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Showing 1 of 3 conversations about:
Zilfallion
150
Jan 24, 2018
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What kind of budget are you looking at? Do you plan to game on it or just school/coding things? How big a factor is weight? If you're taking it to classes you probably want a decent battery life for "normal" usage. How much do you care about viewing angles on the screen? Do you have any sort of brand preference or retailer to purchase from?
Katherine1
0
Jan 26, 2018
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ZilfallionI plane to use the laptop for mostly school. Wiegth isn’t really much of a factor. I would probably like viewing angles similar to a mac lapto. And I don‘t really care about where I buy it.
Zilfallion
150
Jan 26, 2018
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Katherine1First, I'm going to cover some basics on part selection to help you pick your own.
In that case, I suggest a quad-core CPU. The new 8th Gen i5s and i7 mobile chips are all quad cores. The difference between an i5-8250u and i7-8550u. The i5 8250u is 200mhz slower base clock, 600mhz lower boost, so the i7 is worth it if it's not too much more expensive [Both are hyperthreaded]. A 7th gen 7700HQ is also acceptable . A 7300HQ is a quad core, but not hyperthreaded, it'd be okay. a 7500u or 7200u is a dual-core, if you want a bit more power to help the computer last longer with less frustration I'd avoid those.
Alternatively, a Ryzen 2500u or 2700u will provide similar level of performance to 8th gen mobile chips with better onboard graphic processing power. Selection on these is MUCH more limited as they were just recently released. The 2700u is better than the 2500u.
If you want the best viewing angles and color, you want a VA or IPS panel and to avoid a TN-panel laptop. If the panel type of not listed in the description there's a pretty high chance it's a TN panel, but it could be a VA panel, usually they only list IPS or nothing. If they have a color-rating, you want something 90%+ sRGB or like 70%+ Adobe RGB/NTSC. That makes sure you at least don't get some washed out or dull colors. 4K really isn't needed in my opinion at the 14-17" display range. 1080p is usually sufficient at that size. 720p would be possible to get away with but I'd aim for 1080. If it has a touch screen, it usually has okay viewing angles even if it doesn't directly mention an IPS or VA panel.
An SSD is just a good thing to have in a laptop, helps with battery life and general system responsiveness in some tasks like booting up. A 256GB SSD should be sufficient for most things you need, and then I suggest an external hard drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure of 1-2 TB for backup and large file storage.
RAM is an interesting topic. 8GB is pretty easy to use up these days just because many programs are starting to use more RAM. Most browsers these days can easily use up 2-3GB of RAM by themselves. I suggest 16GB for something to last you a while. You CAN get an 8gb model, but if you do make sure there's 2 memory slots in specs.
Pricing: Something in this range will probably cost you around 900-1100 dollars. Acers and HP are usually a little cheaper compared to the ASUS or Lenovo laptops. A quick glance around at laptops real quick shows that https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078SBKGGV/ref=psdc_13896615011_t1_B078B5WZZ5 If you want the better graphics power. Alternatively directly from HP http://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-envy-x360-15-bp152nr packs an 8th gen i7 for a little cheaper but is currently backordered. https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Gaming-i7-7700HQ-GeForce-AN515-51-75A2/dp/B0756LWVFC This is a little more expensive but has a dedicated graphics card on a 7700HQ. Useful if you ever plan to do some video editing or gaming, but otherwise not really required. If you go down to 8gb initially or an i5 8250u, things get a little bit cheaper.
If you want to look on your own, feel free. I'm primarily trying to educate you on what you want to look for when you look at a laptop.
Misc Features that are Nice: Backlit keyboard.
In that case, I suggest a quad-core CPU. The new 8th Gen i5s and i7 mobile chips are all quad cores. The difference between an i5-8250u and i7-8550u. The i5 8250u is 200mhz slower base clock, 600mhz lower boost, so the i7 is worth it if it's not too much more expensive [Both are hyperthreaded]. A 7th gen 7700HQ is also acceptable . A 7300HQ is a quad core, but not hyperthreaded, it'd be okay. a 7500u or 7200u is a dual-core, if you want a bit more power to help the computer last longer with less frustration I'd avoid those.
Alternatively, a Ryzen 2500u or 2700u will provide similar level of performance to 8th gen mobile chips with better onboard graphic processing power. Selection on these is MUCH more limited as they were just recently released. The 2700u is better than the 2500u.
If you want the best viewing angles and color, you want a VA or IPS panel and to avoid a TN-panel laptop. If the panel type of not listed in the description there's a pretty high chance it's a TN panel, but it could be a VA panel, usually they only list IPS or nothing. If they have a color-rating, you want something 90%+ sRGB or like 70%+ Adobe RGB/NTSC. That makes sure you at least don't get some washed out or dull colors. 4K really isn't needed in my opinion at the 14-17" display range. 1080p is usually sufficient at that size. 720p would be possible to get away with but I'd aim for 1080. If it has a touch screen, it usually has okay viewing angles even if it doesn't directly mention an IPS or VA panel.
An SSD is just a good thing to have in a laptop, helps with battery life and general system responsiveness in some tasks like booting up. A 256GB SSD should be sufficient for most things you need, and then I suggest an external hard drive in a USB 3.0 enclosure of 1-2 TB for backup and large file storage.
RAM is an interesting topic. 8GB is pretty easy to use up these days just because many programs are starting to use more RAM. Most browsers these days can easily use up 2-3GB of RAM by themselves. I suggest 16GB for something to last you a while. You CAN get an 8gb model, but if you do make sure there's 2 memory slots in specs.
Pricing: Something in this range will probably cost you around 900-1100 dollars. Acers and HP are usually a little cheaper compared to the ASUS or Lenovo laptops. A quick glance around at laptops real quick shows that https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078SBKGGV/ref=psdc_13896615011_t1_B078B5WZZ5 If you want the better graphics power. Alternatively directly from HP http://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/hp-envy-x360-15-bp152nr packs an 8th gen i7 for a little cheaper but is currently backordered. https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Gaming-i7-7700HQ-GeForce-AN515-51-75A2/dp/B0756LWVFC This is a little more expensive but has a dedicated graphics card on a 7700HQ. Useful if you ever plan to do some video editing or gaming, but otherwise not really required. If you go down to 8gb initially or an i5 8250u, things get a little bit cheaper.
If you want to look on your own, feel free. I'm primarily trying to educate you on what you want to look for when you look at a laptop.
Misc Features that are Nice: Backlit keyboard.
Zilfallion
150
Jan 27, 2018
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Katherine1Not a problem. I do a lot of this for friends or family. Make sure to read reviews if something has them to have an eye out for potential build quality issues or anything like that.
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