Buying a new laptop

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SydneyGuy
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by SydneyGuy »

Hi

Sounds like your laptop requirements are fairly basic like mine, which means an i5 2.8GHzCPU/8GB RAM and a 256Gb SSD Hard Disk should be fine for the next few years. As always you cans spend a few more dollars for higher CPU/RAM/Hard drive but from your usage above i don't think its warranted. What you need to think about is how long you are going to keep the laptop, if for the next 5-7 years i would suggest future proofing and upgrading to i7 3.2GHz CPU/16Gb RAM/512Gb SSD hard disk. Windows 10 should be fine.
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by Homer »

Given your requirements, an i5 processor and a SSD would be overkill, either alone or together.
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by bsdk1960 »

Homer wrote:Given your requirements, an i5 processor and a SSD would be overkill, either alone or together.
:agree: a i3 or simular,4 mb ram and a small ( if you delete your movies) normal harddisk is enough.
I havent checked prices in a while but I reckon you could get one for 20.000 baht .
Good luck.

:cheers: :cheers:
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by Pagey »

I have just looked on Lazada for some ideas of spec & prices based on the above suggestions. I only looked at Acer as I think they are one of the cheaper brands and I have been happy with my current one.
By clicking the option of i5CPU they were around 20k but none were more than 4GB RAM. They had one reduced from 30k to 20k and the i5 was 2.2 GHZ not 2.8 ?
I tried i3 which were also 4GB RAM and around 15k.
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Pagey
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by Pagey »

Oh, and I copy movies to a portable drive and plug them into my TV to watch and I have 3 1TB portable drives so hard disk size is not on the top of my list of requirements.
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buksida
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by buksida »

As mentioned above the i3 with 4GB RAM should cover your needs, dont worry too much about CPU speeds as they are all multi-core now anyway. You should be able to pick one up for 12-14k online, extra if licensed Win 10 is included.
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SydneyGuy
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by SydneyGuy »

if you buy a laptop with i3 cpu and 4GB i wouldn't count on doing too much multitasking, even average users like myself usually have 4 or 5 browser windows open, MS Outlook open and the occasional word document or spreadsheet. You will find that if you are running MS windows of any versions in particular its memory management and disk management are very poor, along with all the bloated system processes it runs in the background, not to mention your anti virus systems consuming resources.

a low spec laptop is cheap, but there is usually a happy balance between price and performance, the decision is up to you.
Just sayin:)
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by Dannie Boy »

What amazes me is that I bought an i7 laptop about 5 years ago, expecting that by now we'd be up yo i11 or i13, but it seems that i7 is still there. I'm sure there have been other developments, but glad I future proofed my purchase as much as possible.
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by Pagey »

SydneyGuy wrote: a low spec laptop is cheap, but there is usually a happy balance between price and performance, the decision is up to you.
Just sayin:)
Yes, when I saw a i3 was around 15k not 20k I thought great, 5k saved. However I then thought that I would be using it for 5 years or so so the extra 5k is only 1 k a year.

So a i5 it is for around 20k I think. I will check out the one on Lazada which was 30k now 20k which is i5 2.2 and 4GB RAM but only DOS. How much does Windows 10 cost ? I may have a look in Powerbuy to see what they have as I would rather buy from the shop and make sure it's up & running and loaded already. :cheers:
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by SydneyGuy »

have a chat with the salesman, i know this is Thailand but they may be able to assist with some product knowledge, or else you do the research yourself. When selecting a CPU i3 is dual core/smaller cache and no turbo boost technology, i5 and i7 are quad core and in the i7's case double the cache, and are turbo boost enabled so the higher spec cpu's can process more work quickly, but have a higher cost.Again it all depends on what you are doing, so you don't need a high end machine, technology is quite affordable, so SSD hard disks which were expensive a few years ago are now almost a standard item on laptops. Best of luck with your purchase.
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by Nereus »

How much does Windows 10 cost?
I bought a legal copy of Win 10 Pro 64 bit English a couple of months ago: 5,690 Baht.
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by Pagey »

Nereus wrote:
How much does Windows 10 cost?
I bought a legal copy of Win 10 Pro 64 bit English a couple of months ago: 5,690 Baht.

Gulp : I will try to get one with windows already installed. :thumb:

Will it matter if it's a previous version of windows ? I've been using Vista since I bought this laptop as it was already installed. :oops:
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by Pagey »

These 2 seem to fit the bill nicely. Both i5, 4GB RAM, 1TB HD, Windows 10 Home and both a tad under 20k. :thumb:

http://www.lazada.co.th/acer-aspire-e5- ... 11756.html

http://www.lazada.co.th/acer-aspire-e5- ... 83017.html
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by Pleng »

Pagey wrote:
Nereus wrote:
How much does Windows 10 cost?
I bought a legal copy of Win 10 Pro 64 bit English a couple of months ago: 5,690 Baht.

Gulp : I will try to get one with windows already installed. :thumb:

Will it matter if it's a previous version of windows ? I've been using Vista since I bought this laptop as it was already installed. :oops:
Id you get one with Windows 7 or 8 pre installed then, so long as it's a legit copy, you should be eligible to upgrade to Win10 for free, anyway.
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Re: Buying a new laptop

Post by Nereus »

You can no longer get Win 7(legally), and the Win 8 offer is about to expire. I was still running XP at the time. I would also suggest that 4 gig of ram will be a PIA and would spend a bit more to upgrade to 8 gig.
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