general, Intel are more desirable than others such as Celeron or AMD, although at the €500 bracket choice can be limited. At this bracket the proccessor cache,bus speeds etc shouldnt be too much of an issue, but in general the larger the cache the better the proccessor. At the €500 price range you should be aiming for an Intel 2.0 Ghz Dual-Core such as T4200 found on the Dell Inspiron 15. This link will give a good guide to comparing different CPUs in ranking order
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html

Graphics card/GPU

Unless you are at minimum a moderate gamer, use alot of grahpic intensive programs or do alot of phototoshop rendering etc the GPU should be of little concern to the casual laptoper. Graphics cards are expensive and generally non- upgradable. Rule of thumb here: Dedicated GPU >> Intergrated GPU. However in this price bracket do not expect to find anything better than an Intel Intergrated GMA, which is pretty much the industry standard. What this means to you? Football manager and Sims are good to go but dont expect to be playing Crysis or Call of Duty 4!

For the gamer, unsure if you are buying a midrange card or something completely un-gamable? The following lists GPUs into suitable-for-gaming catergories:
http://www.tech-forums.net/pc/f84/laptop-graphics-cards-ranking-list-165525/

For those interested, heres a quite up-to-date ranking of laptop GPUs
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html


Harddrive/HDD

A large hard drive is desirable for storing all your movies, music and games comfortably. However dont be inclined to spend all of your budget on upgrading the HDD when the extra cash can be spent improving other specs. Aim for a comfortable size HDD, ideally 160Gb-250Gb; this should be more than adequete for the average user (remember a movie usually ranges in the size of 300mb - 800mb, so a 160Gb Hdd could easily hold 200 movies). If you are a large downloader, gamer or run alot of large programs, increasing the HDD may be a factor for you. However Id be much more inclined to invest in an external HDD which has the added benefits of much more space, portability and gives the ability to backup valuable files. Remember you can purchase a 1TB external HDD for less than €100 these days. At this price bracket the vast majority of internal HDD you will encounter will be 5400rpm speed, so dont worry too much about this.

RAM

RAM is probably the most cost effective way to boost system performance, as it gives the largest buck to bang ratio. Key note here is the more RAM the better. If running Windows Vista make sure you get at least 2Gb of RAM as Vista is quite a RAM intensive OS. Windows 7 is a lot less demanding, and 2Gb should be more than adeqeute. 64bit versions of these OS warrent 3Gb + to fully optimise performance. At the €500 price bracket, aim for 2-3Gb as RAM is the easiest and cheapest thing to upgrade in the future.

Battery

At this price range aim for a 6 Cell battery to ensure at least 3hours battery life. For netbooks the battery life will be greatly extended (up to 12hours), while heavy desktop replacements may only reach 2hours.

Dimensions

A key factor alot of new buyers overlook when purchasing their first laptop. First thing you should do is take into account your situation; are you a student and thus does it need to be portable? Are you looking for multimedia center to watch movies? Are you using it strictly for travelling? Are you using it as a desktop replacement? Depending on your situation you may be better off going for a lightweight 10inch netbook, or a 17inch multimedia desktop replacement. For movies, a larger higher quality screen (17inch) and good surround sound would be ideal. For a student, a lightweight (~2kg) medium size screen (15inch) could be better. For commuting, a 10inch ultralight netbook with extended battery. Visit local computer retailers and get a look and feel of the different screen sizes, weights and dimensions.

Additional Features and Accessories

Here is the area where you can personlise to your own tastes and really spruce your laptop up. Alot of additional features are really user preferences and generally not needed. However within our price range the following should be considered:

Recommened:
Intergrated Webcam, Optical Drive (should come as standard), Warrenty (1 year should come as standard), USB powered external HDD (particularly for netbooks), Cleaning Kit (including screen wipes, compressed air and general puposed wipes.), Laptop Bag/Case.

Other:
Bluetooth, Blu-Ray Drive, Fingerprint reader, HD LED screen, Gloss finish, External Monitor,

Software

The majority of laptops purchased in this budget will come with Windows Vista Home Premium installed. As Vista is a RAM intensive operating system, it is recommened to ensure you have at least 2gb of RAM installed. However it is a common tactic of many retailers to sell 1gb RAM systems with Vista installed, so make sure you check or at least look into a RAM upgrade. Ask if the edition is 32bit or 64bit as Vista 32bit will only utilize 3gb of RAM, leaving that precious extra 1Gb paid for idle.

Vista is a very user friendly and workable operating system, however it is due to be replaced with Windows 7, which essentially is a less demanding Vista with the bugs ironed out. The good news is any laptop purchased now should be eligible for a free Windows 7 upgrade, so make sure you check if the system is eligible before buying. This means dont buy a laptop with Vista Basic!

