Laptop suggestions

[Gorgon]

Pen function is the best i've ever tried on a digitiser and i can now run my applications anywhere i go.  Dunno if its worth 3200 euro though. Anyway never spending that much on one again. Wacoms monopoly is showing signs of finally breaking. We are going to have better options in their segment in a few years time.

[Terminator]

I am considering if I might buy the game Grand Theft Auto 5. I am still playing Pillars of Eternity though keep in mind that I have not owned

Pillars of Eternity for many weeks.

 

This is partcularly laptop speed. My laptop has Nvidia 1050 Ti 4GB DDR5

http://laptopmedia.com/highlights/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1050-vs-geforce-gtx-960m-benchmarks-and-real-gaming-performance-comparison/

 

Please note that Nvidia 1050 Ti is faster then this Nvidia 1050. That said there is not so much difference maybe 5-10 frames faster depending on the game.

 

GTA 5 (1080p, Medium)

Nvidia 1050 61 fps

Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M 37 fps

 

GTA 5 (1080p, Max)

Nvidia 1050 19 frames

Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M 15 fps

 

Now I do understand that game even if Nvidia 1050 Ti 4GB DDR5 is slightly faster then Nvidia 1050 2GB DDR5 that Max settings FULL HD does not give good framerate. Propably some adjusted settings example High settings and it is not a FPS so I don't think 60+ constant frames is so important.

 

F1 2015 (1080p, Medium)

Nvidia 1050 64 fps

Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M 48 fps

 

F1 2015 (1080p, Max)

Nvidia 1050 47 frames

Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M 31 fps

 

I doubt I will buy F1 2015 even if I would run that at max settings FULL HD. However you never know if the price is like 5-10 euro+shipping then I might. I bought Battlefield 3 for 8 euro+ shipping costs.

Edited June 8, 2017 by Terminator

[ShadySands]

I might be in the market for a new laptop soon as mine can't even sustain a charge for 90 minutes anymore and I often need it to last for 3 or 4 hours

 

What's so hot right now?

[Zoraptor]

I'd suspect that right now is a poor time to be buying unless you have to. The Zen based AMD mobile chips ought to be out later this year, and they should have an even better power/ value balance than desktop Ryzen has. Coffeelake on the Intel side should be out soon (next month, supposedly) as well.

 

Personally I'd look at buying a new battery if I could find one for a non extortionate amount. It's almost always the battery failing to charge rather than the laptop's fault.

[ShadySands]

Thanks for that, I'll see about waiting it out.

 

The replacement battery is only going to run me about 100 bucks but in my mind I'm just thinking that could be 100 bucks towards something new. It wasn't a pricey laptop in the first place which is why I'm hesitant to spend much on it now a few years later.

[Bartimaeus]

could you link the laptop model/battery replacement you're looking at? battery replacements, even OEM ones, are usually never nearly that expensive. I've replaced many laptop batteries over the years for laptops that people said were "broken" and I think the most expensive I've ever ran is like $30.

Edited September 15, 2017 by Bartimaeus

[ShadySands]

C31N1339

 

I've found it for a under 50 bucks pretty easily and under 30 used but I don't really care about that. I just want a new laptop dammit! ;P 

[Bartimaeus]

well, in that case, why did you even look up the battery replacement to begin with,

 

it does drive me a little crazy how cavalier some people are about replacing entire laptops when it's just a battery replacement away from working perfectly again, though...

[mkreku]

I bought my last laptop in 2009. After 8 years it couldn't charge more than 20-30% and it would run out in like 10-15 minutes.

 

I looked up what a new battery would cost. 1500 SEK (~188 USD). Sure, it's cheaper than an entirely new laptop, but.. who the hell would spend that much on an 8 year old computer?

 

I bought a new laptop for 800 USD instead.

