Laptop recommendations

chrisd

chrisd

Major Champion
Joined
Sep 22, 2009
Messages
25,087
Location
Kent
Visit site
I'm soon to embark on a building project at work in a joint venture and am already getting loads of plans, drawings, contracts etc and am thinking of buying a budget laptop for the me, on behalf of my employer, to keep everything pertaining to the job in one place for the duration of the project. I'm not looking to spend a fortune and just wondered if anyone has suggestions for a reliable laptop or preferably a 2 in 1 that wont cost more than about £450 (inc vat) . It was suggested that a Windows 10 system might be preferable.

Thanks in advance.
 
What would you actually be doing with the laptop? i.e. is it a workstation or just a storage device? This will factor a lot in the spec that you need.
I don't think you will find many 2 in 1 systems for that budget.
 
GreiginFife said:
What would you actually be doing with the laptop? i.e. is it a workstation or just a storage device? This will factor a lot in the spec that you need.
I don't think you will find many 2 in 1 systems for that budget.
Click to expand...

Mainly just storage but would probably have the company Sage accounts and payroll on it too, having said that I believe they take up precious little space
 
I just bought a Lenovo Yoga S730 laptop from Costco, I was going to buy something a lot more expensive but this is excellent.

Windows SSD
 
PhilTheFragger said:
https://www.ebuyer.com/874549-hp-255-g7-ryzen-3-8gb-256gb-full-hd-15-6in-win10-laptop-8ab99es-abu

Hi Chris

Take a lookie here
Click to expand...

Ryzen 3 is not a very good mAPU sadly. suffers quite a lot from throttling and is 10-15% slower than even an entry level i3 8th gen. The Ryzen mAPUs don't get good until you hit the 3500u IMO.

if I were going to the upper ends of the budget, I'd personally bust it a little for this

https://www.ebuyer.com/947548-lenovo-v15-core-i5-8gb-256gb-ssd-15-6-win10-home-laptop-82c50075uk

70% more effective speed for 6% increased cost.

But then, in both cases, IMO it's overkill for a simple storage and SAGE usecase. Rooter's Pentium Gold based machine at less than £400 is a better option for my money. Unless, and only unless longevity and lifespan is a key requirement, then I would look at maxing the budget.
 
GreiginFife said:
Ryzen 3 is not a very good mAPU sadly. suffers quite a lot from throttling and is 10-15% slower than even an entry level i3 8th gen. The Ryzen mAPUs don't get good until you hit the 3500u IMO.

if I were going to the upper ends of the budget, I'd personally bust it a little for this

https://www.ebuyer.com/947548-lenovo-v15-core-i5-8gb-256gb-ssd-15-6-win10-home-laptop-82c50075uk

70% more effective speed for 6% increased cost.

But then, in both cases, IMO it's overkill for a simple storage and SAGE usecase. Rooter's Pentium Gold based machine at less than £400 is a better option for my money. Unless, and only unless longevity and lifespan is a key requirement, then I would look at maxing the budget.
Click to expand...
 
GreiginFife said:
Ryzen 3 is not a very good mAPU sadly. suffers quite a lot from throttling and is 10-15% slower than even an entry level i3 8th gen. The Ryzen mAPUs don't get good until you hit the 3500u IMO.

if I were going to the upper ends of the budget, I'd personally bust it a little for this

https://www.ebuyer.com/947548-lenovo-v15-core-i5-8gb-256gb-ssd-15-6-win10-home-laptop-82c50075uk

70% more effective speed for 6% increased cost.

But then, in both cases, IMO it's overkill for a simple storage and SAGE usecase. Rooter's Pentium Gold based machine at less than £400 is a better option for my money. Unless, and only unless longevity and lifespan is a key requirement, then I would look at maxing the budget.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting. No, the use will be minimal for what they can actually store. I just currently use an old Toshiba laptop of my own for their accounts etc etc and figure that I want to have everything for this project safely stored away on a new more modern machine. In reality I'm sure a £300 laptop would be perfectly fine for the project and as money is hard to come by in the company I'm just trying to be prudent in my expenditure
 
chrisd said:
Thanks for posting. No, the use will be minimal for what they can actually store. I just currently use an old Toshiba laptop of my own for their accounts etc etc and figure that I want to have everything for this project safely stored away on a new more modern machine. In reality I'm sure a £300 laptop would be perfectly fine for the project and as money is hard to come by in the company I'm just trying to be prudent in my expenditure
Click to expand...

Absolutely which is why I said the two machines Fragger and I posted would be overkill.

The only sage (geddit?) advice I can offer is avoid Celeron or AMD A series processors as they are terrible. Whilst the Pentium and Pentium Gold aren't world beaters, with a decent memory spec (min 4GB @ 2400MHz) and either a SSD or M.2 SSD then they would serve a purpose for a couple of years. If you want more lifespan from a laptop, then you need to start investing in better components with more speed.
 
GreiginFife said:
Absolutely which is why I said the two machines Fragger and I posted would be overkill.

The only sage (geddit?) advice I can offer is avoid Celeron or AMD A series processors as they are terrible. Whilst the Pentium and Pentium Gold aren't world beaters, with a decent memory spec (min 4GB @ 2400MHz) and either a SSD or M.2 SSD then they would serve a purpose for a couple of years. If you want more lifespan from a laptop, then you need to start investing in better components with more speed.
Click to expand...

Thanks Greig I appreciate the sound advice
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top