What websites are people using for buying laptops these days?

WaterWolf

It's been a long time since I've bought a new laptop so I'm just wondering what websites are people using these days? I see Dabs.ie is gone but laptopsdirect.ie and elera.ie are still going - are there any other recommendations?

I'm looking for a reasonably high end laptop up to €1000 that will be able to run modern games at least at minimum settings (this won't be it's primary use).

Screen Size: 15.4ish
Screen Resolution: 1080p or higher
Processor: i5 or better
RAM: 12GB or more
SSD: 200GB or more
HD: 1TB or more
Graphics Card: As good as I can get for the price.
Weight: Don't care

Lenny

I was in the same suitation as yourself, the best I could find is pc specialist.. Google them, you can Taylor everything with them, you could and their systems you can open them and upgrade, add more ram, another harddrive without voiding the warrantywarranty...

WaterWolf

I've had a good look around now, and I agree that PC Specialists do seem to be a bit cheaper than the rest. How did they work out for you? I like that you can order them without an operating system - I plan on transferring my retail windows 7 license to windows 10 on the new machine which would save me €95

The machine I've been looking at would have the following specs:

Chassis & Display: Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 6700HQ (2.6GHz, 3.5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM): 16GB Kingston SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12
Memory - Hard Disk: 1TB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive: 256GB M.2 2280, SATA 6Gb/s (561MB/R, 296MB/W)
Battery Optimus Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (62.16WH)

Price: €1,014.00


It would be possible to get a GTX 965m for €40 more but I'm not sure if it's worth it (and it goes above my budget limit!).
Also, the RAM is only 1600Mhz DDR3 - do you think that will make much difference?

pinkypinky

Similar question: what sites other that PC specialist (which looks good) allow you to configure the spec. I see the Dell site doesn't do it anymore and neither do Elara or Laptopsdirect.

steve_r

WaterWolf wrote: »

I've had a good look around now, and I agree that PC Specialists do seem to be a bit cheaper than the rest. How did they work out for you? I like that you can order them without an operating system - I plan on transferring my retail windows 7 license to windows 10 on the new machine which would save me €95

The machine I've been looking at would have the following specs:

Chassis & Display: Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 6700HQ (2.6GHz, 3.5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM): 16GB Kingston SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12
Memory - Hard Disk: 1TB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
M.2 SSD Drive: 256GB M.2 2280, SATA 6Gb/s (561MB/R, 296MB/W)
Battery Optimus Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (62.16WH)

Price: €1,014.00


It would be possible to get a GTX 965m for €40 more but I'm not sure if it's worth it (and it goes above my budget limit!).
Also, the RAM is only 1600Mhz DDR3 - do you think that will make much difference?

Can I ask what the base machine you are looking at is for this? I'd have a similar budget.

WaterWolf

It's the 15.6 inch Optimus VII:

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/optimusVII-15/

The one with the 965m instead of 960m for €40 more is the Optimus VII Pro:

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/optimusVII-Pro-15/

I still don't know if it's worth the €40 extra for a 965m?

Alanstrainor

Hard to ignore the XPS15 in this price range. Highly upgradeable and an epic machine from what I've read.

WaterWolf

A similar spec XPS 15 on the Dell website costs €1750 which is well out my price range! Are they available somewhere cheaper?!

steve_r

WaterWolf wrote: »

It's the 15.6 inch Optimus VII:

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/optimusVII-15/

The one with the 965m instead of 960m for €40 more is the Optimus VII Pro:

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/optimusVII-Pro-15/

I still don't know if it's worth the €40 extra for a 965m?

I don't know the answer myself but this thread here is looking at the same point and using the website PassMark


here:http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=100322973#post100322973

Hollister11

At the moment, it would be worth your while to look a British sites because of the great exchange rate at the moment.

LaptopsDirect.co.uk

I have used there irish site in the past, and they provide very good laptops.

WaterWolf

Ah for f... the prices on pcspecialist have gone up by €20 in the last two days...

The_B_Man

I got my laptop from them a few years ago. Still going strong.
Just be weary though, you can only buy batteries direct from them, and they'll set you back around €50 in a couple of years.

RE: The prices going up. If you need to cut the bill down a bit, the strategy I used (and always recommend) is to spend all your money on the parts that are hard to replace. So the CPU and GPU. Skimp on the RAM or HDD because you can EASILY upgrade them at a later stage. RAM is the easiest so if you're looking to gain back that €20 increase, drop it to 8GB. I don't know why you'd need more anyway.

NewsMeQuick

Yes watch out for the UK sites, the rate is so much better now.

Argos UK
Laptopsdirect UK
Saveonlaptops UK
PC World UK
Amazon UK

Untense

Don't go with laptopsdirect.ie. If anything goes wrong you're going to be left up sheet crick.