best laptop: anyone good at recommending laptops here? laptops are better than building a small pc

[laptopsbetterthanbuilding]

full complete requirements for the best laptop

1. verifiably good - has analysis, tests, and reviews where most sites says it's good
2. has max upgradable ram of 16-32 ram, or has that amount of ram in it already
3. is good value - has analysis, tests, and reviews where most sites says it's good value for the base price
4. is no more than 1 or 2 years old since newer ones are likely to be better

anyone good at recommending a list of laptops that fits the basic requirements above?

from that list of good laptops that fits the requirements above, then am going with a good resolution + large screen size

 

here is why laptops are better than building a small pc, here's the conclusion currently:

 

1. there seems to be no widespread or popular cases under the basic dimensions mentioned
2. or if there are, absolutely nobody on this entire web knows anything about small mini cases
3. so thus none of this is worthwhile and is a complete waste
4. so easiest thing would be: go for mac mini
5. or go the best laptop route

currently there's no evidence that building a good mini pc actually cost significantly less than a similar laptop

 

a laptop may have heat issues, but a good laptop doesnt

and a good laptop doesnt have other issues that a good mini pc would solve for

so currently there's not any good evidence anywhere that it's better to go with building a mini pc given how insanely difficult it is, and incredibly ignorant so many of 99% of ppl on the web that doesnt even know anything on this apparently incredibly niche topic of small cases

you also have to manually select every single part of the mini pc, and apparently some doenst even come with wifi???...

it's completely not worth it

 

and there was only a few internal parts left to pick. but nobody knew anything, like nobody knows about mobos, and there's no widespread good cases under those basic dimensions which is really sad about the state of small cases and mini pcs, and sff (like nobody on this web knows really anything about sff)

 

i think the only good source would be youtube, but again if the info was even somewhere on one of those youtubes, 1) it's insanely hard to find + 2) it's incomplete and doesnt all the things, so a) go mac mini, or b) go laptop route

 

so that's the conclusion with all this until there's any solid and detailed evidence invalidating any of the conclusions here

 

[Neftex]

you come here, make 1 post calling everyone stupid for recommending building small pc and expect help with picking laptop without even a preliminary list, budget etc and even your argument about dimensions when you dont list any. good luck finding anyone willing to help, i certainly wouldnt

[SpookyCitrus]

What is your use case for this computer? What is the budget? Is it for gaming, a workstation, business? If you've been on the lookout for a good Mini PC I don't know how you missed the Intel Nucs, they are fantastic little PCs. I've built several over the years and the newer ones have had no issues that I've encountered nor most users. As for how you're asking this question I have no clue, you're coming off really strong and not asking the right questions. If all you want is something highly praised go to whatever retailers website you want to order from and look at the laptops they sell, read the reviews and order what you want. Without knowing you're exact uses and needs we won't know what to recommend you. The only things you've explained is that it needs to be small and very well reviewed. Without anymore information like what you plan to use the computer for, your budget, and country, we can't help you.

[RandleMcmurphy]

3 hours ago, laptopsbetterthanbuilding said:

full complete requirements for the best laptop

1. verifiably good - has analysis, tests, and reviews where most sites says it's good
2. has max upgradable ram of 16-32 ram, or has that amount of ram in it already
3. is good value - has analysis, tests, and reviews where most sites says it's good value for the base price
4. is no more than 1 or 2 years old since newer ones are likely to be better

anyone good at recommending a list of laptops that fits the basic requirements above?

from that list of good laptops that fits the requirements above, then am going with a good resolution + large screen size

 

here is why laptops are better than building a small pc, here's the conclusion currently:

 

1. there seems to be no widespread or popular cases under the basic dimensions mentioned
2. or if there are, absolutely nobody on this entire web knows anything about small mini cases
3. so thus none of this is worthwhile and is a complete waste
4. so easiest thing would be: go for mac mini
5. or go the best laptop route

currently there's no evidence that building a good mini pc actually cost significantly less than a similar laptop

<snip>

it's completely not worth it

<snip>

so that's the conclusion with all this until there's any solid and detailed evidence invalidating any of the conclusions here

 

why would you want a mac?

 

Spoiler

https://www.newegg.com/silver-hp-14/p/1TS-000D-077S0

 

Ryzen 2200g still out performs 3200U (by alittle), assuming you had a sff pc with a 2200g in it.

all things equal, ie. 2400MHz ddr4 8gb (cas unknown), 300ish usd. checkout asrock for mini barebones.

 

3200U uses vega 3 vs 2200g's vega 8.

 

crowd sourced data: https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-3-3200U-vs-AMD-Ryzen-3-2200G/m771805vsm441832

 

I think the only real benefit to a laptop is mobility and an included screen. If your a desk jockey, portability doesn't matter and monitors (<- plural), are the way to go. Plus I'm pretty sure like 90% of all laptops have the cpu's soldered, That's really bad for upgrade-ability, your stuck with the cpu till the laptop goes tits up.

 

so much hostility.... take a breath.

whats your use case?

