desperately need help in choosing laptop

[Kursah]

I'm trying to cook at the moment....

Although...I wanted to just add quickly...that If you're considering buying from the Dell outlet, just wait until a sale comes on. They go on sale regularly.

Once the sales start...pick the unit with the best specs that fits your needs. I wouldn't be in a rush...if you wait, you'll get a good deal.

Until then, research them for yourself and decide 'exactly' what you want.

Patience is worth more to me than gold.

Best,

Liquid Cool

This!

/thread

 

[zabrak]

My battery life is quite good, I was able to eek out 7.5 hours when it was new... I didn't do the best with maintaining my battery and it's lost some life...but I still get over 5 hours when I'm browsing/document editing.

As-far-as how it holds up to other laptops, that might require some research on your part. The i5 is potent, its easy to get to the RAM and HDD for upgrades. The system is limited to 8GB system RAM, which is fine for what it'll be used for...if I can game, do virtualization, work and school...you'll have no issues.

I spent months researching a $500 budget laptop over a year ago that could do some gaming and be reliable, I came up with this 3540 for $525 with code from Dell Outlet, the i5/4GB/1920x1080, and it's been a beast. A little finicky with the AMD drivers, but as you said gaming isn't your big priority so that isn't a problem...though I was able to sort out my issues and get it resolved and get great performance. Even with that, I gotta say this has been a very solid laptop to work and play on, for the price it's super tough to beat...apparently still.

It works really well with Linux as well...Ubuntu supported from 12.04 and up.

Edit: By battery life being quite good, I compare it to many laptops in this price range...3.5-5.5 hours is usually the average. It's no ultrabook or Macbook on battery life, but that should be expected.

Perfect bro thanks, but wait .....


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T520-Laptop-intel-Core-i7-2640m-2-80Ghz-8GB-500GB-Windows-7-Pro-/311327919247?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item487c970c8f

Second gen i7 as opposed to 4th gen i3. Higher single-core performance on the i3, but overall better performance from the i7, similar specs otherwise.

And of course itd be more durable as well...

All I need to know is, if it'll come down to these two:

which laptop is noticeably better, which one is worth the money.

Is your Dell that much better to pay $528 for?

I'm looking for one that'll spec wise last me a while for around $500 and that seems to be perfect, but what about the Thinkpad?

 

[Kursah]

Don't forget the more powerful the laptop the worse the battery life, the hotter they run, and the higher likelihood of failure from heat (long term). So I wouldn't expect 4-5 hours out of the Lenovo....3.5-4.5 maybe. Depending on load. Also Haswell-based laptops run pretty damn efficiently.

Also why does your link go to 4chan defer???

Lenovo's are good business class laptops, I've worked on some of those, good units, well built. Good trackpads and keyboards. But with that deal you only get 14-day return vs. 1-year warranty with Dell Outlet. I'd go for the Dell just for that reason.

 

[zabrak]

Don't forget the more powerful the laptop the worse the battery life, the hotter they run, and the higher likelihood of failure from heat (long term). So I wouldn't expect 4-5 hours out of the Lenovo....3.5-4.5 maybe. Depending on load. Also Haswell-based laptops run pretty damn efficiently.

Also why does your link go to 4chan defer???

Lenovo's are good business class laptops, I've worked on some of those, good units, well built. Good trackpads and keyboards. But with that deal you only get 14-day return vs. 1-year warranty with Dell Outlet. I'd go for the Dell just for that reason.

True, I'll compare the battery life between the two, thanks!

 

[flmatter]

Do you have a staples or office depot near where you live? They sometimes have good in store discounted laptops sub 500 that may work for you as well.

 

[krusha03]

Huh I see, thanks


http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnline...Xd3982559bba9f192766fe10acc76a589&AID=7102866

I'm having trouble finding one that jumps out at me, which one should I select?

Thanks!

