Low/Mid range laptop <600eur

km991148

Hi,

I am looking for laptop advice for a machine for my parents. Will be fairly light use - Maily for internet/ photo processing (basic cropping etc no heavy photoshop work) and the occasional film etc

I'd also like to try and get the strongest build quality for the money (I know we aint talking aluminium body at this price point, but as robust as possible).

Screen resolution aint too important (it seems 768 is the most I can expect at this price) but slightly better viewing angles would be appreciated.

There seems to be a lot of processor options in this range - I aint too familiar with whats best. Possibly naively I have been trying for i5s if possible - not sure how the i3s stack up, and definitely not sure about the AMDs or pentiums.

So far I have came up with:
-Lenovo G500

-Aspire E1 (Ivy and Haswell)

-And an older (but more robust) Acer TravelMate

Would be nice to keep it as much under 600 as possible (ha of course it would! !)

Any other suggestions and also what to look for re processor choice?

Torqay

Lenovo G510, Core i5 (Haswell), €540 @ Lenovo.

km991148

out of interest - I cant see much difference between the g500 linked and the 510 from lenovos site (other than the 510 comes with a cache drive and the other a regular 1tb hdd). If possible - it would be handy for me to buy from laatopsdirect - am I missing anyting else?

Also - why not any of the acers?

thehouses

I wouldn't spend more than €400 - €500 on a laptop, especially when you mention it is for "fairly light use." My Lenovo cost €500 (cos I wanted a 17 inch screen) and I can run Photoshop on it with no problems at all. I could have gotten it even cheaper if I waited longer for an offer which Argos were doing the following month.

I would not spend much more than €400 for a 15.6 inch screen. An i5 processor would be overkill for your use in my opinion.

When you are picking your laptop, google the name of the processor (cpu) they are advertising along with the word "benchmark" and you can get an idea of how it will perform in comparison to your current laptop's processor. The website to choose is cpubenchmark.net. I find this helps when you are buying a budget laptop as some will have an underpowered processor.

km991148

ye.. I think I am going i3 - it should do their needs alright..

I just dont have any real world experience with lower powered chips!

thehouses

u won't go wrong with an i3