AMD A10 9600P or i5-6200U for programming?

[imlem9]

Hello!

I've been looking for a laptop and because of my budget I can't go for the high quality ones. I'm going to use it for programming (mainly web but I'll be using Visual Studio and NetBeans) and the common stuff (watching series, surfing). I'm specially concerned about the battery life, heating issues and, of course, long-term durability.

So far, I've been able to cut it down to 2 options:

Acer Aspire E1-572-6829
Core i5-6200U 2.3GHz
4 GB DDR4
1 TB
Video Graphics Media Accelerator HD 520

and

ASUS X555
AMD A10-8700P 1.8Ghz/3.2Ghz
4Gb DDR3
500Gb
Video AMD Radeon™ R6 Graphics

The Asus one is $116 cheaper and definitely in my budget. For the Acer one I'd have to make an effort. Also, the difference in hard drive capacity isn't important for me as I won't be storing much.

I've already read that AMD may be better for gamming and graphic stuff, but Intel could make my battery life last longer as well as ensure no heating.

Thanks!

 

[Faktion]

I wouldn't cheap on out this one if you are going to be compiling in editplus or something like that.

I would go straight for the best laptop I could get at a reasonable price.

If you buy either of those you are going to end up buying at least an 8gb RAM kit (if not 16gb) in a short time. You might as well just splurge the money now and get it out of the way. Do yourself another service and get a relatively powerful dedicated GPU in it as well. You will thank me later.

I have seen quite a few laptop deals on slickdeals with gtx 950m GPUs and higher end i5 CPUs with 8gb of RAM in the ~$550-650 price range.

That is what I would shoot for as you wont be looking for an upgrade next year.

 

[imlem9]

I wouldn't cheap on out this one if you are going to be compiling in editplus or something like that.

I would go straight for the best laptop I could get at a reasonable price.

If you buy either of those you are going to end up buying at least an 8gb RAM kit (if not 16gb) in a short time. You might as well just splurge the money now and get it out of the way. Do yourself another service and get a relatively powerful dedicated GPU in it as well. You will thank me later.

I have seen quite a few laptop deals on slickdeals with gtx 950m GPUs and higher end i5 CPUs with 8gb of RAM in the ~$550-650 price range.

That is what I would shoot for as you wont be looking for an upgrade next year.

Thank you for your answer!

Sadly, buying a laptop online isn't an option for me, as getting it to my country will cost around $500 only in shipping fees and taxes.

The RAM is a minor issue for me as it isn't that expensive to expand it to 8GB. Of course, if I also have in mind the dedicated GPU, these laptops aren't what I'm looking for.

So, I think I'm going to wait until I can save more money and buy a laptop that really suits me.

 

[Faktion]

Dang sorry to hear that. You could try hitting up eBay. Some sellers ship to anywhere in the world and depending on which country you are in the added fees might actually be reasonable.