 

 

It's the silver one to the right. It weighs 1 kg, has around 11-12 hours of battery time, 12.5 inch 1080p IPS screen, full metal body, Core i5-7Y54, 8 GB 1866MHz RAM, 256 GB Samsung SSD, quick charger (30-40 minutes for 50% charge) and AKG speakers (surprisingly good for such a small device). It's perfect for my needs (bedroom/travel laptop for surfing and watching the occasional movie).

 

It's called the Xiaomi Air 12. Only disadvantage so far was the Win 10 Home version in Chinese. I bought a cheap Win 10 Pro license, got the drivers from Xiaomi's forums and did a complete reinstall. Worked perfectly.

[Sarex]

They do laptops too?!?

[ShadySands]

So my laptop may finally be done for good. A wire from a dewdrop Christmas light somehow got into the small space between the charger and the wall and made contact with the prongs. The charger is definitely fried but I'm not sure how well the laptop made it out of the whole ordeal since it doesn't hold a charge.

[ShadySands]

I was looking at Ryzen laptop from ASUS but it seems to be sold out pretty much everywhere

[Zoraptor]

If it's the Ryzen 1700/ RX580 one be aware that its battery life is poor since they're using desktop rather than laptop chips, though that also makes it one of the better desktop replacement models.

[ShadySands]

If it lasts 3 hours I'd be happy

 

If it's less then that then probably not

[Valsuelm]

If it lasts 3 hours I'd be happy

 

If it's less then that then probably not

 

I'm just curious. Why not plug your laptop into a wall?

[Zoraptor]

I checked a couple of reviews to make sure, and it looks like around the best that can be expected practically is ~2 hours. I'm fairly impressed it made it that long.

[ShadySands]

 

If it lasts 3 hours I'd be happy

 

If it's less then that then probably not

I'm just curious. Why not plug your laptop into a wall?

Not always an option for my use case

[IndiraLightfoot]

I use my HP Omen laptop for work on the-go (TV-editing and such) and for some gaming when the going gets chill.

 

You could go for a 17" screen like here:

http://laptopmedia.com/review/hp-omen-17-mid-2017-gtx-1070-review-the-new-omen-proves-that-oems-sometimes-pay-attention-to-what-users-want/

 

Buy as new a model as you can. The keyboard is excellent, the sound too (Bang Olufsen). Graphics and colour fidelity is pretty darn good as well, but some weird setting made half of it look like crap (until I realized that the entire system had automatically put "lighter" apps and programs to integrated motherboard graphics for battery saving.) Battery time decent 3-4 h if you run it super-hard with high graphics and pretty illuminated screen and all. When word processing and working in Excel, I've pressed it beyond 6h, IIRC.

I settled on a 15" screen, just to bring down the price. I didn't want to pay more than 1,000 Euros last summer.

I re-programmed the touch-pad a bit, so I get a scroll wheel function on it, but those pad buttons were a bit stiff when it was brand-new. 

It makes a bit of a noise if you press it for long on some tough graphical task, I'm not bothered one bit by it, though.

Here's mine (mind you, I got hold of a juicy 20% discount at that time):

https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Omen-15-7700HQ-GTX-1060-Max-Q-Full-HD-Laptop-Review.236264.0.html

[Keyrock]

I'll be in the market for a new laptop in the not too distant future. Having switched careers to trucking, while I could theoretically put my desktop in the sleeper cab, a laptop is a lot more practical for my needs and my current laptop is getting quite old.

 

Too bad I'm going to be forced to go Team Green as AMD hasn't put out a dedicated mobile gpu in a couple years and their APUs, while nice, are just not powerful enough for my gaming needs. If I were to buy today I'd be looking for something with a 17" screen and a gtx 1060, but since the 11xx series is almost here, I might as well wait for laptops with a gtx 1160 in it. That might also force me to go with Intel for the cpu as I don't even know if they make laptops with AMD cpus and Nvidia gpus. That seems likean unholy union.

