BACK TO SCHOOL LAPTOPS

[Bartok]

Hello, LTT and the Linus Media Group. It's back to school time in a month, and so far you guys have only reviewed the Dell xps 12 or 13 and the Razor blade. Seriously my money went into my desktop I'm not going to be spending a fortune on a laptop or a tablet. Like cmon who the fk wants a tablet. But yeah the majority of my hard earned dollars are going towards my tuition and living expenses. So can you please do a review of the best budget laptop for back to school before you know the school year actually begins. Or if anyone here actually has a suggestion I'd appreciate that also.

 Thanks a ton!

 

[don_svetlio]

Get something by Asus or Lenovo in your price range with decent cooling. Done.

EDIT: Consult this thread for more info on brands
http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/386018-laptop-experience/

[JLCitadel]

Hello, LTT and the Linus Media Group. It's back to school time in a month, and so far you guys have only reviewed the Dell xps 12 or 13 and the Razor blade. Seriously my money went into my desktop I'm not going to be spending a fortune on a laptop or a tablet. Like cmon who the fk wants a tablet. But yeah the majority of my hard earned dollars are going towards my tuition and living expenses. So can you please do a review of the best budget laptop for back to school before you know the school year actually begins. Or if anyone here actually has a suggestion I'd appreciate that also.

 Thanks a ton!

 

Speaking like that here won't give you much positive feedback, we also needa price range. Assuming it's ONLY for school, get a fucking chromebook and call it a day. Does anything you'd ever need for class perfectly fine, but for gaming you'd need something much more powerful, so I'd reccomend getting a $200 chromebook and building a micro atx pc.

[don_svetlio]

Follow your threads OP @Bartok

[paprikman]

It's back to school time in a month

Kind 'a sad.

[pb4000]

I've got an Asus notebook right now (not sure of the exact model) but it works. I use it f.or everything from gaming to schoolwork. It does, however, randomly crash sometimes. The fan is also REALLY loud - louder than that of the Gigabyte Brix! I've had this laptop for almost two years now, so I wasn't really sure why it was crashing and overheating until I checked my task manager one day to find my 1.8Ghz CPU running at a smooth 2.4-2.6Ghz. Upon further inspection, I realized that my CPU had come over clocked out of the box! Not sure why this is, but I'm not complaining. Just expecting it to die soon though. It runs games very nicely while over clocked though. I get ~60fps on tf2.

[don_svetlio]

I've got an Asus notebook right now (not sure of the exact model) but it works. I use it f.or everything from gaming to schoolwork. It does, however, randomly crash sometimes. The fan is also REALLY loud - louder than that of the Gigabyte Brix! I've had this laptop for almost two years now, so I wasn't really sure why it was crashing and overheating until I checked my task manager one day to find my 1.8Ghz CPU running at a smooth 2.4-2.6Ghz. Upon further inspection, I realized that my CPU had come over clocked out of the box! Not sure why this is, but I'm not complaining. Just expecting it to die soon though. It runs games very nicely while over clocked though. I get ~60fps on tf2.

That's probably the boost clock of the CPU. Assuming it's intel, the base frequency is probably 1.8 whereas the boost on all cores is likely 2.8 GHz. As for loud fan and cooling, that's a good reason for an RMA. You should have done it eariler while still in warranty as it might mean the fan is defective. Saying this since after almost 5 years, my sis' Asus lappy is still going strong and never has it overheated all while equipped with an AMD CPU. Try lubricating the fan or cleaning it.

[Guest]

My recommendations:

Lenovo L450

System76 Lemur

Now, I know I can't give you a video review of these products, but, dang. They are great.

[exercutor5]

snip

 

Get a Clevo, they're really great. 

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/sager-np8651-clevo-p650se-with-gtx-970m-htwingnuts-review.765376/

 

Here's a review of a Clevo.

[D2ultima]

I've had this laptop for almost two years now, so I wasn't really sure why it was crashing and overheating until I checked my task manager one day to find my 1.8Ghz CPU running at a smooth 2.4-2.6Ghz. Upon further inspection, I realized that my CPU had come over clocked out of the box! Not sure why this is, but I'm not complaining. Just expecting it to die soon though. It runs games very nicely while over clocked though.

uhh... you probably want to read my mobile CPU guide. Your CPU isn't "overclocked".

