Anything better than this HP 14-bp076sa 14" Intel® Core™ i3 128 GB SSD for ~€3

runswithascript

Budget: Around €400.

Intended use: General Internet use, study, Microsoft Office, and no gaming, coding, or video processing.

Mobility: Happy with approximately 14". (One person would prefer 13.3", the other 15.6", either will settle for 14" if it is the best deal).

Warranty: Would rather not pay extra for extended warranty.

What Operating System do you use: Windows 10, I can install this on my own if necessary.

Curry's PC world are offering the following for €399, and some may qualify for a €50 trade-in discount:

HP 14-bp076sa 14" Intel® Core™ i3 Laptop - 128 GB SSD, Marine Blue

I was hoping to recommend something with an i3, 8GB of RAM, and full HD screen, but after some research, and as I have seen someone else post in this forum, it does not seem to be possible for this kind of money? Laptop RAM on the HP-14 can always be upgraded at least, and a compromise would have to be made on full HD.

Is this the laptop to go with?

TerrorFirmer

I think this is full HD and it's €40 cheaper, specs are pretty much identical.

runswithascript

Firstly, thanks for the input. I am not totally up to date on everything in the CPU world, but I suspect probably better to go with the i3-7100U of the HP rather than the Pentium® Gold 4415U Processor of the Lenovo?

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/661/Intel_Core_i3_Mobile_i3-7100U_vs_Intel_Pentium_Dual-Core_Mobile_4415U.html

runswithascript

Also the resolution for both models of the Lenovo, whether the Pentium or more expensive i-Core is listed as 1366 x 769?

GarrettRodgers

I started my search by looking at that one. After asking some advice I decided to go for 8gb RAM, which I couldn't do for €400, I might have come across something with full HD for €400, but not the RAM. Decided I'd have to spend more

I found this as the next step up, full HD and 8gb of RAM, I think the battery is worse though
Lenovo Ideapad 520s i3 8gb Amazon £409

The cheapest one I came to that made no compromise was this at about €540, 8GB of RAM, newest i5 processor (better than I was planning on) full HD, good battery and SSD.
HP Notebook 14-ck0993na saveonlaptops

So yeah, I don't think there was much better, but maybe several as good.

TerrorFirmer

Ah, sorry, thought all those ideapads were 1080p. The Pentium Gold and i3-7100 are pretty much identical, you would only notice a difference if you ran actual benchmarks (even then the gap is small), day to day use they might as well be the same.

Not to be confused with the plain Pentiums, which are quite slow in comparison, they start with N - like N3550, etc.

runswithascript

GarrettRodgers wrote: »

I started my search by looking at that one. After asking some advice I decided to go for 8gb RAM, which I couldn't do for €400, I might have come across something with full HD for €400, but not the RAM. Decided I'd have to spend more

I found this as the next step up, full HD and 8gb of RAM, I think the battery is worse though
Lenovo Ideapad 520s i3 8gb Amazon £409

The cheapest one I came to that made no compromise was this at about €540, 8GB of RAM, newest i5 processor (better than I was planning on) full HD, good battery and SSD.
HP Notebook 14-ck0993na saveonlaptops

So yeah, I don't think there was much better, but maybe several as good.

The Lenovoa Ideapad 520s is nice, although I will have to look into the batters. So it's €60 more expensive, but that would probably be similar to the price of manually upgrading the RAM on the HP - only with the Lenovo you would have a Full HD display. It should be noted that with a possible trade in at PC World the HP could be as cheap as €349.

runswithascript

PC World actually have it too, so the same discount could apply:

LENOVO Ideapad 320s-14IKB 14" Laptop - White

runswithascript

runswithascript wrote: »

PC World actually have it too, so the same discount could apply:

LENOVO Ideapad 320s-14IKB 14" Laptop - White

Just noticed on the PC World version at least, the resolution is not full HD, and it's not 8GB of RAM

GarrettRodgers

runswithascript wrote: »

Just noticed on the PC World version at least, the resolution is not full HD, and it's not 8GB of RAM

Yeah there seems to be loads of versions of every name of laptop, it makes it hard to compare different sellers or just do a simple search. I guess that's the difficulty when there's so many options of components, either you have the same name and specify components or you have a million different codes each representing one like the HPs.

If you're not too fussed on processing power the Lenovo seems good. I went for the HP at €540, it was the cheapest in it's class by a mile as far as I could find, I should have it tomorrow or monday. A similarly speced Acer was €650. If your budget is €400 then maybe your original choice might be best.

runswithascript

Discovered on Friday the HP 14-BP076SA is out of stock at all PC Worlds in Ireland, but they expect them back in within three weeks. Keeping an eye out for something better in the mean time.

Katawalah

runswithascript wrote: »

Discovered on Friday the HP 14-BP076SA is out of stock at all PC Worlds in Ireland, but they expect them back in within three weeks. Keeping an eye out for something better in the mean time.

Interesting thread. I'm also looking to buy a new laptop with the same budget as yours. I could stretch to 480€, but would really prefer to keep cost as low as possible. The initial intended use is to run the laptop 24/7 with a light software always working in the background.

