Laptop, budget >450

scopper

Hi all, 
Big fan of bargain alerts and figured would be worth asking to see if anyone can help me. 
I have about 450e saved (but obv would happily spend less!) and want to buy a laptop. I know this might be rather hard, but specs wise I am really hoping for an i5 CPU (or the AMD equivalent), 8GB (upgradeable would be awesome), and I'm not fussed about harddrives. Is this even possible?
The reason I want it is because I have started to learn more about computers and have gotten into lots of little things like servers, etc., and my current Ideapad 110 is not able for it!!

tictac18g

I guess the Ideapad 110 is kinds of 50cc scooter which has a cylinder engine and max speed 40 MPH.

if I want to buy laptop, I like to put my priority to buy laptop from
dedicated Graphic card$$$ > CPU$$ > SSD(hard drivers)$$ > RAM...

but if there is money matters, I would fussed about harddrives and look to the reverse order.

method 1:
I would suggest to buy a SSD 256GB(cost ~100 euro) and replace the old harddisk in the Ideapad 110 with it. It would be money saving,

method 2:
if you have still unhappy with the performance, buy another decent laptop which have a regular harddisk and replace harddisk with the bought SSD.
because a decent laptop with SSD would cost $$$.

method 3:
buy laptop without OS.
search with laptop without Windows OS, or Linux something else.
you can install the OS from your school license or something, Dark Side, etc...

like a German website computeruniverse.net/en/

scopper

Thanks! I do use an SSD for an older laptop I have and it's great. I will consider this. RAM is still an issue, since it says I can upgrade to 8GB but I have no idea how to find out what is compatable (normally I use crucial but they say none of theirs are).

tictac18g

I roughly guess that the laptop has 4GB DDR3 1600
You can open lid of RAM slot from the back.

In general, Laptop has two slot to hold the memory, so it has the slot combination 2GB *2 or 4GB * 1.

if it has 2GB * 2, buy 4GB * 1 RAM, so it would be 2GB + 4GB => 6GB,
else if it has 2GB * 2, buy 4GB RAM * 2, so it would be 4GB + 4GB => 8GB,
else if it has 4GB * 1, buy 4GB RAM, so it would be 4GB + 4GB => 8GB,

There are also some considerations. there are difference on the speed and latency.
If you buy new laptop which has DDR4, it would be waste your money.

I suggest that it would better save money to buy decent laptop, instead of upgrading the RAM.

If you like to stick to the laptop, there is another way, upgrade CPU.
I guess the laptop can be upgraded, but it doesn't easy task.

scopper

Yes, 4gb DDR3 (from Task Manager, cannot see 1600). So it would be possible to simply buy RAM that is DDR3 and go from there. It says I can upgrade to 8GB. 
That + an SSD would be a nice mini-boost. 
How difficult would you consider installing a new CPU? I'm relatively tech-savvy and willing to risk things/not blame people if they advise me!

tictac18g

sorry.
I have look the board, the CPU has soldiered. It means CPU can't be upgraded.

It seems the boards has several varieties from AMD to INTEL.
some board shows 1 slot for RAM and other boards doesn't have RAM slot.
if you laptop say it can upgrade to 8GB, it would have a RAM slot to expand it.
from the guess, the laptop has soldered 4GB RAM and 1 slot of RAM expansion.
so you can buy 4GB RAM to expand to 8GB.
if you want to know the RAM speed, you can download program like, CPU-Z.
from the program, you can find the RAM speed and latency so that you can make it as a dual channel.

please googling with the keyword "Single memory vs dual channel".

scopper

Awesome, thank you!

Wildcard7

Are you really constrained to a laptop?

An actual computer (tower) would have many advantages:
- Parts are a lot cheaper (and more to choose from)
- More space for storage devices (stick a cheap SSD in there, if you need space for data stick an additional big/slow/cheap HD in there at a later time)
- You can still use the same case/tower 10 years down the line (ATX standard has been around for ages). Same for the optical drives (my DVD drives are probably 10 years old)

Apart from that, what exactly will you use the laptop for? I would agree that I would not buy anything anymore without an SSD, but if you want to dabble in virtualization you might be better off getting more CPU/memory for your money instead.