$600 Budget student laptop (CS Major)

[T_Brand]

Hey guys!

 

So I just sold my old HP Folio 13-2000 because it was acting a little slow now and I find it clumsy for multitasking and programming. So now, I'm looking for a decent budget laptop around 600 or less. I already have a custom built desktop that has an RX 470 so I know that I won't need any gaming laptops as the integrated intel graphics will probably suit my needs.

 

My main question is i5-7200u vs i7-7500u. I'm looking at around $500 for the i5 and $600 for the i7 (buying refurb products here).

Should I be going for the i7? Or will the i5 be good enough for my multitasking and programming needs (Mostly heavy web browsing).

 

A couple laptops I found:

Acer Swift 3 i5-7200u (link) from Newegg

Dell Inspiron 13-5378 i7-7500u (link) from Newegg

 

If anyone has any other laptop suggestions, please post below.

 

Thanks!

[RadiatingLight]

3 minutes ago, T_Brand said:

My main question is i5-7200u vs i7-7500u. I'm looking at around $500 for the i5 and $600 for the i7 (buying refurb products here).

Should I be going for the i7? Or will the i5 be good enough for my multitasking and programming needs (Mostly heavy web browsing).

look at the specs.

the i5 and i7 are only 200Mhz apart. in fact, a 7200U is equal to a 6500U.

[DaftBehemoth]

The i5 will be plenty. I think you picked some pretty good options as long as you don't mind refurbs. There are a couple really good options at $715, if you don't mind increasing the budget though.

 

Edit Link: https://www.amazon.com/Notebook-Computer-Quad-Core-i7-6700HQ-GeForce/dp/B01MR05UO2/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1503259691&sr=1-1&keywords=asus+950m+laptop

 

Actually the other one's price went up, so just one at $715. Proper quad core i7 and a dedicated GPU. 

[mrchow19910319]

I think you should avoid acer. Go with dell or something. 

Do you use linux? Get a linux friendly laptop just in case. 

[T_Brand]

4 hours ago, DaftBehemoth said:

The i5 will be plenty. I think you picked some pretty good options as long as you don't mind refurbs. There are a couple really good options at $715, if you don't mind increasing the budget though.

 

Edit Link: https://www.amazon.com/Notebook-Computer-Quad-Core-i7-6700HQ-GeForce/dp/B01MR05UO2/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1503259691&sr=1-1&keywords=asus+950m+laptop

 

Actually the other one's price went up, so just one at $715. Proper quad core i7 and a dedicated GPU. 

That laptop looks like a really good buy! However I don't believe I need that extra horsepower since I won't do gaming on it. I need something on the lighter side that can get me a full days work w/ a single charge and also have moderate power. Any other recommendations?

[T_Brand]

4 hours ago, mrchow19910319 said:

I think you should avoid acer. Go with dell or something. 

Do you use linux? Get a linux friendly laptop just in case. 

My older brother had a cheap Acer laptop back in 2009 and that one served him a solid 4 years. If acer isn;t the option, is an i7-7500u Dell for $600 a better buy than the same Dell but with an i5-7200u at $510?

 

On the topic of Linux, I have a second hand-me-down desktop that I installed Linux on for all my Linux needs.

[D13H4RD]

The Core i5 will be more than plenty for your tasks.

[ErrystioT]

http://www.microcenter.com/product/481303/Aspire_5_A515-51G-52R1_156

The Acer Aspire 5, which is just released this year with the new Nvidia MX 150 GPU (which essentially is a GT 1030) and i5-7200U, just at $600

[mrchow19910319]

5 hours ago, T_Brand said:

i7-7500u Dell for $600 a better buy than the same Dell but with an i5-7200u at $510?

I have no idea... sorry. Consult others on this forum

 

[ErrystioT]

22 hours ago, T_Brand said:

is an i7-7500u Dell for $600 a better buy than the same Dell but with an i5-7200u at $510?

As an additional info, if you're talking about i5-7200U vs i7-7500U, they offer the same number of cores and threads (2 cores and 4 threads). These 2 only have 1MB L3 Cache difference, 200MHz difference in base clock speed (2.50GHz vs 2.70GHz) and 400MHz clock speed difference in Turbo Frequency mode (3.10GHz vs 3.50GHz). With this being said, the i7 U would then offer no noticeable difference over the i5 U in terms performance for your heavy multitasking and programming needs (unless if you do benchmarks, then it'll show some difference but not significant) which is why in my opinion, it's not worth the $90 difference. However, if you're comparing against the Quad-core versions, then you'll see some noticeable difference because the number of threads is different.