Question Laptop advice before buying

[bazzaaa1974]

Walked into curry’s today and saw 40 laptops, no idea what to buy as a replacement for my 2015 HP pavilion . It runs very slowly and always has despite not being full of software and not used much so I don’t want to make the same mistake again!

1. What is your budget?
Don’t want to spend more than I need but upto £500 I think I

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
Around 15”

3. What screen resolution do you want?
I don’t mind but it will be used to store and sometimes view photos and videos

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

5. How much battery life do you need?
Doesn’t have be too much as won’t leave home.

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)?
No gaming.

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

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
1-2TB I think, more if available.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Curry’s or Argos or Amazon.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
As long as possible as won’t be used everyday, minimum 5 years.

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

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.
Any recommended brand is fine.

13. What country do you live in?
UK

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

 

[Lafong]

Try to avoid Window Pro; you should be fine with the Home edition.

No need to go with Windows 11.

Try to avoid spinning hard drives if your budget will allow SSD only.

Try to avoid more than 16 GB of RAM.

Try to actually use a candidate briefly to get a feel for the keyboard and screen.

Raw CPU power is still very important to your likely satisfaction, so be sure to compare that among the candidates, such as with the Passmark benchmark found online. There is a lot of variation. Don't get lulled into complacency by fuzzy marketing terms that you don't understand.

 

[bazzaaa1974]

Try to avoid Window Pro; you should be fine with the Home edition.

No need to go with Windows 11.

Try to avoid spinning hard drives if your budget will allow SSD only.

Try to avoid more than 16 GB of RAM.

Try to actually use a candidate briefly to get a feel for the keyboard and screen.

Raw CPU power is still very important to your likely satisfaction, so be sure to compare that among the candidates, such as with the Passmark benchmark found online. There is a lot of variation. Don't get lulled into complacency by fuzzy marketing terms that you don't understand.

thanks
Is CPU power the GHz measurement? My current laptop is 2.10GHz

 

[Lafong]

thanks
Is CPU power the GHz measurement? My current laptop is 2.10GHz

Yes.

BUT BUT don't infer that a rating of 2.6 will necessarily result in faster perceived performance than 2.4.

Other factors come into play....number of cores, hard drive speed, etc.

Thus consult the benchmark at Passmark.com.

Go there right now and see if you can find the score for the CPU in your current machine. Use the full title of your CPU in the search box in the upper right.

Suppose the score is 2000.

A score is 2500 for a new machine might not be perceptibly faster in many operations. If it were 3500 or 4000, then you'd be into something likely worthwhile.

How important is Photoshop performance? A hobby? Do you make money from it? Use it 2 hours a week or 20?

 

[bazzaaa1974]

Thanks for your help, I put my processor into the passmark website, but no results where found.
My processor is Intel(R) Core(TM) ¡3-5010U 2.10GHz
Photo editing is a hobby for me, I guess I’m looking for a decent level of performance on a laptop that will still be functional for the next 5 years. My current HP Pavillion was woefully slow from when I purchased it ….. hence my cautiousness.
I just wish there was a common scale for measuring performance that was displayed clearly on products sold!

 

[sizzling]

This looks good to me. It is over budget even after taking off the 12% discount code but that AMD CPU is really good for this price and would be a massive upgrade. It also comes with 16gb of dual channel RAM. I have had 2 laptops from the Dell outlet and my current laptop was a refurb, its a great way to get more for your money. However once they are gone, they are gone. At time of posting this they have 2.

Refurbished Cheap Laptops and 2-in-1 PCs: Dell Outlet | Dell UK

 

[bazzaaa1974]

This looks good to me. It is over budget even after taking off the 12% discount code but that AMD CPU is really good for this price and would be a massive upgrade. It also comes with 16gb of dual channel RAM. I have had 2 laptops from the Dell outlet and my current laptop was a refurb, its a great way to get more for your money. However once they are gone, they are gone. At time of posting this they have 2.

Refurbished Cheap Laptops and 2-in-1 PCs: Dell Outlet | Dell UK

thanks, unfortunately the link doesn’t work.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Is there any flexibility in your budget? You can certainly get a decent machine for £500, but when you say I want to do video editing and have 1TB or more storage, that's then quite tight.

 

[Nighthawk117]

If you want to do some casual photoshop stuff and video editing. Then a modern Core i5 or Ryzen 5 will be a vast improvement over what you already have, potentially several times more powerful depending on the model and configuration you choose. However your really better off with 16GB of RAM, combine that with a 1TB SSD and your increasing in cost quickly.

