Buying a new Laptop

[Tsae82]

1. What is your budget?
500 - 600 pounds

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
13'' - 15''

3. What screen resolution do you want?
1920 x 1080 (Full HD)

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
portable ideally

5. How much battery life do you need?
4 hours - laptop will mostly be in reach of mains electricity

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
Yes. Slay The Spire mostly in Low to Medium settings. A bonus if it can run Apex Legends in Low to Medium settings.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
120GB - 240GB. would prefer SSD.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
https://www.ebuyer.com/

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
3 Years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Do not need

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
No preference for this Laptop but I like Lenovo products and I am used to those as I have a Lenovo work Laptop

13. What country do you live in?
UK

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Upping your budget by 50 Quid can get you this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-FX505...1?keywords=FX505DY&qid=1584632904&sr=8-1&th=1
Otherwise the only thing that will be able to do light gaming in the sub 600 Quid with an SSD that I can find is this: https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/lap...on-14-5485-laptop/cn58501?view=configurations

 

[Tsae82]

Upping your budget by 50 Quid can get you this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-FX505...1?keywords=FX505DY&qid=1584632904&sr=8-1&th=1
Otherwise the only thing that will be able to do light gaming in the sub 600 Quid with an SSD that I can find is this: https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/lap...on-14-5485-laptop/cn58501?view=configurations

Thanks for the info jeremy_83. I will check those out. What about something like this:

https://www.ebuyer.com/901659-lenov...0u-8gb-256gb-ssd-15-6-inch-full-hd-81v50008uk

It seems to fit the bill but I imagine I could not play Apex Legends on this.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Thanks for the info jeremy_83. I will check those out. What about something like this:

https://www.ebuyer.com/901659-lenov...0u-8gb-256gb-ssd-15-6-inch-full-hd-81v50008uk

It seems to fit the bill but I imagine I could not play Apex Legends on this.

That would work. You could play Apex Legends with it, just at 720p or 900p instead. Just an FYI though that is almost identical to the Dell I linked, just with 1/2 the SSD storage.

 

[Tsae82]

That would work. You could play Apex Legends with it, just at 720p or 900p instead. Just an FYI though that is almost identical to the Dell I linked, just with 1/2 the SSD storage.

Thanks jeremyj_83. I will look into that !

Playing Apex would be a luxury rather than necessity. Slay The Spire could probably keep me entertained for months !

 

[Tsae82]

Hello again.

I came across this:

https://www.ebuyer.com/947188-asus-m509da-ryzen-7-8gb-512gb-ssd-15-6-win10-home-laptop-m509da-bq321t

It seems like a really good priced laptop but was just wondering if there were any obvious downsides that I may not be aware of?

 

[jeremyj_83]

Hello again.

I came across this:

https://www.ebuyer.com/947188-asus-m509da-ryzen-7-8gb-512gb-ssd-15-6-win10-home-laptop-m509da-bq321t

It seems like a really good priced laptop but was just wondering if there were any obvious downsides that I may not be aware of?

The specs of it look good. I did find a review of that model, just with the Ryzen 3 instead of the 7, and the main negatives are the monitor and WiFi performance.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-M509DA-Review-Slow-Speed-WiFi-in-Ryzen-3-Notebook.451183.0.html

 

[Tsae82]

The specs of it look good. I did find a review of that model, just with the Ryzen 3 instead of the 7, and the main negatives are the monitor and WiFi performance.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-M509DA-Review-Slow-Speed-WiFi-in-Ryzen-3-Notebook.451183.0.html

Hello jeremyj_83, once again really grateful for your input. This is an absolute minefield. An external monitor could be used for the light gaming I had in mind but the WiFi performance is very concerning, what would be the reason for that?

A further consideration would be that the webcamera I have has a USB-C connection, adding yet more complications !

 

[jeremyj_83]

Hello jeremyj_83, once again really grateful for your input. This is an absolute minefield. An external monitor could be used for the light gaming I had in mind but the WiFi performance is very concerning, what would be the reason for that?

A further consideration would be that the webcamera I have has a USB-C connection, adding yet more complications !

Reason for poor WiFi would be using a junk WiFi adapter. In this case the Realtek 8821CE is an 802.11 AC 1x1 adapter. That is about as bargain basement of an adapter as you can get. For 802.11 each link can do 433Mbit, but once you factor in overhead your real performance is about half that. In this laptop's case it was even worse than that at only 100Mbit down and 87Mbit up.

The computer comes with a USB-C according to the review and it is only for connecting things like webcams. You can use an external monitor with it, that would help the seriously lacking display.

 

[Tsae82]

Reason for poor WiFi would be using a junk WiFi adapter. In this case the Realtek 8821CE is an 802.11 AC 1x1 adapter. That is about as bargain basement of an adapter as you can get. For 802.11 each link can do 433Mbit, but once you factor in overhead your real performance is about half that. In this laptop's case it was even worse than that at only 100Mbit down and 87Mbit up.

The computer comes with a USB-C according to the review and it is only for connecting things like webcams. You can use an external monitor with it, that would help the seriously lacking display.

Hello jeremyj_83. Thanks once again for your valuable input. I think I will come to a decision soon but I doubt it will be this Asus - it seems like they sacrificed too much just to get a beefy processor in there and since I will be largely using it wireless mostly that issue with the 8821CE does it for me. I will quite often be far away from the wireless hub. Having said that most of the budget laptops seem to use a Realtek 88** of some type.

 

[jeremyj_83]

Hello jeremyj_83. Thanks once again for your valuable input. I think I will come to a decision soon but I doubt it will be this Asus - it seems like they sacrificed too much just to get a beefy processor in there and since I will be largely using it wireless mostly that issue with the 8821CE does it for me. I will quite often be far away from the wireless hub. Having said that most of the budget laptops seem to use a Realtek 88** of some type.

That is typical for cheaper laptops to skimp on things. The Dell that I linked uses a Qualcomm chipset.