Budget Portable Laptop

[rcnl]

Got a couple of questions about budget portable laptops. Found out my engineering internship in Shanghai requires me to have my own laptop. Since I'll be travelling, I'm looking for a budget portable laptop but it doesn't have to be ultra thin.

 

1) Would an MX150 be preferable to a 1050/1050ti/1060 as I want to avoid throttling, over heating and loud whining fans.

 

2) Would the i5 7th/8th gen quad core have comparable performance to i7 7th/8th gen quad/hexa core. Will the i5 have better thermals/less throttling/quieter fans?

 

3) Is there any noticeable difference in performance between 7th and 8th gen quad core processors?

 

4) Consider integrated graphics? AMD CPU?

 

5) Laptop recommendations? I have my requirements listed below. Thinking of a Acer Aspire 5 https://bit.ly/2SSui8H . Asus Vivobook S https://bhpho.to/2F8xqdI . 

 

 

Requirements

Use: Microsoft Office, browsing web, watching Twitch and YouTube. Rarely/Never game on the laptop but possibly League of Legends.

Display: 1080p minimum.

Memory: At least 8 GB. Would prefer 12 or 16GB.

Storage: 128 GB SSD minimum. Can add in later if only HDD is provided.

Screen size: 15 inch laptops preferred, can go to 13 if required.

Weight: Smaller is better but doesn't have to be ultrabook level thin.

Battery Life: At least 4 hours on web browsing/Word documents. 

Price: The lower, the better and less than 1000 USD. Can stretch it higher if performance is required.

 

Cheers!

[Droidbot]

for autocad/solidworks you will want to aim for a machine with a quadro gpu due to the double precision acceleration compared to consumer cards.

 

it's much much better performance wise

[LukeSavenije]

watch out with 8th gen cpu's. some are kaby lake refreshes with 4 cores. something with 6 cores from the 8th gen would be the best you can get here. you could look into the dell xps series and lg gram series. but they are really expensive. and there is a difference between 7th gen and 8th gen. 7th gen are dual and quad core cpu's, 8th gen are quad and hexa cores. if you can find anything with ryzen, that would be a great choise, but they are hard to find

[genexis_x]

32 minutes ago, rcnl said:

snip

Where are you from? Preferred max weight in kg/pounds?

 

1. Models with bad cooling will still have thermal issues even with lower end GPU

2. Depends on which CPU SKU

3. Depends on which CPU SKU

4. Vega iGPU in Ryzen mobile APUs will only have 940MX like performance

5. Answer my questions first

[rcnl]

35 minutes ago, Droidbot said:

for autocad/solidworks you will want to aim for a machine with a quadro gpu due to the double precision acceleration compared to consumer cards.

 

it's much much better performance wise

Oh ok, I edited the original so people don't get hung up on that point too much since that was more of a luxury to run engineering software. Just for reference, how would entry level quadro gpus like p600 stack up against consumer grade 1050ti/1060? Only laptop in my price range I could find was the HP ZBook 15v G5 https://bhpho.to/2RExXp1 .

[rcnl]

1 minute ago, GeneXiS_X said:

Where are you from? Preferred max weight in kg/pounds?

 

1. Models with bad cooling will still have thermal issues even with lower end GPU

2. Depends on which CPU SKU

3. Depends on which CPU SKU

4. Vega iGPU in Ryzen mobile APUs will only have 940MX like performance

5. Answer my questions first

Yo, I'm from Australia and max weight would be around 3 kg/6.6 lbs. I don't mind weight if it just means the laptop has higher density while being relatively slim. It's just that normally, heavier laptops mean gaming laptops with large cooling systems that end up being really thick and not portable.

[genexis_x]

5 minutes ago, rcnl said:

I'm from Australia

If you're buying in Australia, could you provide your budget in AUD and provide me some links of online stores?

[rcnl]

5 minutes ago, GeneXiS_X said:

If you're buying in Australia, could you provide your budget in AUD and provide me some links of online stores?

1400 AUD maximum. Online stores: https://www.msy.com.au/order, https://www.ple.com.au/, https://www.mwave.com.au/,  https://www.kogan.com/au/, https://www.amazon.com.au/, https://www.newegg.com/global/au-en, https://www.bhphotovideo.com/

[genexis_x]

If you prefer performance:

1. Lenovo Legion Y530 - optional 300nits 72% NTSC

2. Asus GL503GE - 120Hz TN

3. Metabox N950TP - not that suitable TBH

 

Will come back to you later for good regular laptops/Ultrabooks, I'm busy now