best laptops under 800$ ?

[kamikazi33]

i was hoping i could get some help choosing a laptop for under 800$ it will be mainly used for school work and programming if you have any recommendation i would really appreciate i hope i can spend less than 800$ if possible 

[jaslion]

Acer swift 3 with a ryzen 4000 cpu. Around 500-600 depending on the config.

[Coolmaster]

The Surface Laptop 3 is currently exactly $800. The extra tall screen is useful for programming, and it has great build quality comparable to a macbook.

 

The Surface Laptop Go maxed out is $800 too. It is very compact with good build quality and a tall screen so you can fit more code onto it.

Edited November 25, 2020 by Coolmaster

[jaslion]

2 minutes ago, Coolmaster said:

The Surface Laptop 3 is currently exactly $800. The extra tall screen is useful for programming, and it has great build quality comparable to a macbook.

 

The Surface Go maxed out is $800 too. It is very compact with good build quality and a tall screen so you can fit more code onto it.

128gb of storage on the surface laptop is really really low. Gonna be full almost instantly.

 

The 4415y pentium in the go has the power of a over a decade old mid range core 2 duo. That is really poor value for the money.

[Coolmaster]

10 minutes ago, jaslion said:

128gb of storage on the surface laptop is really really low. Gonna be full almost instantly.

 

The 4415y pentium in the go has the power of a over a decade old mid range core 2 duo. That is really poor value for the money.

I do agree, but I think the better experience for programming makes up for it and you can always expand the storage.

 

And the Surface Go has a i5 1035G1, while it's not the best processor it's still a quad core, which should be fine.

[Downkey]

This would also work great for what your doing (8c/16t, 512GB, 8GB) https://www.amazon.com/Acer-A515-44-R2SA-Octa-Core-Processor-Graphics/dp/B087MXTP2K/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Laptop+4700u&qid=1606327576&sr=8-3

[jaslion]

3 minutes ago, Coolmaster said:

I do agree, but I think the better experience for programming makes up for it and you can always expand the storage.

 

And the Surface Go has a i5 1035G1, while it's not the best processor it's still a quad core, which should be fine.

You cannot expand the storage or anything on a surface device internally.

 

The surface go doesn't exist with a i5 the best is in the surface go 2 with a core m3 cpu. That i5 is from the surface laptop.

 

A nicer screen is only good if the machine that has it is decent which these are not for the use case of op.

[Coolmaster]

5 minutes ago, jaslion said:

You cannot expand the storage or anything on a surface device internally.

 

The surface go doesn't exist with a i5 the best is in the surface go 2 with a core m3 cpu. That i5 is from the surface laptop.

 

A nicer screen is only good if the machine that has it is decent which these are not for the use case of op.

Yes you can expand the storage in the Surface Laptop 3. https://www.onmsft.com/feature/how-to-upgrade-the-ssd-in-the-surface-laptop-3-or-surface-pro-x

 

And the Surface Go does have an i5 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-laptop-go/94fc0bdgq7wv?activetab=pivot:techspecstab

 

And having extra vertical space is very useful for programming and makes web browsing, since you can see a lot more of your code. And the keyboard is also important for coding since you'll be typing all the time, and the surface laptops have nice keyboards with large palm rests which are important if you have big hands.

[jaslion]

9 minutes ago, Coolmaster said:

Yes you can expand the storage in the Surface Laptop 3. https://www.onmsft.com/feature/how-to-upgrade-the-ssd-in-the-surface-laptop-3-or-surface-pro-x

 

And the Surface Go does have an i5 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/surface-laptop-go/94fc0bdgq7wv?activetab=pivot:techspecstab

 

And having extra vertical space is very useful for programming and makes web browsing, since you can see a lot more of your code. And the keyboard is also important for coding since you'll be typing all the time, and the surface laptops have nice keyboards with large palm rests which are important if you have big hands.

That is the surface laptop go I thought you were talking about the surface go the whole time.

 

Upgrading the ssd in a 13.5 inch laptop 3 is a heap of work and requires you to rip open the entire laptop that is not something easy to do at all. I was wrong there but the thing is glued shut so it goes from not possible to barely possible.

 

Just let op have a painless experience and use a regular old laptop.

[Coolmaster]

5 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Upgrading the ssd in a 13.5 inch laptop 3 is a heap of work and requires you to rip open the entire laptop that is not something easy to do at all. I was wrong there but the thing is glued shut so it goes from not possible to barely possible.

 

The Surface Laptop 3 doesn't use any glue, the 2 did. Now it's just removing 4 screws and lifting the top off.