Also, random crashes and cooling degradation is par for the course for ASUS notebooks. Sometimes they work like a champ for 4+ years; sometimes they degrade after a year, sometimes they're broken out of the box. I would suggest trying to get it looked at and have the thermal paste reapplied. And apply good paste, please. No MX-4 or MX-2 crap; that doesn't work for laptops very well. Get some IC Diamond or Gelid GC Extreme or Arctic Ceramique 2.

[kuzimins]

LTT is making a video about back to school laptops. Linus tweeted some time ago how hard it was to find any good ones for the video. So wait and see

[TW1ST3R]

Picked up an ASUS X555LJ a couple of weeks ago for uni.  I'm pretty happy with it, got it for a fairly decent price.  Open the spoiler for a mini review

 

Pros:

- somewhat decent battery life 4h~ on balanced, 6+ on power saving.  

- The keyboard isn't too mushy and while having a bit of flex (as pretty much everything does), it's fairly decent due to the use of aluminum rather than plastic as compared to my old Toshiba.

- i5-5200U is fantastic, ever so slightly more powerful than the i5-2450M in my Toshiba, but miles ahead of it in terms of thermals and power consumption.

- Cooling is great, seriously cool and relatively quiet even under light gaming loads. (Lego Star Wars - it only has a GT 920M, so nothing fancy) ranging from 50-70C.  Idle temps around 30-40.

- Pretty damn light - only slightly over 2kg.  Also pretty thin and compact, making it very portable for a 15 inch laptop.

- Speakers are decent for a laptop.

- Wake up from sleep mode is seriously quick (usually 1-3~ seconds, 5-10~ if in sleep for extended time)

- Solid construction, decent hinges, doesn't have a whole lot of flex, yet is nice and light.  Not ultrabook premium quality, but pretty good for a laptop.

- Solid range of connectivity options.

- Full size arrow keys + numpad

 

Cons

- meh TN panel, but I didn't expect anything amazing considering how it is priced.

- lack of separate left and right click keys from the touch pad.

- hard drive is kinda slow (probably 5400RPM) (i.e. boot times and kinda bottlenecks data transfer from external drives) and is loudest thing in the system, which is fairly quiet otherwise.  Will swap it out for an SSD eventually.

- ASUS bloatware.  However considerably less than any HP computer I've ever used.

- Ram and hard drive not easily accessibly.  Well ram is, but there's a weird plastic thing covering the screw which I'm guessing is a warranty voidance thing, but can't really tell, so I haven't touched it.  Kinda stupid place to have one imo.  On the bright side, it is surprisingly easy to disassemble.

- Comes with McAfee pre-installed.  1 free year already activated.  But nope not dealing with McAfee or Norton, ever, ever, ever.  Uninstalled that immediately.

 

however, those cons are mainly trivial, and you'd likely experience most of them with any similarly priced laptop.

 

I was also looking into the Acer V3-572-78VK, which has a slightly better processor (i7-5500U) but no dedicated graphics, 500GB less storage, arguably worse connectivity (2x USB2, 1x USB3 vs the ASUS's 1xUSB2, 2xUSB3).  Unfortunately it wasn't in stock when I went during the sales so I can't directly compare, but I probably would have gone with whichever had a better keyboard tbh.

 

Honestly I'd look into anything that has an Intel Broadwell (5th Gen) i5 CPU at a minimum. It should allow for quiet cooling and decent performance without the need for a noisy high RPM fan and heavy beefy heatsink, making your options nice and portable for school and travel.

[D2ultima]

Honestly I'd look into anything that has an Intel Broadwell (5th Gen) i5 CPU at a minimum. It should allow for quiet cooling and decent performance without the need for a noisy high RPM fan and heavy beefy heatsink

That's only if your laptop has been upgraded with a better cooling system. Broadwell is hotter than Haswell for the most part. Most broadwell systems have upgraded their cooling system which is why they appear to run cooler than previous haswell counterparts. In essence, broadwell is so hot it made them shape up.

[TW1ST3R]

That's only if your laptop has been upgraded with a better cooling system. Broadwell is hotter than Haswell for the most part. Most broadwell systems have upgraded their cooling system which is why they appear to run cooler than previous haswell counterparts. In essence, broadwell is so hot it made them shape up.

