Lenovo Ideapad 320S good value for money?

flugel

http://www.currys.ie/Product/lenovo-ideapad-320s14ikb-14-laptop-grey/346520/401.0.10


Looking for a new 14" laptop. Web browsing, Netflix and some video editing (current laptop struggles with windows movie maker so haven't tried anything else yet) would be main activities.

Wondering does the above represent good value or am I even spending too much for what I'm looking to do? Any advice would be greatly appreciated

that's decent yes.
that current gen i5 has quad-cores where all past i5 and i7 mobile chips had only 2 so it's a lot more powerful.
you can even boost the cpu more using an intel utility - intel extreme tuning utility as shown here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IAsVlxppu8&t=13s
should be sufficient for video editing.
8gb ram is ok - ideal would be 12 or 16gb but should be ok.
ssd will make the access quicker.
decent deal for 580
proper 1080p screen so ticks that box also.

flugel

Cheers, appreciate it. If I'm going investing just want to ensure I get best value. Thanks again

Alanstrainor

flugel wrote: »

Cheers, appreciate it. If I'm going investing just want to ensure I get best value. Thanks again

I would guess that you're only doing very basic video editing, but one slight concern would be the amount of storage available with that machine. 128GB is on the tight side, but for that price it is about what you would expect. I would expect that there would be under 100GB free with Windows 10 installed. It can be managed, just worth considering I reckon.

flugel

Alanstrainor wrote: »

I would guess that you're only doing very basic video editing, but one slight concern would be the amount of storage available with that machine. 128GB is on the tight side, but for that price it is about what you would expect. I would expect that there would be under 100GB free with Windows 10 installed. It can be managed, just worth considering I reckon.

Yeah, storage is a concern but I would take a small SSD over a larger HDD and use external storage where required.

Does anyone ever use a SDHC or Micro SDHC to expand storage through the SD card slot? Or is the much smarter option to permanently expand storage internally

Alanstrainor

flugel wrote: »

Yeah, storage is a concern but I would take a small SSD over a larger HDD and use external storage where required.

Does anyone ever use a SDHC or Micro SDHC to expand storage through the SD card slot? Or is the much smarter option to permanently expand storage internally

I would guess that the SD card would stick out of the laptop, which would be a concern in case it broke something when moving/packing the laptop. And another concern would be slower read/write speeds and risk of data loss using the card continuously.

An external hard drive would be fine if that was workable, and of course buying a bigger SSD and installing would also be good too. It all depends on your budget and what you think you'll need.

usually the sd card doesn't stick out these days on modern laptop designs but they are slow and easily lost and broken.

get a bigger ssd and swap or use a usb hard drive imo

flugel

I was very tempted by this laptop but reviews for the battery don't appear to be great, some getting less than two hours of use so I might be back to the drawing board :-(

flugel

flugel wrote: »

I was very tempted by this laptop but reviews for the battery don't appear to be great, some getting less than two hours of use so I might be back to the drawing board :-(

really where did you see that (link)? exact same model?

yes does say 2 cell battery in the specs which could indicate the smaller battery in this model.
although I find that surprising - maybe currys are wrong in the specs? says the smaller battery found on the lower-end models in reviews online.
still should last 5 hours I'd say allowing for over-estimation of 7 hours by manufacturer.

flugel

glasso wrote: »

really where did you see that (link)? exact same model?

You are correct, it wasn't the exact same model, were reviews for lower spec, some were with N4451 chip and 4gb RAM, few were for i7 7th gen models as far as I could tell. Think one was for an i5 8th gen spec though.

Perhaps I am incorrect in assuming they would all be the same battery wise? Only that they all seem to be advertised as 7 hours battery life no matter what the spec for the model so I assumed they would all drain at the same rate etc

saw online that the battery size does vary that the lower-end models have lower capacity. not clear from specs what battery is in the curry's one.
all the same if travelling/using without power brick you can enable battery-saver in windows which turns down the cpu frequency which will give you the best battery life.

flugel

glasso wrote: »

saw online that the battery size does vary that the lower-end models have lower capacity. not clear from specs what battery is in the curry's one.
all the same if travelling/using without power brick you can enable battery-saver in windows which turns down the cpu frequency which will give you the best battery life.

Very true. Use power saver when just browsing online and don't want plugged in and use full specs when required, don't know why I didn't consider that already!