Recommend/Find A Uni Laptop

[Ned Nederlander]

Chaps,

 

I've been tasked with buying a laptop for my daughter who's heading to university later this month - I know absolutely hee-haw about these things so I'd appreciatte if folk could recommend one for us.

 

Budget is is sub £500 - she wants it to be lightweight, small and have a good battery life - current front runner is this one : http://www3.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/yoga/500-series/Yoga-520-14/p/88YG5000829

 

Can anyone who knows these things say if it's any good ?

 

Any feedback appreciatted.

[welshbairn]

I bought one like this . It's small, light, fast and also functions like a tablet if required. Battery life seems ok but I nearly always have it plugged in. I don't know enough to comment on the Lenovo, they've got a good rep though.

[Ned Nederlander]

1 hour ago, welshbairn said:

I bought one like this . It's small, light, fast and also functions like a tablet if required. Battery life seems ok but I nearly always have it plugged in. I don't know enough to comment on the Lenovo, they've got a good rep though.

Cheers - we went ahead and got the Lenovo one - she seems quite happy with it.

 

Ta.

[welshbairn]

7 minutes ago, Ned Nederlander said:

Cheers - we went ahead and got the Lenovo one - she seems quite happy with it.

 

Ta.

Looks almost identical to mine tbh.

[WeAreElgin]

I haven't heard anything negative about Yogas, Lenovo are normally a step ahead of the game when it comes to reliability so it should be fine, as long as your daughter isn't planning on editing videos or hammering CAD applications.

[Fuctifano]

Apologies for just hijacking onto the end of this but couldn't see a "new laptops" thread.

I've just checked online banking history and I bought the machine I'm typing on for £429 from Dell  on 15th January 2013,  so was thinking after nearly 5 years it must be getting outdated even for the limited amount of things I do on it. I would say the only thing I need it for that I couldn't use a tablet or a phone for is work stuff and that's nothing complicated in terms of processing power, just Word/ Excel / Powerpoint but it would be a b*****d without the keyboard.

From my reading of the specs (attached) I've got an i5 processor, 6GB ram and 1TB storage. Trying to find similar for less than I paid almost 5 years ago isn't turning up much (examples in this link). Have I completely read things wrong, or what has changed that something that in tech terms is pretty ancient is still holding its value?

[Boostin' Kev]

Was actually going to post up a similar question over the next few days.  Think I'm going to have to replace my laptop shortly and been reading about the 2 in 1's.  I have to use it for business things like spreadsheets/invoices, basic stuff though and also use it for downloading/streaming and farting about on the internet.

I want to keep it below £500 and read a bit about the Lenovo Yoga's, any other recommendations?  I know nothing at all about specs so have to go on advice given.  Also do I need an external hard drive for a 2in 1?  Could get by with 500GB but 1TB would be better.  Had a look at the spec on the Yoga posted above and it says;

• Up to 512GB PCIe SSD
• Up to 1TB SATA HDD
• Up to 128GB PCIe SSD + 1TB SATA HDD

Which just looks like a random selection of letters and numerals to me tbh.

I assume that I'd be paying a premium for the 2 in 1 portability aspect so if I could find a similarly spec'd laptop at a better price I'd probably go for that, again any recommendations for that would be much appreciated.

 

[Boostin' Kev]

On 9/15/2017 at 07:51, Boostin' Kev said:

Was actually going to post up a similar question over the next few days.  Think I'm going to have to replace my laptop shortly and been reading about the 2 in 1's.  I have to use it for business things like spreadsheets/invoices, basic stuff though and also use it for downloading/streaming and farting about on the internet.

I want to keep it below £500 and read a bit about the Lenovo Yoga's, any other recommendations?  I know nothing at all about specs so have to go on advice given.  Also do I need an external hard drive for a 2in 1?  Could get by with 500GB but 1TB would be better.  Had a look at the spec on the Yoga posted above and it says;

• Up to 512GB PCIe SSD
• Up to 1TB SATA HDD
• Up to 128GB PCIe SSD + 1TB SATA HDD

Which just looks like a random selection of letters and numerals to me tbh.

I assume that I'd be paying a premium for the 2 in 1 portability aspect so if I could find a similarly spec'd laptop at a better price I'd probably go for that, again any recommendations for that would be much appreciated.

 

Think I'm going to have to replace my laptop shortly and might get one of the Lenovo Yogas.  They come with a 128GB hard rive as far as I can see but I can expand that to 512GB and 1TB as mentioned above.   There's a paragraph on the Yenova page (link below) that says;

"The Yoga 520 packs a punch with top-of-the-line Intel® Core™ i processing and hybrid storage: up to 512 GB PCIe SSD + 1 TB SATA HDD. "

I'm hoping that I don't have to start unscrewing the casing to add the the storage.  Any advice much appreciated.

https://www3.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/yoga/500-series/Yoga-520-14/p/88YG5000829?cid=gb:sem|se|google|308069345662|UK+-+Branded+-+YOGA+520+-+Exact|G+-+UK+-+EMEA+-+Lenovo+-+PS+-+B+-+Laptop+-+Yoga+-+500+Series|669213312&s_kwcid=AL!4309!3!230644088818!e!!g!!lenovo yoga 520&ef_id=WPcsuQAAAXubw29H:20171110081432:s

[BFTD]

Alright, a HDD usually refers to your regular mechanical hard disk, which stores your programs and Windows. An SSD is a non-mechanical version of a hard disk that's faster and quieter, and costs a good bit more. The usual compromise is to have a small SSD to store Windows on, which will make your computer start up faster and be more responsive in use, while you put your programs on a big fat HDD, as speed isn't usually so important for them.