That's surprising, I'd have expected this to be running like a jet turbine like my older far beefier laptops from hearing that

Regardless of thermals,the power consumption is still good, considering the 2 cell battery is around that of the physical size galaxy S2 (the phone not the removable battery)

Anyway @OP it's best to work out a few potential options and go check them out in a store to see what best suits your needs. Test the keyboard and touchpad and feel how warm the chassis is seeing as it would have been probably running all day with average airflow.

[D2ultima]

That's surprising, I'd have expected this to be running like a jet turbine like my older far beefier laptops from hearing that

Yeah, you see laptop manufacturers on the low end to medium spectrum tend to make the cheapest, most basic acceptable heatsink/fan combo to save on money. Broadwell wouldn't cut it on what they had, so they had to actually spend some money and get a better cooling solution. 

[TW1ST3R]

Yeah, you see laptop manufacturers on the low end to medium spectrum tend to make the cheapest, most basic acceptable heatsink/fan combo to save on money. Broadwell wouldn't cut it on what they had, so they had to actually spend some money and get a better cooling solution. 

Hmm I see, well it certainly paid off in this case.  That being said all your other options for lower end hardware are lackluster Celerons and Atoms or last gen hardware solutions

[pb4000]

uhh... you probably want to read my mobile CPU guide. Your CPU isn't "overclocked".

Also, random crashes and cooling degradation is par for the course for ASUS notebooks. Sometimes they work like a champ for 4+ years; sometimes they degrade after a year, sometimes they're broken out of the box. I would suggest trying to get it looked at and have the thermal paste reapplied. And apply good paste, please. No MX-4 or MX-2 crap; that doesn't work for laptops very well. Get some IC Diamond or Gelid GC Extreme or Arctic Ceramique 2.

So ASUS is kinda like Acer in that its essentially like playing Russian Roulette?

Anyways, yeah. I'll take it in somewhere. Any place you had in mind to get it looked at? Also, how much would it cost?

[D2ultima]

So ASUS is kinda like Acer in that its essentially like playing Russian Roulette?

Anyways, yeah. I'll take it in somewhere. Any place you had in mind to get it looked at? Also, how much would it cost?

Yup! It's exactly like a Russian Roulette. Except that Acer doesn't make good machines at their best, and ASUS machines work pretty damn well at their best. But it's still a roulette.

And I wouldn't know... there's even a chance that repasting and such won't fix the cooling issues; I've seen that happen to a friend's ASUS, whereas another one had his problems fixed with a repaste and clean out. It shouldn't cost that much to get a clean and thermal paste re-do... but it's an ASUS which means it's hell to open which means they might ask for a bit. Since I do these things myself I would likely say you shouldn't pay too much for getting it done, but I don't know what normal prices are.

 

Just whatever you do, don't ask ASUS for a replacement. They use their returned machines to source parts/replacements for other broken-down machines, so you'll be in a "replacement hell" if you ever try to get support from them if you get a bad apple. Because they'll never give you a new set of parts; only "working" parts from other bad apples or even refurbished bad apples that people returned as a "new replacement". (More reason why I am loathe to tell anyone to get an ASUS).

[pb4000]

Yup! It's exactly like a Russian Roulette. Except that Acer doesn't make good machines at their best, and ASUS machines work pretty damn well at their best. But it's still a roulette.

And I wouldn't know... there's even a chance that repasting and such won't fix the cooling issues; I've seen that happen to a friend's ASUS, whereas another one had his problems fixed with a repaste and clean out. It shouldn't cost that much to get a clean and thermal paste re-do... but it's an ASUS which means it's hell to open which means they might ask for a bit. Since I do these things myself I would likely say you shouldn't pay too much for getting it done, but I don't know what normal prices are.

Alright. Where would I go about getting this done though? The geek squad???

Worst case scenario, I know a guy that knows a guy that might be up to the task.

[D2ultima]

Alright. Where would I go about getting this done though? The geek squad???

Worst case scenario, I know a guy that knows a guy that might be up to the task.

I have no idea. Any computer repair shop should be able to do it. I don't live in the US or Canada or Europe or the UK so it's not possible for me to pick a place for you.