Laptop for School

[Flight1sim]

So my friend's looking for a laptop for around $750, $850 at most. The laptop should be able to run photoshop and Lightroom etc. and battery life around 8-9 hours. Something like an ultrabook (yes a macbook pro might sound perfect for this but he wants a windows laptop) thats light and portable. He was looking at some Zenbook's (he will most likely get the UX305UA) but wanted some suggestions. What do you guys think?

[don_svetlio]

UX305 is passive and thus overheats. Not a good idea

I'd suggest the Dell XPS 13/15 or a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

[Tyrosen]

If you spring a little bit more, he could get a Razer Blade stealth. It's a bang for the buck, but the problem is the battery life is around 5 Hours  . I have one right now. I run PS, LR, and many other creative softwares on it, which all work quick

[don_svetlio]

2 minutes ago, Tyrosen said:

If you spring a little bit more, he could get a Razer Blade stealth. It's a bang for the buck, but the problem is the battery life is around 5 Hours  . I have one right now. I run PS, LR, and many other creative softwares on it, which all work quick

What? Why would you recommend the worst ultrabook on the market? It's build like shit, it overheats, the fans are extremely loud, the keyboard is among the worst on the market and Razer support is awful. Please, do not recommend bad products because of the company.

[Hulkbert]

8 minutes ago, Flight1sim said:

So my friend's looking for a laptop for around $750, $850 at most. The laptop should be able to run photoshop and Lightroom etc. and battery life around 8-9 hours. Something like an ultrabook (yes a macbook pro might sound perfect for this but he wants a windows laptop) thats light and portable. He was looking at some Zenbook's (he will most likely get the UX305UA) but wanted some suggestions. What do you guys think?

Inspiron 13 has an i7 and it gets ~7 hours on battery life.

HP ENVY x360 Has an i7 and the specs say it has an 8.75 hours.

 

[don_svetlio]

@Dackzy

[Tyrosen]

Just now, don_svetlio said:

What? Why would you recommend the worst ultrabook on the market? It's build like shit, it overheats, the fans are extremely loud, the keyboard is among the worst on the market and Razer support is awful. Please, do not recommend bad products because of the company.

I'm not recommending it because of the company, I recommended it out of my own opinion. I honestly do not like any other Razer products other than this one, . I personally can say I cannot hear any fan noises coming out of mine. Overheating is an issue though, idle is about 50 C, load around 85 C. Overall I think the laptop is great. This is again, my own opinion about the laptop I own right now. If he doesn't need it for gaming, and only needs it for photo editing and photo workflows, I don't believe overheating is going to be a problem,

[don_svetlio]

Just now, Tyrosen said:

I'm not recommending it because of the company, I recommended it out of my own opinion. I honestly do not like any other Razer products other than this one, . I personally can say I cannot hear any fan noises coming out of mine. Overheating is an issue though, idle is about 50 C, load around 85 C. Overall I think the laptop is great. This is again, my own opinion about the laptop I own right now. If he doesn't need it for gaming, and only needs it for photo editing and photo workflows, I don't believe overheating is going to be a problem,

85*C on a ULV CPU is herecy. Those things run cooler passively. The fact that Razer's cooling solution can be so atrocious is mind-boggling.

[Hulkbert]

14 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

UX305 is passive and thus overheats. Not a good idea

I'd suggest the Dell XPS 13/15 or a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

Wouldn't the xps13/15 be out of his budget? Probably still a great laptop if you can afford it.

[don_svetlio]

Just now, Hulkbert said:

Wouldn't the xps13/15 be out of his budget? Probably still a great laptop if you can afford it.

XPS 13 is pretty close.

[Tyrosen]

Just now, don_svetlio said:

85*C on a ULV CPU is herecy. Those things run cooler passively. The fact that Razer's cooling solution can be so atrocious is mind-boggling.

Yeah I can see that. I don't really stress the laptop out that much, Only use it for basic stuff such as photo editing, word processing, and sometimes autocadd, so I dont really push the laptop to its limits most of the time

[Antony Leung]

It recommend this. is the best bang for his budget. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F1Z78GM  700$

 

Screen Size	15.6 inches
Max Screen Resolution	1920 x 1080 pixels
Processor	2.5 GHz Core i7 6500U  (Up to 3.1GHz)
RAM	8 GB
Hard Drive	256 GB SSD
Graphics Coprocessor	NVIDIA GeForce
Chipset Brand	NVIDIA GeForce 940MX
Card Description	Dedicated
Graphics Card Ram Size	2000 MB
Wireless Type	802.11 A/C
Number of USB 3.0 Ports	2
Average Battery Life (in hours)	12 hours

Brand Name	Acer
Series	E5-575G
Item model number	E5-575G-76YK
Operating System	Windows 10
Item Weight	5.3 pounds
Product Dimensions	15 x 10.2 x 1.2 inches
Item Dimensions L x W x H	15.02 x 10.2 x 1.19 inches
Color	Obsidian Black
Processor Brand	Intel
Processor Count	1
Flash Memory Size	256.0
Batteries	1 Lithium ion batteries required. (included)

[Hulkbert]

Just now, don_svetlio said:

XPS 13 is pretty close.

It has an 128 gb ssd(lowest price model). I would expect more from a computer that costs $1000.