It looks to me like your Yoga comes with a built-in 128GB SSD, which would be enough to hold Windows and not much else, as Windows increases in size massively over time. You'll want the built-in 1TB regular hard drive as well, in order to install Football Manager and other programs onto. You'd struggle to fill that any time soon, unless you're a really huge downloader of...completely innocent PowerPoint presentations. The 512GB SSD option seems to refer purely to the maximum size of SSD that you could replace the 128GB with in the future, should you feel so inclined. I did a little Googling, and it seems like this model is upgradable, which is good as some aren't, as I may or may not have discovered to my cost  

Neither of the options listed on the Lenovo link you posted include the 1TB HDD, so you would have to buy one yourself and open the laptop to install it, or see if Lenovo will quote you a price for installing the HDD for you. Seems like there are a few places online that sell a version with the 1TB HDD already installed, but the ones I've seen also have upgraded processors and RAM, and cost £700+. You could always go the cheap route and get a mate with a spare hard drive kicking around to install it for you, but there goes your warranty.

I've no comment to make about the CPU or video performance of the Yoga, as I'm well out of the loop with regard to modern parts. You'd need to (and probably should) compare them against the parts used in similar models on the various benchmarking websites. Good luck!

[Boostin' Kev]

On 11/10/2017 at 21:23, BigFatTabbyDave said:

Alright, a HDD usually refers to your regular mechanical hard disk, which stores your programs and Windows. An SSD is a non-mechanical version of a hard disk that's faster and quieter, and costs a good bit more. The usual compromise is to have a small SSD to store Windows on, which will make your computer start up faster and be more responsive in use, while you put your programs on a big fat HDD, as speed isn't usually so important for them.

It looks to me like your Yoga comes with a built-in 128GB SSD, which would be enough to hold Windows and not much else, as Windows increases in size massively over time. You'll want the built-in 1TB regular hard drive as well, in order to install Football Manager and other programs onto. You'd struggle to fill that any time soon, unless you're a really huge downloader of...completely innocent PowerPoint presentations. The 512GB SSD option seems to refer purely to the maximum size of SSD that you could replace the 128GB with in the future, should you feel so inclined. I did a little Googling, and it seems like this model is upgradable, which is good as some aren't, as I may or may not have discovered to my cost  

Neither of the options listed on the Lenovo link you posted include the 1TB HDD, so you would have to buy one yourself and open the laptop to install it, or see if Lenovo will quote you a price for installing the HDD for you. Seems like there are a few places online that sell a version with the 1TB HDD already installed, but the ones I've seen also have upgraded processors and RAM, and cost £700+. You could always go the cheap route and get a mate with a spare hard drive kicking around to install it for you, but there goes your warranty.

I've no comment to make about the CPU or video performance of the Yoga, as I'm well out of the loop with regard to modern parts. You'd need to (and probably should) compare them against the parts used in similar models on the various benchmarking websites. Good luck!

Cheers Tabby, might be best just getting a normal laptop don;t want to spend over £500, any suggestions?

[BFTD]

1 hour ago, Boostin' Kev said:

Cheers Tabby, might be best just getting a normal laptop don;t want to spend over £500, any suggestions?

Not really - I'm too far out of the loop. Just stay away from anything with a 32GB or 64GB SSD, even if it comes with a big HDD as well. Windows Update will fill those up in no time, and there's not much you can do about it, other than turning off updates and leaving your laptop exposed to vulnerabilities that have been patched.

Maybe try taking a trip to places like PC World, that have loads of laptops on display. Not to buy, just to try a few out and see which screens/keyboards/touchpads you like using. Find out which laptops have the best CPU/GPUs in your price range by using some of the benchmarking sites like CPUBoss, then look for models of laptop that use those. Takes a bit of work, but you'll have a better chance of ending up happy with your choice.

[KnightswoodBear]

Looking at getting a new laptop as my current £90 refurbished Thinkpad T400, which I've just realised is 10 years old, is finally starting to grind to a halt.  

Looking at spending maybe £500 - £600 on something.  Seen a few reviews for the Acer Swift 3 that say it's good and currently the basic model is £499 at Currys.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[boulderdomb]

8 hours ago, KnightswoodBear said:

Looking at getting a new laptop as my current £90 refurbished Thinkpad T400, which I've just realised is 10 years old, is finally starting to grind to a halt.  

Looking at spending maybe £500 - £600 on something.  Seen a few reviews for the Acer Swift 3 that say it's good and currently the basic model is £499 at Currys.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Acer Swift 3 or a Lenovo Ideapad would be my recommendations depending on what you're planning on doing with it. More details around your general usage would be helpful.

[KnightswoodBear]

To be honest just general use in the house.  It's not going to be used for anything specific like studying or games. 

[BFTD]

This seems like a decent deal for folk looking for something basic, and who don't care if it comes with Windows already installed. They aren't in 'til the end of the month, but I've got one on order to replace my HP Pavilion X2, as I've finally got sick of fighting for space on the tiny SSD just so Windows can install updates