EDIT:

http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnline...arch.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dfb&cs=28&puid=6d942ad9


this one for example, I'm having trouble finding a link to purchase it


EDIT PART DEUX:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Latitu...t=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item234d89a1ff

This seems to be the one priced at $528

Two questions:


1. How good would the battery life be (it doesn't say unsurprisingly )?

2. Is it superior to the previous laptops based on bang/buck?


Thanks!

That Ebay Dell is not worth it. More expensive and slower than the Acer and the toshiba.

Perfect bro thanks, but wait .....


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T520-Laptop-intel-Core-i7-2640m-2-80Ghz-8GB-500GB-Windows-7-Pro-/311327919247?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item487c970c8f

Second gen i7 as opposed to 4th gen i3. Higher single-core performance on the i3, but overall better performance from the i7, similar specs otherwise.

And of course itd be more durable as well...

All I need to know is, if it'll come down to these two:

which laptop is noticeably better, which one is worth the money.

Is your Dell that much better to pay $528 for?

I'm looking for one that'll spec wise last me a while for around $500 and that seems to be perfect, but what about the Thinkpad?

That thinkpad has the fasted CPU of all (Acer, Dell, Toshiba) however it's used (seller refurbished means the seller returned it to factory settings but could still have worn out keyboard, scratches, dents etc. and quite bulky. The battery life is about 6 hours.

Hmm yeah, would you suggest it over the final laptops I narrowed it down to? Gonna buy one tomorrow afternoon, might as well choose one

You never answered about your usage of your laptop. If you are gonna move it around or it will sit on the desk. I was a laptop only user for the past 7 years (moving around a lot) and I soon realized that a 15.6" workstation laptop is not meant to be traveled with every day. I changed 4 laptops in that time and went from 15" acer to 15" dell to 11" hp to 13" acer which I found as the sweet spot for mobile laptop size

krusha03...I said that 'I' don't buy anything Acer, what others do with their capital is their choice. My comment in regards to flimsy build quality was in relation to the Toshiba models.

Although...I do agree with you Acer has come a long way in the last 5 years...and frankly, the other companies I mentioned...Dell and HP, their build quality has declined. Lenovo is heading down this path as well.

From my perspective...it's a weird world when I'm considering an Acer or an Asus over Dell and HP....but that's just me and I'm nuts.

.

Liquid Cool

EDIT: That Latitude 3000 seems like a solid unit. Nice spec's for the price.

Yeah but giving less tech savvy user advice to stay away from a brand because you just don't like the brand (and can't even say why) can make said users to discard options which may in fact be better. I have no brand loyalty what so ever and always go for the best price / performance ratio. My girlfriend thought I was crazy buying a 2nd LG phone after having bunch of problems with the first one and having it repaired two times and filing an official complaint about the company doing the repairs for LG locally. But guess what the 2nd phone was really good and I didn't regret buying it.

 

[BiggieShady]

I have no brand loyalty what so ever and always go for the best price / performance ratio. My girlfriend thought I was crazy buying a 2nd LG phone after having bunch of problems with the first one and having it repaired two times and filing an official complaint about the company doing the repairs for LG locally. But guess what the 2nd phone was really good and I didn't regret buying it.

Buying a second LG phone after having trouble with the first one is exactly the kind of brand loyalty you claim not to have
But seriously, since all brands have many products designed to cover a range of price/quality, one has to look each product reviews on its own and forget what the logo says.

 

[krusha03]

Buying a second LG phone after having trouble with the first one is exactly the kind of brand loyalty you claim not to have
But seriously, since all brands have many products designed to cover a range of price/quality, one has to look each product reviews on its own and forget what the logo says.

What I meant is that while the first one had problem I still looked at the market objectively which phone offers the best price performance ratio in my price bracket. Afterwards I got a Samsung, then a Sony because that's was the best I could afford at the time. When I shop stuff I don't care about brand but just specs.

Completely agree with the 2nd paragraph