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Got a budget to use by the end of next week and laptop replacement needed - not much to say other than use for word, excel, browsing, emails, some photo/video editing, some watching stuff, not bothered about aesthetics or weight particularly as it will tend to stay put. Bigger 17" HD screen, good sound & fast starting be nice, oh and something that'll last for a few years.(sorry no tech expert). Had a google and read a few reviews but as ever seems too much out there to take in so any top tips / deals/ recommendations to look at etc? Up to £700 ok, less better. Cheers
Do you really want a laptop if it will stay put?
A small /medium form factor PC will get more bang per buck, especially doing video editing, cooling will be better on a small to medium size pc. More upgradability too if you want it to last.
You'll need a monitor keyboard and mouse, but if you're not gaming, you could squeeze in a nice monitor under budget too, what kind of video editing do you do with what applications as that sounds like the most intense task?
Should have said, it will need to move between home and my workshop sometimes, so desktop not really suitable, but it’s not like I commute and use it on a train or anything so weight etc isn’t really an issue. Thanks again
ps - mikewsmith will look at dell outlet again, but when I looked at their reviews it was a very mixed bag
I've had 3 from the outlet over the years, all as new spot on and not had any issues - we are Dell at work and they have been spot on as machines
Using the latest one here now and spot on for a great price.
I got an Ideapad for £700, not overly fussed...poor battery life and the HDMI output is a silly micro port that is the most fragile thing known to man. Broke one lead and the new one flickers and turns the screen purple if its not aligned perfectly.
I dropped it a while back and bent the rear panel, and a few days later the screen went black. Its replacement will be one with a decent battery life and a decent set of display outputs such as mini-displayport + VGA so I can use it with two screens.
Well video editing seems to be the most intense task you are doing . So it would be handy to know what apps you use or plan to use to help specify something ...
Laptops tend to run a bit warm when doing heavy encoding /decoding/ rendering video tasks as they can be CPU intensive, and laptop versions of CPU's tend to be cut down versions of the desktop equivalents.. And have very limited upgradability.
I'm running Premiere and Lightroom on my I5 Inspiron, it hammers it when render or export but I just leave it to do it's thing when that happens
What i5 is it?
If you absolutely need a laptop then a newer Intel i5 or i7 or ryzen would help, with more cores /threads
But buying a laptop with a powerful CPU generally means it will come with a powerful GPU that you're not nessesarily interested in..
And it goes without saying an SSD drive is an absolute must.
I5 7200 does the job and the laptop came in under £400
Just another +1 for Dell outlet. My latest laptop is from them and it's rather nice. Other than the keyboard the quality feels up there with my work MacBook.
edit: if you have/don't mind getting a monitor then IMO a 13" laptop is brilliant! I actually don't even both to hook it up to a monitor most of the time. My MacBook is 15" I think it's a bit of a pain to lug around, 17" must be bloody huge!
Another vote for the Dell outlet here, I'm really happy with mine (Inspiron 7560, 8GB of RAM, 2.5GHz quad core i5) for similar use as you've described.
I looked at desktops too and there really isn't much in it in terms of price, and then you need to add a montior and keyboard.
I'd probably go with an Asus Pro series (P2540 variant) or a Dell Inspiron. £700 looks an awkward price point though as still at least one major compromised part of the spec (CPU, RAM or HDD), I'd probably put more priority on a good CPU for your use (and the fact it's the most painful/impossible to upgrade later). Also for what you describe just go for something with a 15.6" screen and save up £100ish for an external 24" monitor later.
The issue I found around that sort of price was getting a decent screen panel - many havegreat hardware specs (processor, memory etc...) but have screens which don't have great colour, don't cover the RGB colour space very well never mind AdobeRGB, or don't go very bright/
At work I use a 17" Dell Precision M6700 for 3D CAD work. It's still a beast and handles large 3D CAD files well.
So for my replacement home PC which is mainly used for Lightroom image work, web stuff and docs I went with a used one from ebay. Great machines, very well built. 400 quid delivered got me an i7, 16Gb, 4Gb Quadro graphics, FullHD etc... I added an SSD for 60 quid and it's a stonking machine with a great bright screen.
They are heavy and the PSU is a brick - but your usage (in terms of portability) sounds like mine so not a problem
Worth thinking about the used business workstation route.
Thanks for help all, dell outlet search beckons
Look at HP Envy series - but at 15" for that price.
Had our 17" Envy for about 4 years - seriously quick, Nvidia graphics. Shuffled the ram round at home and went from 12GB stock to 16GB. Fitted a 1TB SDD (Amazon black Friday special as these are big money usually) to go along with the 1 TB HDD.
It has a 47xx series I7 - cheap now second hand though on ebay and they are seriously quick, even now.
Update, after procrastinating for ages, looking on-line and visting PC World nearby etc, went completely the other way and got an iMac 4k retina - just liked it so much more than the laptops I've been using to date and ones I looked at in the shop. Spent a fair bit more than original budget, got with the office package and they gave us some (free) expensive Beats headphones. I was swayed by daughter who also wants to use it and fortunately her unidays discount knocked a big chunk off the price. Hope it works out and thanks for original leads which I rudely ignored...