Which laptops to avoid?

purethick

Hi there,
Looking for a laptop and was hoping that people could steer me away from the makes/models that are to be avoided. Also any tips on the model to go for would be good too!

Min spec of
- Intel i5 or i7 - recent generation
- 15" screen
- 500GB+ Hybrid HD or SSD
- 8GB+ RAM

For general purpose use;
Some development, light Adobe CS work - no gaming requirements. Reasonable speakers would be good though
The lighter the better and also that it runs quiet. Battery life not especially important.
My usual opinion is that the disk is the bottleneck so a non-hybrid / SSD will be too slow.
Budget up 1.5k but would prefer to spend a little less than the max.

Here's a rough list of what I've looked at, my head is spinning from all the model numbers and specs. The XPS seems to be the one that is consistently recommended but it's at the upper limit of my budget - is it really worth it?

Dell Inspiron 15 / XPS 15
Asus X550 / ROG / ZenBook (have heard bad things about Asus though)
Acer Aspire
Lenova ThinkPad / Y15 / Yoga / ...
Samsung ?
Toshiba ?
HP Pavillon (have had bad experience with HP in the past, but could try again)
MSI
Alienware

Also is there a decent site that lets you filter according to detailed spec? Was trying to use notebookcheck.ie / laptopsdirect.ie but not working out so well.

Thanks!

purethick

FWIW I ended up buying this www.laptopsdirect.ie/refurbished-grade-a1-acer-aspire-v-nitro-vn7-591g-core-i5-12gb-1tb-60gb-s-a1-nx.mqlek.067-w8/version.asp
Hopefully it will tick all the boxes

devnull

HP Pavilion range is nothing to shout about these days.

The latest Envy range and the Spectre range are the only HP ranges that are good.

AidanD12

purethick wrote: »

FWIW I ended up buying this www.laptopsdirect.ie/refurbished-grade-a1-acer-aspire-v-nitro-vn7-591g-core-i5-12gb-1tb-60gb-s-a1-nx.mqlek.067-w8/version.asp
Hopefully it will tick all the boxes

Hi there - looks like a great spec laptop. Have you had a chance to use it yet and if so has it lived up to the expectations.
It's on that site for 818 - is that the same price you paid
Cheers

purethick

AidanD12 wrote: »

Hi there - looks like a great spec laptop. Have you had a chance to use it yet and if so has it lived up to the expectations.
It's on that site for 818 - is that the same price you paid
Cheers

I'm typing on it at the moment :-) Yup that's the price I paid. First time buying a refurb (A1) and am pleasantly surprised at its "as new" condition, the only difference is the box it came in wasn't sealed

Pros: fast, light, runs quiet and a nice sleek design
Cons: battery is crap (not too much of in issue for me), touchpad isn't great to use at all

This model is being replaced by the VN7-592G which is just in the shops...& ain't cheap