 

(edit)

Spoiler

" When it comes to choosing between a laptop or a desktop, there is no single right answer for everyone. Both have distinct advantages, and it really comes down to how you are going to use your new machine. If you’re interested in a powerful system and don’t need portability, a desktop PC will usually give you a better price-to-performance ratio. If it’s important to you to be able to be mobile, a laptop is clearly the answer, even if it’s a little less customizable. "

 

source:

https://www.newegg.com/insider/choosing-desktop-laptop/

 

*beats a dead horse*

https://techguided.com/laptop-vs-desktop/

 

[laptopsbetterthanbuilding]

1. does anyone use 2560 x 1440 ?

2. if so what screen size is too small that it'd be hard to read font / text on sites ?

 

not sure if there are many laptops options with 2560 x 1440
if there arent any, then we just go with the next most common res

 

this is to narrow down laptop options on 

 

 

 

[.Apex.]

Just now, laptopsbetterthanbuilding said:

1. does anyone use 2560 x 1440 ?

2. if so what screen size is too small that it'd be hard to read font / text on sites ?

 

not sure if there are many laptops options with 2560 x 1440
if there arent any, then we just go with the next most common res

 

this is to narrow down laptop options on 

For a laptop it doesn't matter, 1080p is even plenty for it since the screen is so small, I have a 27Inch 1080p Panel and text is pretty clear.

[The Torrent]

1 minute ago, laptopsbetterthanbuilding said:

1. does anyone use 2560 x 1440 ?

2. if so what screen size is too small that it'd be hard to read font / text on sites ?

 

not sure if there are many laptops options with 2560 x 1440
if there arent any, then we just go with the next most common res

 

this is to narrow down laptop options on 

 

 

 

27inch is said to be best res for 1440p.

 

I used to have an alienware 17r5 that was 1440p, with 125% scaling it was ok but 100% was just to small imo.

[TheBahrbarian]

1 minute ago, laptopsbetterthanbuilding said:

1. does anyone use 2560 x 1440 ?

2. if so what screen size is too small that it'd be hard to read font / text on sites ?

 

not sure if there are many laptops options with 2560 x 1440
if there arent any, then we just go with the next most common res

 

this is to narrow down laptop options on 

 

 

 

if you're looking for a laptop with a 1440p screen I think they are uncommon at best if not completely non-existent. i don't recall the exact reasoning but linus explained it in a video a while back, it had something to do with scaling I believe.

[Praesi]

Anything below 27" is a waste to pay the 1440p price.

[DarkEnergy]

It has to do with scaling. I have a 2k laptop screen (14 inch screen) at 150% scaling in Windows. Works great. If you plan on doing anything with linux and the monitor is small, forget about anything above 1080p. It's 2020 and every linux distro I've tried still doesn't properly support scaling. Either text is too small or too big and there's no middle ground. There's tweaks you can do but it ends up breaking something like input lag goes to shit. 

[laptopsbetterthanbuilding]

 it's one way to narrow down the list of recommendations later on

[RandleMcmurphy]

20 hours ago, laptopsbetterthanbuilding said:

<snip>

so currently there's not any good evidence anywhere that it's better to go with building a mini pc given how insanely difficult it is, and incredibly ignorant so many of 99% of ppl on the web that doesnt even know anything on this apparently incredibly niche topic of small cases

you also have to manually select every single part of the mini pc, and apparently some doenst even come with wifi???...

it's completely not worth it

 

and there was only a few internal parts left to pick. but nobody knew anything, like nobody knows about mobos, and there's no widespread good cases under those basic dimensions which is really sad about the state of small cases and mini pcs, and sff (like nobody on this web knows really anything about sff)

 

i think the only good source would be youtube, but again if the info was even somewhere on one of those youtubes, 1) it's insanely hard to find + 2) it's incomplete and doesnt all the things, so a) go mac mini, or b) go laptop route

 

<snip>

 

Sorry, I'm gonna rant some more, Sff's arn't that niche, there is plenty of info on the web, https://smallformfactor.net/forum/.

 

Manually selecting every part can be a challenge, but most manufacturers provide a compatibility list for their products. If we look at the deskmini (its fresh in my mind), asrock provides a boat load of compatible devices.

Spoiler

cpu list

mem list

hdd list

As far as the mobo's go... if you go barebones, the mobo come with the case, no compatibility issue there. if your like me, buying blind sucks. What I like to do is crowed source the bench info from various sites, my goto for quick ref being userbenchmark.com. The a300 from asrock sports a "a300m-stx motherboard" armed with this info we can get a feel for what to expect.

Spoiler

Asrock-A300M-STX

This is a link to various configs with that motherboard. This should give you an idea of what to expect with different CPU's and RAM configurations. This is not a definitive answer to all of life's questions, but a glimpse at what to expect.

And don't use youtube as a reference. That's like using Wikipedia for a dissertation, instead think of youtube as a showcase of info.