Edited July 28, 2018 by Keyrock

[Malcador]

Sister's laptop is old in the tooth and so is mine, so want to take hers after I get her a new one. Only real requirements are that it can handle Sims 4 and should have a good bit of life in it going forward. Anyone have reccomendations ? Budget is ~1500 CAD (so basically 1k USD)

[SonicMage117]

Not sure how much screen you are going for but this one looks decent

https://www.pcrichard.com/catalog/catalog-product.jsp?prodId=GL63069&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8NT10ubf3gIVSrXACh06jAa9EAQYASABEgILS_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

[Keyrock]

Yeah, do you want a 15.6" screen or a 17.3" screen?

 

If you don't mind getting to the upper end of your budget, this seems like a decent choice:

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834154829

 

It has a beefy hexa-core CPU that should keep you covered for years to come as far as compute tasks and a GTX 1060 which will play pretty much anything at 1080p at med settings or higher.  The SSD is only 128 GB and the 1 TB HDD runs at a snail's pace 5400 RPM, but that's expected at this price.

 

Speaking of which, I'm also in the market for a laptop right now.  I was going to wait until laptop versions of the Nvidia 20xx cards came out, but those are likely not happening until several months into 2019 and I don't want to wait that long.  Also, having seen the price and performance of the RTX 2080Ti, 2080, and 2070 desktop cards compared to the previous generation cards and my belief that that trend will continue with the laptop variants, I see no point in waiting to buy a similarly performing product for more money 3 or 4 months down the line.  Since I'm earning a bit more money now and my original plans of building a new desktop rig went out the window when I changed careers to trucking (no point in investing in a rig I'll only be able to use 4 or 5 days a month) I'm thinking of going all out with the lappy and getting something truly beefy, and it has to have a 17.3" screen.  With that in mind, I'm seriously considering this monster:

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834234811

 

The downsides are that it's thick and heavy, which aren't a big deal since it will mostly be residing in the storage compartment in the back of my semi.  Also, it has a 7th gen quad-core CPU, albeit the absolute top of the line, rather than a 8th gen hexa-core, but for gaming quad-core is still king, the extra 2 cores do essentially nothing for gaming at this point and at least until the PS5 and XBOX Negative 1 Billion come out, assuming those consoles push core counts higher.  Also, it's refurbished, which always has a bit of a risk associated with it.  That said, I can't see getting a lappy with anywhere near these specs for under $2K that's NOT refurbished or used.  32GB of 2800 MHz DDR4 (overkill honestly), GTX 1080, and 2 256 GB NvME SSDs in Raid 0 which should damn near insta-load almost anything.  Thoughts?  Suggestions?

[Sarex]

What happened with ryzen mobile? Did it not meet expectations?

[Keyrock]

What happened with ryzen mobile? Did it not meet expectations?

AMD's APUs are great for casual gaming but just don't have enough oomph for hardcore gaming, not at anything above very low settings.  AMD hasn't really made a specific laptop variant of their discrete GPUs in several years.  There are some laptops out there that actually run desktop AMD ryzen chips and discrete Radeon cards in a laptop, but they tend to run extremely hot and have dismal battery life because that's what happens when you put desktop components in the small form factor of a laptop.  And even then they lag behind Nvidia's higher-end laptop GPUs in performance.  As far as finding a laptop with a AMD CPU and a Nvidia GPU, they may exist, but good luck finding them.  You're generally getting either AMD/AMD or Intel/Nvidia.  Sadly, in the gaming laptop segment, at the moment, AMD/AMD just doesn't compete with Intel/Nvidia.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Keyrock

[Malcador]

15 inch is fine, I think.  I was thinking of the Lenovo y530, even though it is kind of expensive https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834847346&Description=y530&cm_re=y530-_-34-847-346-_-Productt - the cheapest place I've seen it has been Walmart of all places. MSI's are tempting but I keep hearing they have heat issues and the builds are fragile.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Malcador