Suitable laptop for college student

Farmer_3650

I’m looking for a laptop at the minute but I dont know what exactly I’m looking for as I know very little about laptops. Laptop will only be used for researching and storing college notes/ projects. My brother told me to go for a laptop with ssd ( not really sure what this is) and one with a minimum of 8GB ram ( again not sure what this means). What laptops would you guys recommend? Don’t want to spend much over €450-500. Thanks

this is great value for £400 sterling - with weak sterling about 450 or a bit more - download revolut app and put the money on there to make the payment to get the best exchange rate. reliable uk site that delivers to Ireland

4-core i5 cpu whereas the i3 chips are 2-core
ssd (fast hard drive which is a must)
8gb ram (min required for smooth windows operation)
full hd 1080p ips display 14 - you want full 1080p these days and IPS type screen.
reasonably light at 1.6kg when you need to cart it around

https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/81F4...s_2498826.html

battery life is a bit of weak point- about 5 hours real-world

the quad core i5 is worth paying for and it's a great deal and will give the laptop more longevity.

the normal price of this spec in the irish shops is about 650.

in general it's tough to get a laptop in pcworld, argos etc that has 8gb ram for under €500 also.

Farmer_3650

glasso wrote: »

this is great value for £400 sterling - with weak sterling about 450 or a bit more - download revolut app and put the money on there to make the payment to get the best exchange rate. reliable uk site that delivers to Ireland

4-core i5 cpu whereas the i3 chips are 2-core
ssd (fast hard drive which is a must)
8gb ram (min required for smooth windows operation)
full hd 1080p ips display 14 - you want full 1080p these days and IPS type screen.
reasonably light at 1.6kg when you need to cart it around

https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/81F4...s_2498826.html

battery life is a bit of weak point- about 5 hours real-world

the quad core i5 is worth paying for and it's a great deal and will give the laptop more longevity.

the normal price of this spec in the irish shops is about 650.

in general it's tough to get a laptop in pcworld, argos etc that has 8gb ram for under €500 also.

Thanks for the informative reply! That laptop sounds good but would 128GB be relatively low storage?... I probably wouldn’t use this much space but to be on the safe side would I be better go for 256 GB? Or would this add much to the price of the laptop?

I was looking at this laptop on the Argos website and thought it seemed like good value. https://www.argos.co.uk/product/1997648
Also seen this one on curry’s pc world thought it looked ok https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-14-cf1599sa-14-intel-core-i5-laptop-256-gb-ssd-silver-10192179-pdt.html
Any experience with these laptops and if they are good value for money? Thanks again

ED E

Both are good options. The 14" has a big advantage if the commute is anyway long. I used to have an 11"(12" really) but now have a work issued 15". Night and day. Hate the thing.


If you're just working on documents in the college portal then space really isnt an issue at 128GB. It becomes a pain if you need to install heavier applications like CAD, Adobe suite as they quickly eat up what's left. 120GB formatted - 30GB for windows gives you around 90GB, thats a few hundred thousand Word docs.

I know that you're not that au fait with computers but for 30 eruo or so you could get a 256gb ssd. that is easy to put in.

to be honest 90gb free (on a 128gb) is a still a lot of notes/ documents and research. also you need to factor in cloud storage these days. also an sd card is fine for storage really.

it's media files like video and large programs (like big games) that fill up a hard drive really.

the ones you posted are fine but more expensive than the one I sent which have pretty much the same specs except for the ssd.

I would argue that 14 is a better size than 15.6 these days.

Baoithin66

Hi Glassco I am also looking for a laptop for a college student

I came across a Lenovo V145 AMD A9-9425 3.1g
8gb Ram . 256SSD hard drive 15.6 screen
AMD Radeon 530 2gb Dedicated graphic Windows 10

Price is €525.

What would you think of it? thanks

Baoithin66

Baoithin66 wrote: »

Hi Glassco I am also looking for a laptop for a college student

I came across a Lenovo V145 AMD A9-9425 3.1g
8gb Ram . 256SSD hard drive 15.6 screen
AMD Radeon 530 2gb Dedicated graphic Windows 10

Price is €525.

What would you think of it? thanks

cpu a bit on the weak side.

the 14 inch lenovo has a much more powerful quad-core i5 cpu tbh.

also a college student likely to be transporting laptop a bit so 14 inch a better size and weight compared to the 15.6 size

Baoithin66

Thanks Glassco.

my son is looking at this one in Curries https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-x360-14-cd0520sa-14-intel-pentium-gold-2-in-1-1-tb-hdd-silver-10180941-pdt.html.

I see it has 4 GB / Storage: 1 TB HDD How would this compare?

slower hdd as opposed to ssd (don't buy something without an ssd or plan to upgrade to ssd yourself) and only 4gb ram (really recommend 8gb going fwd) so that would be a no.

don't be afraid buying that lenovo 330s i5 quad-core from the uk site - it's much better value and spec.

the i5 quad-core is way ahead of that 4415u cpu

except a bit low on battery life.

Baoithin66

Baoithin66 wrote: »

Thanks Glassco.

my son is looking at this one in Curries https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-x360-14-cd0520sa-14-intel-pentium-gold-2-in-1-1-tb-hdd-silver-10180941-pdt.html.

I see it has 4 GB / Storage: 1 TB HDD How would this compare?

if you really want to buy something in a shop I'd recommend this one in curry's / pcworld for 599. new 4-core i5, full hd, 256 ssd, 8gb ram, light , strong battery life.

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-14-cf1506sa-14-intel-core-i5-laptop-256-gb-ssd-gold-10193330-pdt.html

or this one for 539 is ok but worth spending the extra 60 euro as it has less storage space, a dual-core i3 and is a little heavier

https://www.currys.ie/ieen/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-14-ce2500sa-14-intel-core-i3-laptop-256-gb-ssd-silver-10193422-pdt.html