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Help me buy a laptop!
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Crrrazy Ivan
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#1 - 2012-08-16 14:16:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Crrrazy Ivan
I will soon be leaving for Uni and unfortunately I won't be able to take my Desktop. Therefore, I'm looking for a decent/good Laptop (with a budget of £900 GBP) that I will be able to use for studies / gaming / media etc. I will greatly appreciate any advice or better alternatives to what I have found so far.

Option 1: Inspiron 17R SE
http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=n0017s37&model_id=inspiron-17r-se-7720&c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1

Processor - 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3610QM processor (6M Cache, up to 3.30 GHz)
Operating System - Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Display - 17.3in Full High Definition (1080p) LED Display with Anti-Glare
Memory2 - 6GB2 DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz
Hard Drive - 750GB Serial ATA (7200RPM)
Optical Drive - Optical Drive : 8x DVD+/-RW Optical Drive
Video Card - 2GB Nvidia GeForce GT 650M 130W
Advertised System Weight 7.23 lbs
Price: £899

Option 2: Asus N56VM-S4110V-8GB
http://www.asuslaptop.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=N56VM-S4110V-8GB

Asus N56VM-S4110V-8GB
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-3610QM Quad Core
Display: 15.6" ( 1920x1080 Full HD)
Memory: 8 GB DDR3 RAM
Storage: 750 GB
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 630M with 2GB Dedicated Memory
OS: 64 bit Windows 7 Home Premium
Price: £790

Additional Purchases:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coolermaster-Notepal-U3-Cooler-Notebook/dp/B00441LYEW/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1345126644&sr=8-7
Nachteule Kohen
#2 - 2012-08-16 14:23:01 UTC
2nd one is better, more ram.
Crrrazy Ivan
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#3 - 2012-08-16 14:28:33 UTC
The second definitely has more RAM and is cheaper however, the small screen is slightly discouraging considering I'm used to playing on a 21" monitor on a desktop. I realise I won't be able to get a larger screen than 17" for a laptop however, I'm wondering whether it's feasible to play games on such a 'small' screen.
Micheal Dietrich
Kings Gambit Black
#4 - 2012-08-16 14:34:23 UTC
Crrrazy Ivan wrote:
I'm wondering whether it's feasible to play games on such a 'small' screen.



Back in my day we used to play games on a 10" black and white screen and watch tv on a 4" screen.

Unless you are taking some ram intensive courses I would go for the upper. My primary laptop only has 6gb of ram and it still renders images far faster than the schools pc's and I've got a small grouping of games on it. My GPU has issues with eve for some reason but it can handle AC easily.

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Crrrazy Ivan
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#5 - 2012-08-16 14:37:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Crrrazy Ivan
I'll be undertaking a programming heavy Uni course (Software Engineering) hence why I'd like to buy a better Laptop that will be future proof.
Akita T
Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force
#6 - 2012-08-16 15:08:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Akita T
Get an Asus K93SM ( K93SM-YZ038D the most widely available, but even that not extremely common) for about 640-660 GBP
(total weight, about 9 lbs ; inside - Intel Core i7-2670QM quadcore w/HT, 2.2GHz base 3.1GHz peak ; 750GB HDD ; 18.4" fullHD screen ; GeForce GT630M 1 GB vid, 4 or 8 GB DDR3@1333, Win7HomePrem64)

Add a 60 GB SSD for another 50 GBP (yes, it DOES have space for two disks at the same time).
Change RAM to 16 GB DDR3@1600 for an extra 60-80 GBP or thereabouts
= ~770 GBP
...for an awesome machine for almost everything, and decent enough for gaming too
(not very great for gaming, but enough for one EVE instance at fullHD in near-max detail and 30+ FPS most of the time)

If you can, try to switch the 630m for a 640m or 650m (not sure how much extra that would be though). Switching laptop GPUs is however pretty annoying, because you'll have a hell of a difficult time to find standalone laptop video cards.

Akita T evewiki profile | | | Build your own EVE-ready PC
Crrrazy Ivan
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#7 - 2012-08-16 15:15:52 UTC
Akita T wrote:
Get an Asus K93SM-YZ038D for about 640-660 GBP
(total weight, about 9 lbs ; inside - Intel Core i7-2670QM quadcore w/HT, 2.2GHz base 3.1GHz peak ; 750GB HDD ; 18.4" fullHD screen ; GeForce GT630M 1 GB vid, 4 or 8 GB DDR3@1333, Win7HomePrem64)

