Best Laptop for University £600

[JimmyJimJam]

Im hopefully staring university now in September doing a course in computer forensics and ill need a laptop to take with me to uni, i already have a desktop but im looking for something lightweight and will last me the whole day without dying. I'm from the UK and i have a budget of around £600 (i dont mind going a little higher if its worth it). 

What do you recommend.

 

Also if it helps i get 10% off dell and 30% HP products as im a student.     

[TomR]

2 minutes ago, JimmyJimJam said:

Im hopefully staring university now in September doing a course in computer forensics and ill need a laptop to take with me to uni, i already have a desktop but im looking for something lightweight and will last me the whole day without dying. I'm from the UK and i have a budget of around £600 (i dont mind going a little higher if its worth it). 

What do you recommend.

 

Also if it helps i get 10% off dell and 30% HP products as im a student.     

Any basic Laptop for homework for around $300 and save the rest for desktop upgrades

[JimmyJimJam]

2 minutes ago, TomR said:

Any basic Laptop for homework for around $300 and save the rest for desktop upgrades

ill be doing some programming in my course, would there be anything ill need that department such as a faster processor or more ram 

[Xaring]

2 minutes ago, JimmyJimJam said:

ill be doing some programming in my course, would there be anything ill need that department such as a faster processor or more ram 

Not really. If you are not doing any kind of graphical work you will be OK with an i3 and 8GB of ram (You will want that ram coz you will open thousands of tabs with documentation :P)

[JimmyJimJam]

1 minute ago, Xaring said:

Not really. If you are not doing any kind of graphical work you will be OK with an i3 and 8GB of ram (You will want that ram coz you will open thousands of tabs with documentation :P)

documents and google chrome tabs 

[gtx1060=value]

8 minutes ago, JimmyJimJam said:

ill be doing some programming in my course, would there be anything ill need that department such as a faster processor or more ram 

what kind of programming? if it's really advanced programming with hundred sof source files i would opt for at least a i5 6th gen and 8gb of ram 16gb of ram would be optimal

[gtx1060=value]

30 percent of hp from their website correct?

[gtx1060=value]

http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=Z5D62EA&opt=ABU&sel=NTB

http://store.hp.com/UKStore/merch/Product.aspx?id=Z5E32EA&opt=ABU&sel=NTB

 

one of these will do - just different storage options

[JimmyJimJam]

1 minute ago, gtx1060=value said:

what kind of programming? if it's really advanced programming with hundred sof source files i would opt for at least a i5 6th gen and 8gb of ram 16gb of ram would be optimal

probably c# some java maybe c++

[RadiatingLight]

1 minute ago, gtx1060=value said:

http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=Z5D62EA&opt=ABU&sel=NTB

http://store.hp.com/UKStore/merch/Product.aspx?id=Z5E32EA&opt=ABU&sel=NTB

 

one of these will do - just different storage options

I would HIGHLY recommend the SSD model, or buying the one with an HDD and putting in an SSD. a 5400RPM HDD is very slow

[gtx1060=value]

1 minute ago, JimmyJimJam said:

probably c# some java maybe c++

i would get no less than a quad core in that case - c++ hasn't exactly been hardware optimized in the past 20 years - will eat up your ram and a cpu power - recommend getting laptops linked above in my last post but with quad core i7s

[JimmyJimJam]

i was planning on puttering an SSD in anyways and using the HDD as an external backup

1 minute ago, RadiatingLight said:

I would HIGHLY recommend the SSD model, or buying the one with an HDD and putting in an SSD. a 5400RPM HDD is very slow

 

[JimmyJimJam]

1 minute ago, gtx1060=value said:

i would get no less than a quad core in that case - c++ hasn't exactly been hardware optimized in the past 20 years - will eat up your ram and a cpu power - recommend getting laptops linked above in my last post but with quad core i7s

would a 7th gen i5 be ok?

[gtx1060=value]

1 minute ago, JimmyJimJam said:

would a 7th gen i5 be ok?

it would be fine, but the fan will get loud when under load - i7's  are preferable when it comes to serious programming projects, but an i5 would work

[RadiatingLight]

2 minutes ago, gtx1060=value said:

it would be fine, but the fan will get loud when under load - i7's  are preferable when it comes to serious programming projects, but an i5 would work

 

3 minutes ago, JimmyJimJam said:

would a 7th gen i5 be ok?

 

Keep in mind that unless you get an HQ processor, both the i5 and i7 will be hyperthreaded dual cores

[gtx1060=value]

1 minute ago, RadiatingLight said:

 

 

Keep in mind that unless you get an HQ processor, both the i5 and i7 will be hyperthreaded dual cores

vPros work too

[Pendragon]

16 minutes ago, gtx1060=value said:

c++ hasn't exactly been hardware optimized in the past 20 years - will eat up your ram and a cpu power - recommend getting laptops linked above in my last post but with quad core i7s

 

still doesn't need a quad core. Programmers work completely fine off of duo cores like the X260. Unless it's a really massive scale, but he's a student. So, he will not get there in the life time of his laptop. 

[gtx1060=value]

1 minute ago, Pendragon said:

still doesn't need a quad core. Programmers work completely fine off of duo cores like the X260. Unless it's a really massive scale, but he's a student. So, he will not get there in the life time of his laptop. 

i just prefer quad cores, all of my thinkpads from the last few years are all quad core, its probably because i end up working on 2 or 3 200 file plus projects at the same time