Try not to be influenced into buying additional software that you either dont need or dont want. Buying online or in-store you will find you are pressurized into buying multitudes of anti-virus, office software and extended warrenties etc. Do your research before hand, find out what software you need, what additional features you want and compare prices. ALOT of commercial software has a free alternative that works as good as if not better than the paid product. This is particularly the case for Anti-virus software. Although I wont compile an exhaustive list, searching the stickies in the computer forum should give alot more information on different freeware.

Anti-Virus: AVG, Avira, Avast
Anti-Spyware: Spybot, Malwarebytes, adaware
Firewall: Windows defender, Comodo
Registry/bloatware removal: C-Cleaner, decrapifier
MS Office replacement: Open Office
Media Player: VLC music player, Winamp
Photoshop replacement: GIMP

What do I do when I first get my laptop?

Number 1 rule: Create backup disks.
This point probably cant be empathized enough. The majority of new laptops will have a program that will allow you to burn a complete backup of your system onto disk. If not, googling will show plenty of freeware tools that do the same.
If you manage to banjax your system at a later date, something goes wrong or you simply want to fresh install, recovery disks are by far the easiest and most convienient way to recover your new expensive laptop by simply popping in the disks and letting them do their thing.
Netbooks wont offer such a function due to lack of an optical drive. However recovery disks can be ordered at will from the manufacturer if needed.

Tweaking: No matter what laptop you buy, optimzing the system using a few simple steps can boost your performance greatly. This involves removing "bloatware", customising start-up programs/utilities/services and updating drivers.You will see significant decreases in load times, boot times and CPU usage.
The following link gives a better guide than i could do justice to "tweaking" your first laptop and also gives some great software advice.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=285280

Alot of this material is something I would have loved to have known before buying my first laptop so hopefully it will help someone!

Maqnus

Great guide, thanks!

Johner

nice one mate!

manutd

Thnks mate

Mistmyr

very nice

This should be a sticky

Misty

dazzday

shucks!

If anybody has any other advice they would like to throw out there for the first time buyer I will gladly update the post.

Updated a section on optimization

Rujib1

This one for €399 ticks a lot of boxes for home / student users.

http://ireland.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/emea/segments/dhs/minicat/services_N0054502_basket?c=ie&cs=iedhs1&l=en&s=dhs

Adequate processor speed, plenty RAM and enough hard drive space.

R1

romur84

That's what i'm talking about!!!! Sound for that dazzday. Thanking you.

dazzday

Cheers guys! Updated the GPU section to include links to GPU comparisons... gives a nice indication to where the Intel Intergrated GMA stands.

elaine93

Can anyone reccomend a laptop for 250,max 300? I only want to be able to do a bit of word processing,send email, maybe listen to music and watch YouTube videos? I don't need a big screen, but an ok battery life would be good. Does anyone know if the dell inspiron mini 10 is any good?

mink_man

cheers!

Effluo

A lot of very useful and money saving info.

Just that celeron processors are intel too...

If I were to change or add anything to this I would emphasis the importance of reading reviews, expert and user.

Also something which can be very handy is googling the laptop model with the word "problem" to see if anything recurring comes up.

You overstated the battery life of netbooks and indeed most laptops too.


Laptops and pc's in general have been tranforming from a work device into a source of entertainment.

Something worth noting is the connectivity of our laptops. Little bonuses such as hdmi ports are things to look out for when purchasing in that price-range.

Screen resolutions are also things to look out for.
9 cell batteries are also just about achievable at that budget right now.

Funny how people just expect this to come as standard! But a built in microphone!!! Some just don't come with them! Have the manufacturers never heard of skype??

A good point, but not so obvious point you made was about laptop cases! Some come with them and some don't... Again something people expect to come as standard!

You said nothing of networking too...
Wirless N is not a widely used feature, but when you have a compatible router it is a very handy thing to have!

I don't mean to be criticle because it is very clear that you put a lot of work into this, but i don't think it can be stickied.

this " The beginners guide to buying a laptop for less than €500The beginners guide to buying a laptop for less than" may be possible to make today for today, but unfortunately in a couple of months time it will already be outdated...
As you will be able to expect much more for your 500 euro.

Maybe there should be a sticky, "How to buy a laptop" or something like that, where the good advice you give is put up and the info about today and nows hardware is left out.

dazzday

Some fair enough points to be honest, particularly about how quick this post can become outdated.

"Beginners guide to buying a cheap laptop" would be alot more suitable methinks.

Again I wasnt aiming too much for a fully comprehensive guide, but more of a start place for those clueless as to what they want/need.

I see so many walk into PC world etc only knowing they want a laptop for college, to be sold last years bargain basement model with all the unneccessary extras, and to find it wont play the latest game they bought or its not compatible with a certain software or its noisy etc...