Cheap/Mid range laptop

J

jonnytruckfest

Enthusiast
Hi folks,

Due to financial issues I'm going to be selling my desktop but I shall be needing a laptop of somekind. I'm not looking for fancy OTT stuff but something that will be able to use photoshop and maybe play some games at a good frame rate like COD World at war & Blops etc. I'll need a second battery pack for emergencies but apart from that I'm not needing anything in particular. I'm going to dabble with the configurator myself to get a good laptop but I trust your guys judgement more than my own! Lol

Cheers

Jonny
 
J

jonnytruckfest

Enthusiast
I've got my eye on the 11.6 inferno. Have seen a review for it and looks like a nice piece of kit. Just not sure if it could handle photoshop though.
 
B

beg

Bronze Level Poster
if you take a look on the laptops available they almost all have the same options available to them. And Inferno has the best available graphics card at that price range. So it's up to you and what you feel you want, if you want a small screen then inferno is good for portability.
 
Last edited:
J

jonnytruckfest

Enthusiast
Yes a windows license would be needed, and cool thanks :) Will put up a review when I eventually make the purchase/get the laptop.

Cheers

Jonny
 
Toxophilix

Toxophilix

Bright Spark
This is quite an nice Inferno spec but with two batteries it's £694.

Chassis & Display
Inferno Series: 11.6" Matte HD LED Widescreen (1366x768)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-3230M (2.60GHz) 3MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M - 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk
500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N135 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
2 x Inferno Series Battery Pack, 62.16WH (One Spare) (£59)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 90W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 60 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 2013
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Keyboard Language
11.6" SERIES INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Intel Anti-Theft Technology
FREE 90 Day Intel Anti-Theft Trial - Prevent Data Access upon Theft
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £694.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/inferno/5KMe_pASnJ/

By downgrading the following:

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i3 Dual Core Mobile Processor i3-3120M (2.50GHz) 3MB
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 4GB)
Memory - Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING

you can get it to £595. The other way to significantly lower the cost would be not to get the second battery.

You could also look at the Genesis and Voyager models or, if you are not that worried about graphical goodies in games, at the 14" Ultranote. From what I've read the HD4000 (Ivy Bridge iGPU) will play about 50% of current games on low-to-medium settings (it could handle more but the driver support seems to be lacking). There are certainly YouTube videos of the two games you mention being played on an HD4000.
 
J

jonnytruckfest

Enthusiast
Chassis & Display
Inferno Series: 11.6" Matte HD LED Widescreen (1366x768)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i3 Dual Core Mobile Processor i3-3120M (2.50GHz) 3MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M - 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N135 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
Inferno Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (62.16WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
2 x UK Power Lead & 2 x 120W AC Adaptor (£31)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 60 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 2013
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Keyboard Language
11.6" SERIES INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Intel Anti-Theft Technology
FREE 90 Day Intel Anti-Theft Trial - Prevent Data Access upon Theft
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £619.00 including VAT and delivery.

I'm assuming this would be upto the job regarding both gaming and a bit of photoshop now and again? Although I'm debating if to go for an SSD and get an external hard drive to save my files etc as they seem to go for a cheap price nowwa days.
 
Toxophilix

Toxophilix

Bright Spark
Yes, that would do the job. You do have 2 x power adaptor rather than 2 x battery in that spec though.

You could also get 4GB RAM, for now, and spend the saving on a better CPU. Then you could add a second 4GB when finances allow (assuming you start with 1 x 4GB DIMM obviously).

I think an external HDD is fine for storing data that you don't access so frequently, but quite slow if you have data that a progam is manipulating on it. Depends on what you want to use it for though, and whether you think all the stuff that needs fast access will fit on the SSD.

Of course, there's also no optical drive in the Inferno, so that needs to be external if you will require one.

I ordered an Inferno myself a couple of days ago and went for a WD Scorpio HDD. For me, at least, a decent amount of onboard storage is essential and I couldn't justify springing for a 480GB SSD.
 
J

jonnytruckfest

Enthusiast
I opted for the 2 power adaptors instead of the batteries due to the fact on previous laptops i've had the power cable fail on me etc so for peace of mind better to have a second one incase anything should happen to the first. Also given the price it is at I could opt to have a second battery also which may be worth doing. I'd just like to see what sort of battery life these laptops have! But I can understand regarding the ssd etc but its one of them things as to whether programs such as photoshop would benefit from running off of a ssd instead of a hdd. I wouldn't be paying out for a 480gb, simply a 120gb would suffice and a 2tb external hard drive for £60 for the file storage.

Alas something to think about, as I have to sell my desktop first before I can purchase the laptop!

Cheers

Jonny
 
Toxophilix

Toxophilix

Bright Spark
jonnytruckfest said:
I opted for the 2 power adaptors instead of the batteries due to the fact on previous laptops i've had the power cable fail on me etc so for peace of mind better to have a second one incase anything should happen to the first. Also given the price it is at I could opt to have a second battery also which may be worth doing. I'd just like to see what sort of battery life these laptops have! But I can understand regarding the ssd etc but its one of them things as to whether programs such as photoshop would benefit from running off of a ssd instead of a hdd. I wouldn't be paying out for a 480gb, simply a 120gb would suffice and a 2tb external hard drive for £60 for the file storage.

Alas something to think about, as I have to sell my desktop first before I can purchase the laptop!

Cheers

Jonny
Click to expand...
It's up to you, but as you are on a budget, I would suggest:

  • get one power adaptor
  • if it fails (and I think that's very unlikely and that you've just been unlucky in the past) and it's within the warranty period, get a new one under the warranty
  • if it fails outside the warranty period, buy a new one then
You could take the same approach to batteries? See what the battery-life is like first and get a second one if you think it's needed.

Regarding the SSD, programs will load faster from it but not necessarily run faster, while everything loaded, run, read from or written to the external drive will be slow. Your call, of course, but I've gone for a WD Scorpio in the Inferno that I've ordered and I'm very happy with that. For me, at least, a minimum of 500GB of internal storage is essential, and an HDD is the only affordable way to get that.
 
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