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Best laptop for £300-350

Discussion in 'Mobile Devices' started by Lukeno1, 2012/08/14.

  1. 2012/08/14
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Right, soon I will be looking to (someone save me) buy a laptop ready for the last year of school and for Uni. I am looking to spend around £300-350, and I have the requirements in mind:

    1: Must have a good or very good real-world battery life.
    2: Must come with some form of Windows 7 (anything running Linux is out of the question, as is having a Chromebook).
    3: The trackpad must be stable - not jumping all over the place or selecting things at random because I leant on the laptop to type!
    4: Gaming is not a priority, but smooth word processing and video-watching is.
    5: HDD space is pretty much irrelevant - I intend to stick an SSD in afterwards (found a 128 GB one with reasonable specs for £50)
    6: I am not looking for netbooks, ultrabooks or any of these - I will realistically require a 15" screen, but nothing bigger than 17 ". The screen needs to be decently lit and have good colours and viewing angles.
    7: The sound quality is not hugely important.
    8: Expansion ports are not hugely an issue - a few USB ports will be all that I need.
    9: Must have a decent wifi card, or the ability to upgrade one (preferably 802.11n, with 100MBPs+ connection speed).

    Any suggestions?
     
    Lukeno1,
    #1
  2. 2012/08/14
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    Dell Inspiron 15

    1: No idea, but laptops generally don't have "very good" real-world battery life.. you're trying to light a +15" screen, that takes juice. That's why netbooks are popular.. small screen = very good battery life

    3: Again, no idea. I never have a problem on my laptop with the trackpad, but I don't know how you are using your laptop.

    4: that's a given with any new machine.

    9: Any machine can be upgraded with a USB WiFi dongle.
     
    Arie,
    #2


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  4. 2012/08/14
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    1: I was on about compared to others. 4+ hours would be what I'm looking for. And laptops tend to match netbooks or beat them due to having bigger/higher rated batteries, don't they?

    3: I don't have a laptop at present, but every laptop I've ever used, except for my mum's, has a bad habit of selecting things or jumping to things that aren't there.

    4: I expected it to be, but it still needed to be said.

    9: I'd rather not have a USB WiFi dongle - too easily broken by someone like me (that's the reason for fitting a SSD). Probably should've added that the laptop shouldn't be too fragile/poorly built
     
    Lukeno1,
    #3
  5. 2012/08/14
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    1: Like I said, a laptop has a larger screen so the larger battery is needed just for that alone. A netbook with a smaller battery runs circles around any laptop (battery usage wise). They use less energy mainly due to the smaller screen size (and also because the usually have less RAM).

    3: So that's probably going to happen on any laptop. You have to change your habit or disable the trackpad.

    9: New laptops in nearly all cases come with build-in 802.11n
     
    Arie,
    #4
  6. 2012/08/14
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    1: Most laptops I've seen seem to have 4-5 hours battery life in this price range anyway.

    3: Mum's HP is very stable, I probably would have to change my style anyway though.

    9: That's a relief.
     
    Lukeno1,
    #5
  7. 2012/08/14
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    1: 4-5 hours doesn't fit my definition for "very good" real-world battery life... Maybe I could agree to "good" :D "Very good" would be 8+ hours for me.

    3: I've never used HP.
     
    Arie,
    #6
  8. 2012/08/14
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    I did say good or very good with regards to the battery life xD
     
    Lukeno1,
    #7
  9. 2012/08/15
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    re touchpads:

    Most laptops come with pre-installed software to manage the trackpad. The most common trackpads are made by Synaptics or Alps. The touchpad bundled software is unnecessary because Windows has its own touchpad management software, though the bundled software does have additional features over Windows software. But all touchpad software will have a setting to "disable touchpad while typing" so as to prevent cursor jumps and accidental typos.

    re wifi:

    All newer laptops have 80211n adapters. But in the real world you'll never really see 100+ mb/sec rates. The wifi network's access point must also be 80211n to get approximate n rates.
     
    TonyT,
    #8
  10. 2012/08/15
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    In terms of WiFi, I'm well aware about the real world speeds - I'm on about the 100 MBPs speed to the actual router, not the download speed/internet connection speed.
     
    Lukeno1,
    #9
  11. 2012/08/18
    SpywareDr

    SpywareDr SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    SpywareDr,
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  12. 2012/08/18
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Well, OK, but that's not entirely relevant as the price is somewhat beyond my budget. :p
     
    Lukeno1,
    #11
  13. 2012/08/19
    SpywareDr

    SpywareDr SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    I started to say "you get what you pay for" but, I just happened to remember my wife's little 11.6" Acer netbook will run at least 12 hours. :)
     
    SpywareDr,
    #12
  14. 2012/08/19
    Admin.

    Admin. Administrator Administrator Staff

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    I'm sure it does, but that's not what the OP was asking for.

    As I said:

     
    Admin.,
    #13
  15. 2012/08/19
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Well, I don't need battery life that long, but something 12" or smaller is too small for me - either the keys will be too small, or the keyboard will have too many things crammed into each key, plus the screen resolution and screen size itself would be hugely inconvenient - hence the need for something at least 15" in size.
     
    Lukeno1,
    #14
  16. 2012/08/19
    SpywareDr

    SpywareDr SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    SpywareDr,
    #15
  17. 2012/08/20
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    The Acer definitely looks the better of those two. I'll let you know what I get when I get it!
     
    Lukeno1,
    #16
  18. 2012/08/24
    TonyT

    TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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    I prefer Lenove over Acer. I've had to return clients' Acer laptops in the past because they were made poorly or had failing hardware. Of course, the failing systems may have been product specific and newer different Acer products may be better, I just don't chance it.
     
    TonyT,
    #17
  19. 2012/08/25
    SpywareDr

    SpywareDr SuperGeek WindowsBBS Team Member

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    I agree. If you need reliability, Lenovo ThinkPad. They are rather ugly, but, they're reliable.
     
    SpywareDr,
    #18
  20. 2012/08/25
    ianamal

    ianamal Well-Known Member

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    Hi I don't know where in the world you are but I heard a rumor that PC and laptop sales are way down and sales are on their way at least here in the UK.

    There are at the moment new laptops fairly cheap here at some outlets but there not the fastest, they're getting rid of old stock I think with back to school coming up!

    If you don't mind powering down, spare batteries are an option but the cost may be prohibitive, I have a dell I5 battery life poor but screen and performance good and I concur that Lenovo is a very good choice.

    Regards Ian.
     
    ianamal,
    #19

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