The software minimum specs requirements are fairly low :
Dual Core Processor with Speed of 1.7GHz or Higher (Quad Core would be better)
1GB of RAM or more

However, I reckon that over time I may also use the new laptop for regular internet browsing, checking emails, watching movies, etc. I'm not into games, coding, editing, etc.

As you, I was also considering the HP 14-bp076sa from Currys. I'm now back from holidays and see it's out of stock.
Do you know if it will come back in stores? I couldn't find any info on Curry's website.

I was also looking at the Acer Swift 1 : https://uk-store.acer.com/swift-1-ultra-thin-sf114-32-silver
It has great reviews and is roughly at 400€. The screen is HD. I'm just concerned about the CPU, but comparison websites say it's roughly the same than the Intel Pentium Gold 4415U from the Lenovo 320s. In particular, the energy consumption is lower, and makes it more efficient for my intended use. But, it's not possible to upgrade the 4gb RAM to 8.

CPU Comparisons :
http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/607/Intel_Mobile_Pentium_N5000_vs_Intel_Pentium_Dual-Core_Mobile_4415U.html
and
https://technical.city/en/cpu/Pentium-Gold-4415U-vs-Pentium-Silver-N5000

Any recommendation would be most welcome

for cpu don't go on the ghz speed, especially the min speed, max speed more important as well as number of cores and how many watts it uses (more watts = more powerful usually but will be less battery efficient obv) check the benchmark score on this site

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+Silver+N5000+%40+1.10GHz&id=3204

will give a reasonable indicator

you would want to be looking at a score of about 2500 or over for smooth operation.

so that n5000 just about makes the cut

if you need a nice light laptop, with nice metal build and premium appearance, huge battery life and with what seems like a decent enough screen for low-end tasks like browsing, web, movie watching that should do the job.

TerrorFirmer

That CPU is yards slower than the Pentium Gold, so just be sure you're going to be OK with it.

TerrorFirmer

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

That CPU is yards slower than the Pentium Gold, so just be sure you're going to be OK with it.

it's not super slow in terms of benchmark indicators - 3300 vs 2400

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+Silver+N5000+%40+1.10GHz&id=3204

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+4415U+%40+2.30GHz

The n5000 is a very good step up from the older n4100 and n4200 chips and I'd be confident that it would not be slow in operation for the basic stuff that the poster is describing as his usage.

as I've said before I've seen a passmark of about 2500 being a good indicator of the min smooth operation for win 10

the n5000 is also optimized for full 4k playback for example so media playing is a breeze

here's a review of that acer model by the gold std for laptop reviews notebookcheck.net

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Acer-Swift-1-SF114-32-N5000-SSD-FHD-Laptop-Review.303606.0.html

they were very impressed and said that the performance is pretty much at broadwell i3 levels.
due to no need for a fan the chip can maintain 2ghz constant.

with a sweet metal case and nice matte ips screen, backlit keyboard, very light weight, silent operation due to no fan and 12hr tested battery life that's a very nice unit for normal pc tasks.

did you order that acer swift 1 Katawalah?

Katawalah

glasso wrote: »

did you order that acer swift 1 Katawalah?

Thanks Glasso for your help and insight! I was about to order it, but the discount isn't valid anymore on that website. So it would bring the price to 450€ instead of 400€.

So, I've been searching a bit more, and found this one that seems a great device for the price (449€) : https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-3-a315-51-15-6-intel-core-i3-laptop-128-gb-ssd-black-10180988-pdt.html

The built cover is not as fancy as the metallic one from the Acer Swift 1, but the specs seem to be way better :
Intel® Core™ i3-8130U Processor > CPU comparison websites show a way better performance, it scores above 5000 on the CPU Benchmark : https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-8130U+%40+2.20GHz&id=3225
RAM: 4 GB > Same as Swift 1, except it's possible to upgrade up to 12 GB on the Aspire 3. From what I read, Swift 1 doesn't allow any RAM upgrade.
Storage: 128 GB SSD > Same as Swift 1
Full HD display > Same, but on a 15.6" screen, instead of the 14" from the Swift 1. So even better to watch movies :-)

So, the Aspire 3 seems more future-proof than the Swift 1. The only drawbacks I can see on the Aspire 3 are :
More energy hungry : 15 watts VS 6 watts from the Swift 1.
no USB-C connection, but no big deal at this time.
Battery life is 6.5 hours VS 12 hours on the Swift 1. But, as the screen is bigger 15.6", and my intended use is more to keep it running at home like a desktop, I won't really carry it around and need much to use the battery.

I'm still open to options, but I think I'll go buy this one during the week-end :-)

TerrorFirmer

Good price, though nowhere near as sleek and portable as the Swift or as well finished.

Depends on you really. I'd still take the Swift over that Aspire for portability reasons, though if you're happy with the Aspire it's certainly a decent deal.

If you're using it as a sort of desktop replacement then the Aspire is probably better suited.

