Cheap laptop?

[PhilTheFragger]

Sounds fine. It’s at least 5 yrs old - my lad has it - I doubt he needs more than 256 gb as he does his gaming on an Xbox and uses an external hard drive for that.

The Dell looked attractive with the money off even though I’d only hoped to spend up to £400…but an additional £49 wouldn’t kill me.

Ok
If all his data is on an external HDDthen he should copy all the data to a second external drive as a back up

Everything needs to be in 2 places
PC/ Laptop - External HDD
External HDD - Second drive or cloud

 

[GreiginFife]

A lot here will depend on the “bit of music production” and depends on which DAW he uses (assuming it’s computer based sound production and not just record from external source and edit).
some of the software suites can be very memory intensive and need a fair bit. Others are CPU intensive and need multi core performance over single core.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

A lot here will depend on the “bit of music production” and depends on which DAW he uses (assuming it’s computer based sound production and not just record from external source and edit).
some of the software suites can be very memory intensive and need a fair bit. Others are CPU intensive and need multi core performance over single core.

I will ask these questions…how would we know a multi-core if we saw it…I’m guessing costing more than my £450 budget.

 

[GreiginFife]

I will ask these questions…how would we know a multi-core if we saw it…I’m guessing costing more than my £450 budget.

The processors are all multi core these days. They will all say something like 4 cores/4 threads (which means it’s a “true” quad core) or it may say 4 cores/8 threads (which means that it has 4 physical cores but then a further 4 ‘logical’ cores and can, in principle, handle twice the workload.

Intel excel at single core performance where it matters for gaming principally, but AMD are proving to be better at having slower single core performance but better usage of the extra multiple cores.

It doesn’t necessarily mean you will have to spend more it’s just another factor to consider depending on the workload.

I have been using FL studio on my HP laptop with an i5 processor and 16Gb of RAM and it’s very laggy from the controller. But used on my Ryzen based desktop (also 16Gb of RAM) it’s very smooth with no lag. But then MPC Beats which is another DAW, runs fine on either machine.

 

[fundy]

Quick question @GreiginFife @PhilTheFragger if I may

Laptop memory - is there any reason to avoid a laptop where it comes with some of the memory soldered and some in an upgradeable slot format?

ie buying with 4gb soldered and 4gb upgradeable

 

[GreiginFife]

Quick question @GreiginFife @PhilTheFragger if I may

Laptop memory - is there any reason to avoid a laptop where it comes with some of the memory soldered and some in an upgradeable slot format?

ie buying with 4gb soldered and 4gb upgradeable

Beyond the obvious, that it leaves you with a fixed and non-upgradable module (4Gb is a poor amount of RAM in any case these days) there is no real reason to avoid it. It's just a SO-DIMM module same as any other that's just "hard wired".

It's usually cheaper is the main consideration and I'd only truly avoid it you wanted to upgrade to more RAM later (as RAM is best upgraded in "matched kits" for stability reasons).

 

[fundy]

Beyond the obvious, that it leaves you with a fixed and non-upgradable module (4Gb is a poor amount of RAM in any case these days) there is no real reason to avoid it. It's just a SO-DIMM module same as any other that's just "hard wired".

It's usually cheaper is the main consideration and I'd only truly avoid it you wanted to upgrade to more RAM later (as RAM is best upgraded in "matched kits" for stability reasons).

Thanks Greig

Its for a new laptop for Mrs F, she is adamant that she wants a Lenovo (its what she has a work laptop) and was the only thing in the spec i wasnt sure about

 

[GreiginFife]

Thanks Greig

Its for a new laptop for Mrs F, she is adamant that she wants a Lenovo (its what she has a work laptop) and was the only thing in the spec i wasnt sure about

If the installed RAM is enough (Speed is also important - min 2400MHz) then it will be fine. It's just that limiter that's the only real issue.

 

[fundy]

its 8gb at 2400Mhz which should be fine i think, if not then can be upped to 12gb

 

[GreiginFife]

its 8gb at 2400Mhz which should be fine i think, if not then can be upped to 12gb

Not sure of budget but something like the i3 Idea Pad https://www.ebuyer.com/1327436-leno...1005g1-8gb-ram-128gb-ssd-15-6-full-81yk004xuk is a decent bet. it's 8GB is soldered and from what I can see has a spare RAM bank so would upgradable. It's also 3200MHz.

Caveat time, upgrading RAM using SO-DIMMS that are not matched (practically impossible with soldered DIMMS) can lead to instabilities under load. It's not guaranteed to happen but in a lot of cases where I have done this for clients it's led to increased frequency of BSODs.

 

[fundy]

Not sure of budget but something like the i3 Idea Pad https://www.ebuyer.com/1327436-leno...1005g1-8gb-ram-128gb-ssd-15-6-full-81yk004xuk is a decent bet. it's 8GB is soldered and from what I can see has a spare RAM bank so would upgradable. It's also 3200MHz.

Caveat time, upgrading RAM using SO-DIMMS that are not matched (practically impossible with soldered DIMMS) can lead to instabilities under load. It's not guaranteed to happen but in a lot of cases where I have done this for clients it's led to increased frequency of BSODs.

Thanks will take a look. Was looking at this one:

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/len...14-inch-windows-home-1-82c6006cuk/version.asp

 

[GreiginFife]

Thanks will take a look. Was looking at this one:

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/len...14-inch-windows-home-1-82c6006cuk/version.asp

Yeah, that'll do a job. Both are 2 Core/4 Thread CPUs and both would do well at every day stuff. Screen Size is the only real differentiator there (apart from faster RAM in the i3 machine and a 256Gb SSD in the Ryzen machine).