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Eldest_OAB has worked hard and saved paper round cash to buy himself a laptop. He is starting Nat5/Higher exam courses, and wants to be a designer/engineer/architect, and will be taking such courses at school. He could do with a machine that will run Sketchup and Gimp as well as usual office stuff and light gaming.
Budget it £500ish.
Buy now or wait for offers?
Any suggestions - so far i5/8GB/SSD/Graphics seems achievable...
It'll always be cheaper for the same spec to wait (Moores Law), but he presumably needs it now - and as he's saved, buy it now.
I'm not convinced you get laptop in the sales any cheaper now than post-xmas, but am willing to be told I'm wrong. The major retailers stock kit at a certain price points, and seemingly don't reduce them by very much & hold onto older stock far too long.. that not to say you'll never find a bargain.
I'd suggest looking else where, like dell's refurb site, the larger computer internet dealers (ebuyer/scan/misco) for the real bargains & as per B r, just get on and buy one.
Can't recommend a specific unit but £500 should easily get you/him a good i5
Buy it now. Of course something better will be available for the same price in a couple of months, but that will always be the case.
No matter when you want to buy a laptop / pc this question always happens and the answer is always things will get cheaper for the same spec machine.
Buy now and get on with your life is what I'd do.
As for recommendations - If he's likely to be tough on it, get a less well specced one that is build well. He won't notice the speed / storage difference.
If he will be kind on it get one with the best screen / most memory.
#edit bugger - beaten by a single second...
Cheers all. His birthday is shortly - I was hoping to empty his account and surprise him. 😀
Dell Refurb and John Lewis (matching a Laptops direct price) look good at the moment.
I agree on good build over spec. It is just like XTR derailleur on a Deore bike....
Son is/was in same boat, he got a Dell about 3-4 years ago -- to run Inventor, sorts of stuff - is now at uni doing aero mech engineering. It seems to have held up quite well, I think we put in more RAM a little while ago.
It now wont run away from power, as the charger circuit is knackered, but it was carried about quite a bit. He's been doing some early 1st year assignments on it and seems to hold up to that.
Now is a good time for deals.
- students have bought theirs before the new academic year
- a bit early for Christmas
- Intel have recently changed processor generations
- there's still stock out there with Win8.1 rather than 10 on the shelves
Isn't Black Friday discount day coming up soon?