I agree with Terrofirmer that I'd personally go with the swift as it has a premium build, screen, backlit keyboard etc and gives you the option of portability for bringing on holidays etc. even within the house I find a lighter laptop preferable

but the other one is not a bad deal even tho it's much heavier and plastic and the screen is not as good. does have ssd (like swift) and a better cpu as you say but no usb-c (which will be the std going fwd)

also gives you the option of ram upgrade as I think that the ram on the swift is soldered in.

Katawalah

Thank you both for your suggestions. I agree with you both on most points.

I also usually prefer a smaller size (13' or 14') for better portability, even inside the house.

However, portability isn't an issue as I intend to use the laptop as a desktop replacement and it will always stay home. Instead of having a desktop screen, I'd rather like to have a laptop that I can keep in a drawer, so it doesn't need to take up space 24/7.
(I'm currently using a MacBook Pro 13' with great specs. Not mine, but it's my employer's laptop that I can also use for personal tasks. However, the day I change jobs, I'll have to hand it back. At that stage I'll probably buy a similar laptop : great specs, portable, etc. But that day hasn't come yet)

I went to Curries yesterday and checked the Aspire 3. The built quality isn't great, it feels like cheap plastic case, and I wasn't impressed by the device.
However, I checked other laptops in store, and saw this HP Pavilion : https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-15-cw0505sa-15-6-amd-ryzen-3-laptop-128-gb-ssd-silver-10181740-pdt.html

I didn't know about the processor, so I went back home to do a bit of research and compare. I had read so much about Intel i3, Pentium Gold, and such that I didn't consider AMD.

Processor AMD Ryzen 3 2300U has better reviews, there's a USB-C port, webcam is HD. The case built also seems better quality than the Aspire 3. I'm no expert, but from what I found it seems that the AMD Radeon Vega 6 is better than the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620 on the Aspire 3.

Only drawback I see so far is the non-upgradable 4Gb RAM. Besides that, this HP seems more polyvalent and future-proof.

All in all, this HP Pavilion seems a better offer than the Aspire 3, for just 30€ more. So I think I'll go with this one:D

I still very much like the Swift 1, but the discounted offer expired on the Acer website. So it now costs around 450€, and I would prefer to buy the laptop in a shop rather than on internet. I may be old-school for that, it just seems easier in case of returning the device, or if I need to use the guarantee.

runswithascript

So I am just off the phone with PC World, and it seems they gave me wrong information the last time. The HP 14-bp076sa 14" is gone

I next compared the processor of it to the HP Pavilion 15-cw0505sa 15.6" and the ACER Aspire 3 A315-51 15.6":



Probably would have gone with the original HP, even though it scores lower, as it is €70 cheaper, and it is just for my Mam who only needs it for basic use.

I would be inclined to go with the Acer, partly due to some possibly misplaced Intel bias, though I am concerned as to what was mentioned about the build quality. I would not consider the Swift as it scores much lower in CPU benchmarks, and there is also no €50 discount on trade-in which is a factor in our case.

That said, the Pavilion does look like it has a more premium build, and on the benchmark where it is beaten by the Acer, the difference is much less than the benchmark where it does beat the Acer. Of the two, do we know which is more important, CPU mark rating, or single thread rating?

Where did you read the RAM cannot be upgraded on the Pavilion??

Katawalah

runswithascript wrote: »

Where did you read the RAM cannot be upgraded on the Pavilion??

I deducted it because it's not mentioned in the product description.
Here's the spec for the Acer Aspire 3 from : https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-3-a315-51-15-6-intel-core-i3-laptop-128-gb-ssd-black-10180988-pdt.html



And here's the same for the HP Pavilion 15 : https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-15-cw0505sa-15-6-amd-ryzen-3-laptop-128-gb-ssd-silver-10181740-pdt.html



As it doesn't mention RAM upgrade, I assume it's not possible.

I'm just back from Currys with the HP Pavilion 15-cw0505sa :P I asked the salesperson if it was possible to upgrade the RAM, and he said it wasn't. There was another HP Pavilion with 8gb RAM and a 14' screen that was around 510€ (same processor). But it was above my budget, and I preferred the bigger screen size.

He also told me that the built cover is made of aluminium, which looks much more robust and premium quality.

I'd suggest to go to the shop and can compare both devices.

I've also seen that they have some deals going until tomorrow with extra 10% off already discounted prices, for example this model doesn't look too bad. It's at 432€ after the extra 10% discount :
https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/lenovo-ideapad-330s-ryzen-3-laptop-128-gb-ssd-grey-10180849-pdt.html
Only con to me is the rather short battery life (3 hours)

Katawalah

runswithascript wrote: »

I would be inclined to go with the Acer, partly due to some possibly misplaced Intel bias, though I am concerned as to what was mentioned about the build quality. I would not consider the Swift as it scores much lower in CPU benchmarks, and there is also no €50 discount on trade-in which is a factor in our case.

That said, the Pavilion does look like it has a more premium build, and on the benchmark where it is beaten by the Acer, the difference is much less than the benchmark where it does beat the Acer. Of the two, do we know which is more important, CPU mark rating, or single thread rating?

Out of curiosity, which one did you finally decide to go with?