Laptop - High Spec

colmtowey

Hi all

I am looking for a Laptop that would be high performance and am willing to spend about €700 (May stretch to €750).

I am not overly concerned with Storage Space so HDD Size is not that Important. I am looking for something with with fast CPU Speeds, Good Graphic's, High levels of Ram and possibly an SSD Drive. Laptop will be used for working with Autocad which is known for using high Resources. I am open minded on Models and would prefer a Windows based OS.

What I am looking for is People's opinions on Laptops they have bought or used regularly and how they have found them.

Regards

Colm Towey

ED E

€700 is mid tier, high spec starts at €1100 in my eyes.

daithi7

I bought a fairly high end laptop about a year ago, some pointers:

- don't get a touchscreen screen (as they're heavy, useless, get dirty and suffer badly from glare)
- Microsoft s modern operating systems are crap (windows 7 was the last good one they had, if I were you, I'd spec that)
- most modern laptops are widescreen, this means a numerical pad to the rhs of the keyboard, which means the mouse pad is off centre which leads to loads of typos and really crap ergonomics. (E.g. try typing on something off centre on your lap = tres awkward. .You can special order most laptops with no num pads as an option, I'd try to get one of those, or alternatively some have num pads with more narrow keys, so at least these are not quite as lob sided as most of the others. I'm amazed most laptop reviews fall to highlight this issue at all. It's a biggie imho.

-order loads of ram
-the modern ssd drives for your operating system are great. Hybrids are ok too, but ssds for the os are a big improvement.
-get a nice screen, full hd, , loads of ports and I like an in built dvd rw drive so that the unit can operate as a stand alone machine.
-get a nice bag and/or sleeve, it's always worth it

Good luck

mordeith

daithi7 wrote: »

I bought a fairly high end laptop about a year ago, some pointers:

- don't get a touchscreen screen (as they're heavy, useless, get dirty and suffer badly from glare)

I'd agree with this

daithi7 wrote: »

- Microsoft s modern operating systems are crap (windows 7 was the last good one they had, if I were you, I'd spec that)

I'd imagine it would be very difficult to get a laptop with 7 on it. Windows 10 is actually a very nice OS and is miles better than the horror show of 8.

daithi7 wrote: »

- most modern laptops are widescreen, this means a numerical pad to the rhs of the keyboard, which means the mouse pad is off centre which leads to loads of typos and really crap ergonomics. (E.g. try typing on something off centre on your lap = tres awkward. .You can special order most laptops with no num pads as an option, I'd try to get one of those, or alternatively some have num pads with more narrow keys, so at least these are not quite as lob sided as most of the others. I'm amazed most laptop reviews fall to highlight this issue at all. It's a biggie imho.

Not sure about this. A lot of laptops I've looked at had no serparate numpad at all. The one I ordered does but I don't have any issue typing.

daithi7 wrote: »

-order loads of ram

8GB is plenty unless you're doing some serious encoding/rendering/number crunching. RAM drops in price all the time so you can always order more later on if required saving money on the initial purchase.

daithi7 wrote: »

-the modern ssd drives for your operating system are great. Hybrids are ok too, but ssds for the os are a big improvement.

Agree. SSDs are the biggest improvement in laptops in recent years. Worth it for the cut in bootup times alone.

daithi7 wrote: »

-get a nice screen, full hd, , loads of ports and I like an in built dvd rw drive so that the unit can operate as a stand alone machine.
-get a nice bag and/or sleeve, it's always with it

Definitely go for a full 1080p screen. A 15.6" inch will suffice although it can be nice having the 17" as well although that can compromise battery life and weight.
Can't see the benefit of an optical drive at all. You can use that bay for a secondary hdd.

PrzemoF

Make sure the cooling system is sufficient for CPU. I have a laptop with intel i7 that overheats under heavy load and slows down as the result to fraction of the "cool" speed. Seller explanation: "the laptop was not designed for heavy load".

TerrorFirmer

PrzemoF wrote: »

Make sure the cooling system is sufficient for CPU. I have a laptop with intel i7 that overheats under heavy load and slows down as the result to fraction of the "cool" speed. Seller explanation: "the laptop was not designed for heavy load".

That's rubbish. It's either faulty if you bought new or if 2nd hand it's internally caked with dust and fluff.

This is not really a concern for anyone buying a new laptop. Fair enough if you bought it 2nd hand from a dishonest seller there's nothing you can do but I hope if you bought new you didn't actually accept that excuse!

PrzemoF

The problem was that I realised that there is an overheating problem way to late - see the details below. The laptop was brand new, but custom built by a company in the UK. Cleaned by me, new cooling paste by me. I was even looking to upgrade the cooling system/fan but there is nothing on the market. I sent them this:

"Hi,
I'm having overheating problems with my laptop that I bought in 2012. I cannot prove it, but I think it was overheating for a long time (possibly since the day one). I cleaned the fan and replaced cooling paste on the CPU (i7), but it improved situation for a very brief period of time. Do you have CPU any cooling upgrades/fixes for that model? (order number 4****4). I don't mind running the CPU close to the temperature limit, but it causes cpu throttling - the slow is down is terrible.

I'm a heavy user (software compiling, FEM calculations) and I often push the laptop to the limit. The temperature reaches 95 deg C and in the system log shows something like this:

[12448.429059] CPU6: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 344067) "

The reply:
"HI there,
We do not have any additional cooling options or mods for this chassis I'm afraid, this is a more basic use laptop designed around mobility for medium to light usage.
The only thing I could suggest to help with cooling of this machine would be a cooling stand.
Please let us know if we can help with anything else."

Anyway, I don't want to steal the thread :-)

eoinzy2000

I bought a Dell Inspiron 7000 or something I7 with a 4gb radeon graphics card (not high spec card) and 8gb RAM. I replaced the optical drive with a HD Caddy, moved the 1tb hard drive there and installed a SSD in main HD slot. I got VAT back through work. Laptop itself cost 540, HDCaddy cost about 50 and had the 320gb SSD. I'm not sure how much they are. Prob about 100 mark. If you have somewhere or someone to reclaim VAT, you can get a decvent machine for 700. I use AutoCAD R17. Its a flying machine. 8GB loads. If you propose to use Inventor or FEA stuff, 16gb might be better, but the 8gb will work fine...