Advice appreciated re new laptop

[jimbouk]

HI all
Looking to buy a new 17 inch laptop ,Currently have a Lenovo G770 which has served its purpose very well but as has started developing issues and is a bit battered and worn.
I ve been browsing for a few weeks and seem to be going around in circles so would appreciate your advice and recommendations .
I use it as a desktop replacement so the usual office apps , web browsing and some Photoshop and Lightroom , no gaming or video editing .

Price wise i suppose up to around £7 to 800 GBP but obviously cheaper would be better.
Would an SSD benifit me in any way ?

Thanks in advance
Jim

 

[Tony1044]

An SSD is great to improve overall system performance - assuming you just have an SSD, or the main stuff is installed on it of course, then your laptop will boot faster, applications will load faster and if the machine has to use the paging file it will slow down less.

But once you're in the application - Word, Excel, for example or your web browser you'd see no benefit.

However I would say the machine would feel overall more responsive.

Plus they use less power and have no moving parts so battery life is slightly improved.

Edit: I am not much of a hardware specialist so others may well have better suggestions but based on your requirements something like this? https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/genesisV-17/ZC!a349qbc/

 

[Oussebon]

I would have to advise against the Genesis quite strongly, since the CPU is very weak indeed, being around 25-65% less powerful (single/multi threaded) than the i5 2410M or whatever is in that Lenovo, plus the screen is 1600x900 res.

One could debate how much difference the weaker CPU would make for office work, but it likely would be an issue for Photoshop/Lightroom and spending £500 on a weaker spec might feel a bit disappointing as an upgrade.

Unfortunately however, most of the other 17" laptops start at the upper end of your price range. Perhaps something like:


Chassis & Display
Cosmos Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core Processor 7300HQ (2.5GHz, 3.5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
8GB Kingston SODIMM DDR4 2133MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 950M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SLIM SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 120W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema 3
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-8260 M.2 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
1 x USB 3.0 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Battery
Cosmos VI Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Keyboard Language
SINGLE COLOUR BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)


Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £828.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/cosmosVI-17/rUEPTKjnD4/

You could add an SSD as a future upgrade.

It has a proper mobile CPU, quite a bit more powerful than what you already have, a dedicated GPU to help a bit with photo editing, and a 1080p IPS screen.

http://tinyurl.com/zcs9ohb

While I'm all for trying to maximise value and future-proofing a spec, I'm not a fan of telling people to spend more than they have to just because they've said they have the money for it. Sadly this is about the cheapest 17" spec worth buying for your uses that I can devise.

 

[Tony1044]

Told you there were more knowledgeable guys here...I was just trying to keep the spend down first and foremost

 

[MJMcMonkey]

Hi
I am in the same boat but I am looking for something capable of gaming, but don't want clog ups the forum with 'new laptop advice' posts.

I am thinking of games along the line of XCOM2 and maybe something else like Football manager.
I have been looking at laptops around the £800 mark
i found an MSI GL62, with i7-7700HQ, 16GB DDR IV RAM, 128GB SSD, 1TB HDD, GTX 960M Graphics Card, Windows 10 for £850
but this morning i found this Defiance II VT15-970 Notebook (Black) - (Intel i7-6700HQ, 16 GB RAM, 750 GB HDD/SDD, NVIDIA Geforce GTX 970M, Windows 10 for £475??

am i looking at the right sort of laptops?
and is the Defiance II deal right? looking on here there isnt a defiance II anymore, and the price seems cheap for the specs??

Thanks in advance
MJ

 

[Oussebon]

This will possibly get split off into a new thread. Every internet forum's etiquette varies but here it's generally the case that for new questions you can start your own topic rather than piggybacking onto another one

The listing for that Defiance on Amazon appears to no longer have any vendors. While there are some resellers who sell PCS systems, I think these are unlikely to sell via Amazon marketplace. Beware of any listing that appears to be too good to be true.

As the forums belong to PC Specialist it's not possible to advise on specs from other brands (such as the MSI one you linked) so you'd need to make up your own mind as to whether that's good value. The GTX 960M is not a powerful GPU however, and would technically be below the recommended GPU for a game like World of Warcraft.

If shopping in that kind of budget area, what I would suggest would be something like:

Chassis & Display
Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core Processor 7300HQ (2.5GHz, 3.5GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM)
8GB Kingston SODIMM DDR4 2133MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SLIM SERIAL ATA III 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 128MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
AC Adaptor
1 x 120W AC Adaptor
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre Cloverleaf UK Power Cable
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Def. Audio + SoundBlaster™ Cinema 3
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-8265 M.2 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) +BT 4.0
USB Options
1 x USB 3.0 PORT (Type C) + 2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Battery
Cosmos VI Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Keyboard Language
SINGLE COLOUR BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)


Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1MP HD WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days
Quantity
1

Price £858.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/optimusVIII-15/tWvHtZjRmt/

This gives a rough idea of the relative GPU performance differences:


As you can see, a GTX 1050 ti is about on par with a GTX 970M, and is around twice as powerful as a GTX 960M.
In terms of i5 vs i7 for gaming, most games are limited by the GPU's performance most of the time, such that with a very mid-range GPU like a 1050 ti you probably won't see much difference between an i5 and an i7.
8gb RAM is fine for gaming at this kind of level
The build above lacks an SSD but you could add a fast M.2 SSD in the future yourself. Storage speed doesn't affect gaming performance (FPS), only loading times.

 

[MJMcMonkey]

Thank you Oussebon you have been most helpful,
looking at what you have put the PCS Optimus is twice the computer as the MSI for a similar price, in terms of what i am looking to use the computer for

cheers again