Laptop/tablet to buy

[WildCAt]

Hello!

I want to buy a new laptop next month or somewhere about autumn and it would be fantastic if you'd help me and suggest some good things. 'Cause I want to mush, I guess  ^^""

Just want to plan everything now to find the best deal for selected model.

So

Budget is under 700eur. The cheaper - the better, I guess. (sth like 730 eur is also good, but only if it really worth it)

What do I want:

• touchscreen, FHD, smaller than 15.6". HD is not an option
• Core m3/i3 is OK for me.
• Silence (or quiet cooling)
• I think it'd be super good to take KabyLake? Mainly cause of Intel HD 615/620 for light gaming. Or 515/520 will be quite good too?

 

Basically, I will use it for programming, carrying with me everywhere, usage in bed and light gaming (like Stellaris, Darkest dungeons, Hearthstone. Toughest one would be Overwatch, but that's optional)

_{Sidenote, I do not need a gaming laptop, I have a PC for gaming and heavy loads. Light gaming just when I am bored or to have some fun with friends. 90% of time i will work or browse the net with the laptop.}

 

Things I found so far, would be great if you have any opinion about these:

Dell XPS - too expensive

Dell Inspiron with touchscreen - meh, but it can be an option

Some lenovo stuff? Lenovo yoga woth i3-7100u? Miix 500? idk..

Asus Zenbook Flip UX360CA - would be nearly IDEAL for me. but for 700 eur I am getting 4GB of soldered RAM... Hmm..

There is also Teclast x5 PRO, which is, probably, the cheapest and most balanced option?

 

Thanks a lot in advice!!

Edited June 13, 2017 by WildCAt
Sidenote

[JakeNTech]

You may find that an i3 isn't too good in a year or two.

[TDCTomas]

You can buy laptops at around $800 (€715) with gtx 1050/1050 ti and I7 and I5  which would do everything you want plus gaming on very high settings. I would suggest the dell inspiron I5577 for its great build quality, long 6 and a half hour battery life, great specs, good screen, good keyboard and trackpad and great io selection. Here's a link.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B06XFGDD8P/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497368137&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=gtx+1050+laptop&dpPl=1&dpID=41zfabBnrLL&ref=plSrch

It's about €675

[WildCAt]

2 minutes ago, fixitnow said:

You may find that an i3 isn't too good in a year or two.

Umm why do you think so?

1 minute ago, TDCDigital said:

You can buy laptops at around $800 (€715) with gtx 1050/1050 ti and I7 and I5  which would do everything you want plus gaming on very high settings. I would suggest the dell inspiron I5577 for its great build quality, long 6 and a half hour battery life, great specs, good screen, good keyboard and trackpad and great io selection. Here's a link.

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B06XFGDD8P/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497368137&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=gtx+1050+laptop&dpPl=1&dpID=41zfabBnrLL&ref=plSrch

It's about €675

I have a PC for any games I need

So I need sth quite small, light and touch screen is a must ^^""

Thanks for suggestion tho! ^^

[JakeNTech]

Just now, WildCAt said:

Umm why do you think so?

I have a PC for any games I need

So I need sth quite small, light and touch screen is a must ^^""

Thanks for suggestion tho! ^^

i3's tend to be on the down on power and most of them tend to only have 2 cores, which can be an issue for multi taking. i3's are the budget option on laptops so they tend to come with low ram sizes too, which is an issue for chrome.If all you need a laptop for is to throw in your bag to do some light tasks it would be ok. One issue you might also find, that I find i have a lot, is if your PC is fast and contains lots of power and your laptop isn't , you will started to hate your laptop. To be honest if all you need is an i3 you might be better off getting a second hand laptop

[WildCAt]

Just now, fixitnow said:

i3's tend to be on the down on power and most of them tend to only have 2 cores, which can be an issue for multi taking. i3's are the budget option on laptops so they tend to come with low ram sizes too, which is an issue for chrome.If all you need a laptop for is to throw in your bag to do some light tasks it would be ok. One issue you might also find, that I find i have a lot, is if your PC is fast and contains lots of power and your laptop isn't , you will started to hate your laptop. To be honest if all you need is an i3 you might be better off getting a second hand laptop

Mhmm, I see

Thanks!

[TDCTomas]

To answer your first question, laptop I3 are often very under powered and at that budget you could buy an I5 or an I7 in a ultrabook. I would suggest the LG gram but it's over budget at €800 but it's really light, slim and has an I5 and a 17 hour battery life.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01N7RQ46Q/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497368816&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=lg+gram&dpPl=1&dpID=51VA92ujhlL&ref=plSrch

 

 

[JakeNTech]

No worries. If you are going to go second hand look out for dell dell latitudes. Most schools and business use/used them, as they get a good bulk deal from dell, which is why optiplexes are so common, They tent to have i5's and some have a proper GPU chip. You might need to spend some extra on a new battery and/or hdd/ssd but it would be cheaper and more powerful. I would also keep an eye out on amazon there are sometimes really good deals, or wait until prime day, sign up for the free trial, get a laptop and then cancel the trial, its just a thought.

[System Error Message]

a lot of i3s i5s and i7s are dual cores for laptops. Some pentiums are actually atoms and some atoms arent atoms. When it comes to coding get yourself a good CPU, if it has more cache thats better too. There have been dual core laptops ever since intel came out with the iseries with intel graphics embedded into the CPU. So that i3 will last for quite a while too.

 

So for coding get a good CPU, it'd also help for gaming too. Even dual core i7s can be decent too. In my course i had a friend who has a dual core i7 macbook and it ran all the things he needed quite well except for games. The work just involved a lot of programming, web design (so having to run a php webserver local too), and even AI. It wont run very high end work as fast. Even for graphics the intel ivybridge GPU was sufficient as none of the work was high end.

If you work with something like LLVM, no laptop CPU is fast enough. That thing takes half an hour for the initial compile using GCC (hours with microsoft express compilers on the same CPU). The intel HD graphics can be sufficient for some games at 720p/1080p but also depends on your settings and how nice you want your games to look.

 

Just focus on finding a decent laptop with good portability, battery life and CPU first. You could use thunderbolt 3 for a GPU for your games instead later if you cant find one with a dedicated GPU now thats within your budget.