If your looking at new laptops, then I would consider getting something like this:
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops/amd/spd/inspiron-15-5515-laptop

Then upgrade the RAM and SSD at a later date when you are able. I wasn't particularly impressed with the refurbs on the Dell site.

 

[Lafong]

Thanks for your help, I put my processor into the passmark website, but no results where found.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-5010U+@+2.10GHz&id=2467

above link to your CPU at Passmark.

Score 2136

single thread score: 1227

Not sure, but I'd guess single thread score is most important to Photoshop, but overall score of 2136 shouldn't be ignored.

It is a 2 core processor with 4 threads;

Introduced in 2015.

I don't use laptops, but I'd assume you can easily beat those scores with current generation models.

Look for something with 4 cores as a minimum.

Avoid spinning hard drives completely if at all possible.

 

[bazzaaa1974]

If you want to do some casual photoshop stuff and video editing. Then a modern Core i5 or Ryzen 5 will be a vast improvement over what you already have, potentially several times more powerful depending on the model and configuration you choose. However your really better off with 16GB of RAM, combine that with a 1TB SSD and your increasing in cost quickly.

If your looking at new laptops, then I would consider getting something like this:
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops/amd/spd/inspiron-15-5515-laptop

Then upgrade the RAM and SSD at a later date when you are able. I wasn't particularly impressed with the refurbs on the Dell site.

thanks for that, very helpful, I looked at specs of some laptops using the processors you said and in reflection disk space isn’t as important, it’s just nice to have and can be added. 256 or 512gb is manageable.
processing speed is more important and I could go with the 16GB RAM and up a bit in the budget if it was a decent machine.
I found a Dell 15 5518 and also a 15 3515 at £650 and £520 that have 256gb and 8GB RAM, I think that’s what your suggesting? I found a HP in that price range too but after my current experience with HP I’m not loving the brand!
The things I’m getting from this discussion are I need a laptop with a decent processor and plenty of RAM .

 

[Lafong]

I use Photoshop as a hobbyist with 8 GB of RAM. I'm satisfied with performance, but I have a pretty strong CPU.

If forced to make a choice, I'd rather go with 8 gb RAM, an SSD, and a strongish CPU than 16 gb RAM, a spinning hard drive, and the same strongish CPU.

But you are somewhat at the mercy of what is available to you from your sources and I'm not sure how much your budget can be expanded.

 

[Nighthawk117]

thanks for that, very helpful, I looked at specs of some laptops using the processors you said and in reflection disk space isn’t as important, it’s just nice to have and can be added. 256 or 512gb is manageable.
processing speed is more important and I could go with the 16GB RAM and up a bit in the budget if it was a decent machine.
I found a Dell 15 5518 and also a 15 3515 at £650 and £520 that have 256gb and 8GB RAM, I think that’s what your suggesting? I found a HP in that price range too but after my current experience with HP I’m not loving the brand!
The things I’m getting from this discussion are I need a laptop with a decent processor and plenty of RAM .

I noticed the link I posted doesn't work when you click on it. If you copy and paste it into the address bar manually it does. I was suggesting a Dell Inspiron 15 with the AMD CPU option, that was £529 for a Ryzen 5 5500U 6 core/12 thread CPU. That would decimate the 5th gen dual core you have right now.

If your looking at 15" laptops then storage and RAM can be upgraded later as required. It's most important to get a CPU sufficient for your needs. A similar amount of money will normally get you a similar thing from each brand.

I take that back, some 15" laptops still solder the RAM, so it's something to check before purchase.

 

[geofelt]

Your link looks ok to me. It is considerably faster in compute performance.
The 5700U processor has 16 threads and a total rating of 16271 and a single thread rating of 2629.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Ryzen+7+5700U&id=4156
The key to good laptop performance is using a ssd and not a hdd.
The one you linked has 512mb if that is enough.

 

[Nighthawk117]

I was actually suggesting the 5500U at £529. The 5700U increases the price to £629 and increases the SSD from 256GB to 512GB. I think the latter will be out of budget for the OP.
Also the former could be upgraded with a 1TB SSD (£76 WD Blue), and to 16GB RAM (£27 8GB Crucial 3200Mhz) bringing the price to £632. That may well be of more use to the OP than 2 extra cores.

You don't seem to be able to configure a machine with 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD for that price on Dell.