[laptopsbetterthanbuilding]

Just now, _Syn_ said:

27Inch 1080p

 

this isnt helpful and doesnt answer the question asked

[minibois]

I don't have a laptop with 1440p, but do have a 27" 3840x2160 screen, which comes close to a 1440p 15.6" laptop screen in terms of PPI:

 

Imperial:

Spoiler

 

I use 100% scaling and text mostly looks fine, most webpages I have to zoom in about 150-200% though to read in a good way.

But usually I wouldn't consider a high res laptop screen, because poor battery life.

[laptopsbetterthanbuilding]

-

[laptopsbetterthanbuilding]

Just now, TheBahrbarian said:

think they are uncommon at best if not completely non-existent. i don't recall the exact reasoning but linus explained it in a video

 

r u sure? link?

 

whats link to w/e youtube you're talking about?

[laptopsbetterthanbuilding]

Just now, Praesi said:

below 27" is a waste to pay the 1440p price

 

why waste? link to evidence of why?

 

[laptopsbetterthanbuilding]

Just now, DarkEnergy said:

150% scaling

 

whats 'scaling' basically? doesnt this just reduce the overall res, but whats point of higher res if it needs scaling

 

if needs scaling that means res size and screen size not good together

[TheBahrbarian]

5 minutes ago, laptopsbetterthanbuilding said:

 

r u sure? link?

 

whats link to w/e youtube you're talking about?

Yeah I am fairly sure. I mean it only takes quick search through available laptops to see 1440p really isn't all that common, especially for gaming laptops. I mean if you go on the gaming laptops section of newegg you will see there isn't even a filter option for 2560x1440. 

 

I don't remember the exact video of Linus explaining why few laptops use 1440 but it doesn't matter either way since there aren't many. 

[laptopsbetterthanbuilding]

Just now, minibois said:

which comes close to a 1440p 15.6" laptop screen in terms of PP

 

most webpages I have to zoom in about 150-200%

 

 

 

so this is the best most informative comment so far

 

so would any res screen size combination be the around the same in readability if they have close ppi? dunno if it works that way

 

 

[laptopsbetterthanbuilding]

Just now, TheBahrbarian said:

fairly sure

 

r u sure?

 

says has 250+ about thats alot

 

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100006740 600477201

 

i guess you werent sure thats why u didnt link anything to show ur evidence for your claim?

[Mira Yurizaki]

43 minutes ago, laptopsbetterthanbuilding said:

1. does anyone use 2560 x 1440 ?

I do on my desktop

 

43 minutes ago, laptopsbetterthanbuilding said:

2. if so what screen size is too small that it'd be hard to read font / text on sites ?

Arguably that depends if you want to keep 96 PPI scaling or not. My phone is 2560x1440 but the UI is scaled properly.

[laptopsbetterthanbuilding]

Just now, RandleMcmurphy said:

rant.

 

you can rant on op of others, its fine its just ignored on here 

 

just recommendations

 

[minibois]

15 minutes ago, laptopsbetterthanbuilding said:

so this is the best most informative comment so far

 

so would any res screen size combination be the around the same in readability if they have close ppi? dunno if it works that way

PPI = pixels per inch

So it basically talks about the density of pixels ('density of information'). It decides how sharp something looks.

 

So if you take a much higher density display, you also need to make everything bigger to compensate for that.

So assuming everything is equal, except for the screen size: a screen that is (for example) 22" 1080p will looks the same as a 43" 3840x2160. The second one just has more to display. But the readability between the two will be the same.

 

That is just because PPI decides how much info you can see on a screen and thus also if you have to scale some stuff up.

What scaling up means, basically some programs work on a 'pixel base'. They basically say "this button will be 100 pixels wide". But 100 pixels wide on a larger 1080p screen means physically a lot more than 100 pixels on a very dense screen (like a phone). Scaling makes it so stuff is more readable, by making it bigger on your screen.

 

That is why I mentioned i use 100% scaling (instead of the 150% Microsoft Windows recommends), because if I were using 150%, my experience would be different. Everything would be 50% larger on my screen.

What I would recommend is try and see if you can visit a store that has some high density Windows* laptops on display, in the size you want so you can decide on your own if that level of PPI is do-able.

Check if you still think text is readable, if you can still easily use certain programs, etc.

 

P.S. I do use a 15.6" 1920x1080 laptop, but I have set Chrome to display websites at 75% (unless I scale them up). 15.6" 1080p = 141PPI, but because 75% it would kind of simulate 170-180 PPI and for most websites that is still readable to me, but not to some others who I show my laptop to.

 

* reason I mention Windows is because comparing MacOS would be unfair, because that handles high resolution displays much better than Windows.

[laptopsbetterthanbuilding]

19 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

What is your use case for this computer? 

What is the budget? 

Is it for gaming, a workstation, business?

Intel Nucs,

 

 

use case is the requirements in op

going for lowest price from the list of recommendations that fits the requrieemnts

its just a regular computer

 

intel nuc, are there any intel nuc that is signficiantly less cost than a similiar laptop?

if so whats link of an intel nuc that fits all the requirements above?

if there is i may look into the intel nuc mess again