Finding the right laptop

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Native_Loner

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Aug 21, 2016
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Hey, I've never owned my own personal laptop before so I really don't know much about them other than how to use them, but I am planning on getting one for school and to start making music as a hobby. Does anyone have any suggestions or advice for me. Thank you
 
You are going to need to provide a lot more detail in order to get a useful answer. Windows vs Mac? Screen size? Budget? Gamer or no? etc
 
biggles said:
You are going to need to provide a lot more detail in order to get a useful answer. Windows vs Mac? Screen size? Budget? Gamer or no? etc
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I've only used
biggles said:
You are going to need to provide a lot more detail in order to get a useful answer. Windows vs Mac? Screen size? Budget? Gamer or no? etc
Click to expand...

I would prefer windows I guess since that's the only type I've ever used.. I'm not particular on screen size, budget? Maybe between 500-800$, I was planning on using the laptop for school and to make music with that's all.
 
Notebook / Laptop Reviews and News
Suggest you try that website, they have some good recommendations depending on your specific needs. It sounds like you are not a gamer, so a dedicated graphics card would be unnecessary. 15.6" is the most popular screen size historically. I like the 17.3" personally because games and movies look better and they help with heat management. Some of the laptops nowadays forgo an optical drive (dvd or bluray) in order to make them thinner or lighter.
 
Get something with Intel Core i7 with 17inch screen...I think you would really like having a quad core but think those are a bit over your budget in most cases cause when i checked they seems to start around 1K. You could get buy with a dual core i guess but spending the extr and getting a quad would be worth it for heavy cpu tasks. 500gb ssd would be sweet as well. Ram i would go 6GB min:).....that covers the main points.
 
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primetime said:
Get something with Intel Core i7 with 17inch screen...I think you would really like having a quad core but think those are a bit over your budget in most cases cause when i checked they seems to start around 1K. You could get buy with a dual core i guess but spending the extr and getting a quad would be worth it for heavy cpu tasks. 500gb ssd would be sweet as well. Ram i would go 6GB min:).....that covers the main points.
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This would awesome if you can get it. Or I would suggest to get a refurb one with at least these specs so it will last longer than a inferior machine than this!
 
Brand isnt so much important as the actual hardware included. From time to time you can find deals where the sell one thats been going for 1200 for 800 so dont lock yourself into a brand name that means NOTHING! Its whats in it that counts. On the same token you can budget your money for low cost laptop and build a low cost work station for doing the heavy tasks.......little things you need to go over in your mind.

Generally speaking it costs 4 times as much to get high end hardware in a laptop
 
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primetime said:
Brand isnt so much important as the actual hardware included. From time to time you can find deals where the sell one thats been going for 1200 for 800 so dont lock yourself into a brand name that means NOTHING! Its whats in it that counts. On the same token you can budget your money for low cost laptop and build a low cost work station for doing the heavy tasks.......little things you need to go over in your mind.

Generally speaking it costs 4 times as much to get high end hardware in a laptop
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Spot on!
 
Oh ok I got you, so would you say there's a big difference between i5 and i7 outside of price? Like is that extra money for that one thing worth it?
 
It depends.

Are you talking the U models? No, just a cache bump and a bit higher turboboost. It's still dual core. I'd take an i5 6200U over an i7 6600U and use the money saved towards more RAM, or a bigger SSD, or extra AC adapters, or something like that. I won't notice the performance difference in CPUs in that scenario.

The HQ models will be a difference of hyperthreading being enabled or not. 4 threads on an i5, 8 on an i7. I use VMware a lot on my laptop, and the extra threads are more useful to me, so I'll spring for the i7.
 
If it's not going to be CPU-bound, then I don't know that the extra money spent (what, a couple hundred bucks?) is going to give you that big a difference in performance. Like I said, that can go towards RAM or drives, or whatever that would give a bigger benefit.


In my case, I would get little out of bumping my CPU from the i7 6700HQ to a Xeon E3-1505. I don't need ECC, or an extra couple hundred MHz. I don't need a bigger videocard, from the M1000M to M2000M. For me, I would get more out spending the money saved on bumping myself to 64GB RAM, additional SSDs for VMware, and a spare AC adapter for the backpack.
 
I'm new to all of this and reading up and trying to learn, so thank you for the patience.. when you say not cpu bound do you mean i/o bound or memory bound?
 
HP Envy X360 2-in-1 Convertible Touchscreen Full HD IPS 15.6" Notebook 15-w117cl, Intel Core i5-6200U Processor, 12GB Memory, 1TB Hard Drive, Backlit Keyboard, Bang & Olufsen Audio, Windows 10
 
Native_Loner said:
What do you think of this?
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its seems ok......i like he cpu better in this one and you could do lite gaming. Has 17 inch screen as well. Make him an offer.(only thing on laptop that really were out is the batterys)
MSI Gaming Laptop 17.3" 4720HQ GTX 950M

Ones better for the classroom...but the other is much more powerful (double the cpu cores) and actually has a low end gaming gpu....So there way different
 
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