Decent laptop on a budget?

[TPMx]

I am looking at getting a decent laptop as a secondary computer to my desktop. This laptop will mainly be used for school (senior year and hopefully most of college), so something that is generally easy to carry around would be ideal. I don't expect much power for the size and budget (around $700 would be best), but I already have a decently powerful gaming rig, so I'll be ok with as much power as can be had with a lower budget computer. I have done research, but most laptops are either uselessly weak for the price or over a $1000, so I was wondering if anyone would be able to suggest a laptop that would fit my criteria?

[Clear17Mud]

what specs are you looking for? IPS, RAM amount, size?

build quality? aluminum or plastics?

or do you only care about weight and portability?

[TPMx]

Just now, Clear17Mud said:

what specs are you looking for? build quality?

or do you only care about weight and portability?

I really don't care about build quality, as long as the keyboard isn't like one on a chromebook, anything will suffice. I wouldn't expect anything less than a mobile i5 chip for this price range, at least from what I've found. An SSD over a HDD would be nice too, since I won't need very much storage. Also, not necessary at all, but if it's possible to get a laptop at this price range with something above integrated graphics, that would just be the cherry on top, but I would trade that for anything else I already noted if it meant staying under budget.

[genexis_x]

12 minutes ago, TPMx said:

I am looking at getting a decent laptop as a secondary computer to my desktop. This laptop will mainly be used for school (senior year and hopefully most of college), so something that is generally easy to carry around would be ideal. I don't expect much power for the size and budget (around $700 would be best), but I already have a decently powerful gaming rig, so I'll be ok with as much power as can be had with a lower budget computer. I have done research, but most laptops are either uselessly weak for the price or over a $1000, so I was wondering if anyone would be able to suggest a laptop that would fit my criteria?

Something with 8th gen ULV CPU like Acer Swift 3

 

Or Asus UX330UA

[TPMx]

3 minutes ago, ZM Fong said:

Something with 8th gen ULV CPU like Acer Swift 3

 

Or Asus UX330UA

Two really great options, thanks. I was wondering about something though, I noticed a lot of conflicting opinions on this, but how heavy is too heavy for a laptop? I definitely like how light and well built those suggestions are, but I just want some extra information to help me consider other options.

[Clear17Mud]

my laptop is something like 4.2 pounds and I can tell when its not in my backpack. Its not really that inconvenient, but I would say 3 pounds or less is a good weight.

[ErrystioT]

1 hour ago, TPMx said:

Two really great options, thanks. I was wondering about something though, I noticed a lot of conflicting opinions on this, but how heavy is too heavy for a laptop? I definitely like how light and well built those suggestions are, but I just want some extra information to help me consider other options.

For me, anything under 2kg(4.4lbs) is considered as lightweight though it depends on most people but generally, most would not mind with anything under that weight.

[genexis_x]

2 hours ago, TPMx said:

but how heavy is too heavy for a laptop?

For me, 2kg or below

[Daniel644]

my laptop is close to 10 pounds (Asus ROG G750JM-DS71) and I take it everywhere, but given you also have school books to deal with I would target as lite as possible, I remember a few times in highschool I had so much homework I could barely stand upright from all the books in my bag and would dream of carrying extra weight.

[TPMx]

Thanks for everyone's help so far. I just had one more quick question. One of the laptops that I was looking at has LPDDR3 ram, and I was wondering how that compares to DDR4 ram that most other laptops have.

[ErrystioT]

10 hours ago, TPMx said:

Thanks for everyone's help so far. I just had one more quick question. One of the laptops that I was looking at has LPDDR3 ram, and I was wondering how that compares to DDR4 ram that most other laptops have.

LPDDR3 (LP = Low Power) is just another naming convention for DDR3L, basically a DDR3-based RAM that can run on 1.35V. Speed wise, DDR4 beats DDR3 in general. DDR4 also use less voltage (at 1.2V). What laptop were you looking at?

[TPMx]

20 hours ago, ErrystioT said:

LPDDR3 (LP = Low Power) is just another naming convention for DDR3L, basically a DDR3-based RAM that can run on 1.35V. Speed wise, DDR4 beats DDR3 in general. DDR4 also use less voltage (at 1.2V). What laptop were you looking at?

I was looking at the Acer Swift 3, which has LPDDR3 in some of its configurations. I was interested in one of the configurations in particular because it had an 8th gen i5 CPU compared to the normal 7th gen, and a mx150 graphics card without being too heavy to bring to school, and still close to my price range.

[ErrystioT]

18 hours ago, TPMx said:

I was looking at the Acer Swift 3, which has LPDDR3 in some of its configurations. I was interested in one of the configurations in particular because it had an 8th gen i5 CPU compared to the normal 7th gen, and a mx150 graphics card without being too heavy to bring to school, and still close to my price range.

Ahh, in the case of Acer Swift 3, its LPDDR3 config is actually based on 2133MHz speed, if we based it on Intel's ARK specs for i5-8250U (https://ark.intel.com/products/124967/Intel-Core-i5-8250U-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_40-GHz). Being 2133MHz, it should run like a speed of DDR4-2133. But since it is LPDDR3, I highly think that it will run at 1.35V instead of DDR4's 1.2V. That laptop you're looking at is actually not a bad performer considering the price and the latest specs you're getting. As a bonus, the MX150 GPU performance is hand-in-hand with the previous gen's GTX 960M (slightly less performance but still beats GTX 950M in comparison) while also drawing less power, perfect fit for laptops like the Swift 3's form factor.