Add a 60 GB SSD for another 50 GBP (yes, it DOES have space for two disks at the same time).
Change RAM to 16 GB DDR3@1600 for an extra 60-80 GBP or thereabouts
= ~770 GBP
...for an awesome machine for almost everything, and decent enough for gaming too
(not very great for gaming, but enough for one EVE instance at fullHD in near-max detail and 30+ FPS most of the time)

If you can, try to switch the 630m for a 640m or 650m (not sure how much extra that would be though)


Doesn't seem like that particular model exists anymore after checking the ASUS website however, it's great to know you're able to run Eve at max derail with your current config. I've downgraded the 16GB RAM to 8GB RAM as I rarely dualbox and I don't believe it will affect the performance much and it also saved me £80. I'm beginning to lean towards the 15.6" ASUS however, the screen is still bugging me.
Akita T
Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force
#8 - 2012-08-16 15:26:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Akita T
Should still exist in unsold stocks of various retailers.
It could even be cheaper than what I listed if you manage to find one on clearance sales.
There's quite a few on offer on various Romanian online shopping sites (OS-less 8GB RAM version here - http://www.cel.ro/laptop-notebook/laptop-asus-k93sm_yz038d-i7-2670qm-750gb-8gb-gt630m-full-hd-l/ for the equivalent of around 585 GBP - Romanian VAT is 24%, while UK VAT is only 20%), and I have supervised the purchase of that combo (extra 60 GB SSD, upgrade to 16GB RAM, but only @1333) for my mother as a desktop replacement a bit over a month ago.
Other than the raw video performance (which is obviously a lot weaker than a desktop 460), it beats my 2 year old desktop in every way, shape or form by quite a bit.

P.S. Battery life is fairly long even when gaming (and a lot longer if only doing office work or watching movies), and the cooling system is awesome (the top left lateral exhaust vent blows air so hot you could make tea while playing EVE, but the palm rest barely goes above luke-warm in just one spot, a few mildly hot spots below, but completely cool otherwise, and that on a fairly hot day).

Akita T evewiki profile | | | Build your own EVE-ready PC
Crrrazy Ivan
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#9 - 2012-08-16 17:06:04 UTC  |  Edited by: Crrrazy Ivan
Akita T wrote:
Should still exist in unsold stocks of various retailers.
It could even be cheaper than what I listed if you manage to find one on clearance sales.
There's quite a few on offer on various Romanian online shopping sites (OS-less 8GB RAM version here - http://www.cel.ro/laptop-notebook/laptop-asus-k93sm_yz038d-i7-2670qm-750gb-8gb-gt630m-full-hd-l/ for the equivalent of around 585 GBP - Romanian VAT is 24%, while UK VAT is only 20%), and I have supervised the purchase of that combo (extra 60 GB SSD, upgrade to 16GB RAM, but only @1333) for my mother as a desktop replacement a bit over a month ago.
Other than the raw video performance (which is obviously a lot weaker than a desktop 460), it beats my 2 year old desktop in every way, shape or form by quite a bit.

P.S. Battery life is fairly long even when gaming (and a lot longer if only doing office work or watching movies), and the cooling system is awesome (the top left lateral exhaust vent blows air so hot you could make tea while playing EVE, but the palm rest barely goes above luke-warm in just one spot, a few mildly hot spots below, but completely cool otherwise, and that on a fairly hot day).


Thanks a lot for the help and advice. As for the cooling, I've decided to go with this cooling system I linked in the OP http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coolermaster-Notepal-U3-Cooler-Notebook/dp/B00441LYEW/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1345136270&sr=1-1. It's very cheap and has received some fantastic reviews.
Akita T
Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force
#10 - 2012-08-16 18:03:42 UTC
Frankly, nothing beats good internal heatpipe/ventilation/component placement design as far as laptop cooling and hotspot formation goes.
An external cooling pad sure helps, but is not a very good substitute - everything is still hotter in the same spots as usual, just slightly less hot overall.
Also, an external ventilation pad is somewhat cumbersome to use unless you have a flat and steady surface to place it on, and makes typing a bit less convenient by raising the keyboard/palmrest above whatever you place your laptop on, and is obviously less energy-efficient.

Akita T evewiki profile | | | Build your own EVE-ready PC
Caleidascope
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#11 - 2012-08-16 18:36:38 UTC
Nachteule Kohen wrote:
2nd one is better, more ram.

lol
RAM is cheap and can be swapped out.

The small screen and weaker graphics chip can not be swapped out.

Conclusion: Quit trolling.

Life is short and dinner time is chancy

Eat dessert first!
Adam Junior
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#12 - 2012-08-16 23:18:03 UTC
First one has a better GPU, which is the only real bottleneck (besides HDD speed, which are all crap in laptops save SSDs) in modern gaming, 5 years ago the CPU would've mattered, now any modern set of cores will do.