[don_svetlio]

Just now, Antony Leung said:

It recommend this. is the best bang for his budget. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F1Z78GM  700$

 

Screen Size	15.6 inches
Max Screen Resolution	1920 x 1080 pixels
Processor	2.5 GHz Core i7 6500U  (Up to 3.1GHz)
RAM	8 GB
Hard Drive	256 GB SSD
Graphics Coprocessor	NVIDIA GeForce
Chipset Brand	NVIDIA GeForce 940MX
Card Description	Dedicated
Graphics Card Ram Size	2000 MB
Wireless Type	802.11 A/C
Number of USB 3.0 Ports	2
Average Battery Life (in hours)	12 hours

Brand Name	Acer
Series	E5-575G
Item model number	E5-575G-76YK
Operating System	Windows 10
Item Weight	5.3 pounds
Product Dimensions	15 x 10.2 x 1.2 inches
Item Dimensions L x W x H	15.02 x 10.2 x 1.19 inches
Color	Obsidian Black
Processor Brand	Intel
Processor Count	1
Flash Memory Size	256.0
Batteries	1 Lithium ion batteries required. (included)

Why on earth would you recommend that pile of horse shit? 1 - that is NOT an ultrabook and 2 - that is among the worst laptops in the budget sector. Seriously people - stop giving bad advice

[don_svetlio]

Just now, Hulkbert said:

It has an 128 gb ssd(lowest price model). I would expect more from a computer that costs $1000.

It's a high-end device. The SSD can always be upgraded in the future and for now he could simply use cloud-based storage for non-essential files.

[Hulkbert]

1 minute ago, Antony Leung said:

It recommend this. is the best bang for his budget. 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F1Z78GM  700$

 

Screen Size	15.6 inches
Max Screen Resolution	1920 x 1080 pixels
Processor	2.5 GHz Core i7 6500U  (Up to 3.1GHz)
RAM	8 GB
Hard Drive	256 GB SSD
Graphics Coprocessor	NVIDIA GeForce
Chipset Brand	NVIDIA GeForce 940MX
Card Description	Dedicated
Graphics Card Ram Size	2000 MB
Wireless Type	802.11 A/C
Number of USB 3.0 Ports	2
Average Battery Life (in hours)	12 hours

Brand Name	Acer
Series	E5-575G
Item model number	E5-575G-76YK
Operating System	Windows 10
Item Weight	5.3 pounds
Product Dimensions	15 x 10.2 x 1.2 inches
Item Dimensions L x W x H	15.02 x 10.2 x 1.19 inches
Color	Obsidian Black
Processor Brand	Intel
Processor Count	1
Flash Memory Size	256.0
Batteries	1 Lithium ion batteries required. (included)

I would not recommend an acer laptop from my experience with them.

[Tyrosen]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

Why on earth would you recommend that pile of horse shit? 1 - that is NOT an ultrabook and 2 - that is among the worst laptops in the budget sector. Seriously people - stop giving bad advice

Lol you are so criticizing, which is not a bad trait, don't get me wrong, but I don't see how its not an ultrabook

[Tyrosen]

Just now, don_svetlio said:

It's heavier than my gaming laptop?

 

That is 2 times the weight of an ultrabook. Use your brain...

Okay, let's try this again. Hey! How About, with a little bit more money, you get a Lenovo LaVie Z?

[Hulkbert]

5 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

It's a high-end device. The SSD can always be upgraded in the future and for now he could simply use cloud-based storage for non-essential files.

OK. I still don't think that for $1000 you should get an 128gb ssd. I think that the model with the 256gb ssd is better suited for school needs and gives you some space for storing photos or games. Then again you could get a samsung t3 500gb ssd for ~$170.

[don_svetlio]

Just now, Hulkbert said:

OK. I still don't think that for $1000 you should get an 128gb ssd. I think that the model with the 256gb ssd is better suited for school needs and gives you some space for storing photos or games. Then again you could get a samsung t3 500gb ssd for ~$170.

Meh. I've been using a 250GB 850 EVO. Max space I have used at once - 150GB. And that's with 4-5 games installed. 128GB is do-able for work only.

[Tyrosen]

Just now, don_svetlio said:

Meh. I've been using a 250GB 850 EVO. Max space I have used at once - 150GB. And that's with 4-5 games installed. 128GB is do-able for work only.

wondering, what laptop you own? I'm pretty curious

[don_svetlio]

Just now, Tyrosen said:

wondering, what laptop you own? I'm pretty curious

Y50

[Tyrosen]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

Y50

Nice, tbh not really into laptops that much, love the thought of portability, but I can't get the thought out of buying a new gaming laptop every time it gets outdated.

[Hulkbert]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

Meh. I've been using a 250GB 850 EVO. Max space I have used at once - 150GB. And that's with 4-5 games installed. 128GB is do-able for work only.

If this laptop is the only laptop the OP's friend has then I would see the 500gb ssd being heavily used. I have nearly filled up the 1 tb hdd on my main pc. 

[don_svetlio]

1 minute ago, Hulkbert said:

If this laptop is the only laptop the OP's friend has then I would see the 500gb ssd being heavily used. I have nearly filled up the 1 tb hdd on my main pc. 

My best friend has half the internet archived on his drives and they are constantly full so yeah. To each their own

 

2 minutes ago, Tyrosen said:

Nice, tbh not really into laptops that much, love the thought of portability, but I can't get the thought out of buying a new gaming laptop every time it gets outdated.

Depends on your needs. For people who don't demand ultra@60fps it's more than fine for 2-3 years.