technology Laptop Help (Looking for a laptop)

[Genepool 224]

As the title suggests, I need some help.  I'll get to the heart of the matter in a tl;dr scenario.  The laptop that I need will be used for college.  Now, while I do have one, it's a gaming laptop that's a bit large for classes.  I don't believe it would be appropriate to bring it to class with the 150w+ charger that it needs to use.  I've signed up with BestBuy's college deal thing that gives me $150 off "select" laptops.  I'm not sure if it'll help out or not in terms of what will and will not work. 

 

Ok, to the heart of the matter:

 

The courses I'm currently taking will be centered around Biotechnology.  I'll need the laptop for Chemistry (Gen chem II), and courses towards getting said degree in Biotechnology.  Price range, I'll have around $500 to $750 to use towards the laptop since I was awarded some money through a grant.  I can go over that $750 just a little bit, but I can't afford to spend $1,500 on a laptop since money is tight.  The hard cap will be around $1k at most, not including taxes.  I went to retrieve the email + image to go along with this, but the little bugger has gone MIA on me. 

 

Anyways, here are two of the laptop that I've looked at so far in terms of one for college.

 

Asus 2-in-one laptop

 

Asus 2-in-one laptop (#2)

 

The difference between the two comes down to the first one being a Core i7 processor with the 2nd one being a Core i5 processor.  I'm open to suggestions, and, if necessary, can sign up for other places as I do have the appropriate ID to prove my status as a college student.

 

I'm looking for a decent laptop to help out currently and down the road.  The great thing about the course I'm in is the internship which will "hopefully" lead to some gainful employment I couldn't obtain on my own.

[long gone 8,929]

I see that both of them have ultrabook/low-power CPUs (the U at the end of the CPU model number indicates that.) Therefore, there's not much different between the Core i5 and i7 in these aside from a slightly higher base and boost clock and some more cache on the i7. Others will differ, of course (like desktop i5s are quad-cores with no Hyperthreading while desktop i7s are quad-cores with Hyperthreading), but both CPUs are dual-core with Hyperthreading so the only real differences between the two are the cache and clock speeds ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

Do you need a GPU for your work? Or will the standard Intel HD Graphics work fine?

[Jonny Music 3,414]

As the title suggests, I need some help.  I'll get to the heart of the matter in a tl;dr scenario.  The laptop that I need will be used for college.  Now, while I do have one, it's a gaming laptop that's a bit large for classes.  I don't believe it would be appropriate to bring it to class with the 150w+ charger that it needs to use.  I've signed up with BestBuy's college deal thing that gives me $150 off "select" laptops.  I'm not sure if it'll help out or not in terms of what will and will not work. 

 

Ok, to the heart of the matter:

 

The courses I'm currently taking will be centered around Biotechnology.  I'll need the laptop for Chemistry (Gen chem II), and courses towards getting said degree in Biotechnology.  Price range, I'll have around $500 to $750 to use towards the laptop since I was awarded some money through a grant.  I can go over that $750 just a little bit, but I can't afford to spend $1,500 on a laptop since money is tight.  The hard cap will be around $1k at most, not including taxes.  I went to retrieve the email + image to go along with this, but the little bugger has gone MIA on me. 

 

Anyways, here are two of the laptop that I've looked at so far in terms of one for college.

 

Asus 2-in-one laptop

 

Asus 2-in-one laptop (#2)

 

The difference between the two comes down to the first one being a Core i7 processor with the 2nd one being a Core i5 processor.  I'm open to suggestions, and, if necessary, can sign up for other places as I do have the appropriate ID to prove my status as a college student.

 

I'm looking for a decent laptop to help out currently and down the road.  The great thing about the course I'm in is the internship which will "hopefully" lead to some gainful employment I couldn't obtain on my own.

Do you have general sense as to how powerful you want your laptop to be?

 

What are the hardware requirements of the software that you will need for college?

 

You need to ask yourself these questions to get a better idea of what you need/want in terms of processing power.

 

In terms of the laptops you've found, I would recommend the 1st one you've made a link for (the one with the Discrete NVidia GPU). In terms of the customer ratings and reviews, it's received a lot of praise.

Edited August 14, 2015 by Jonny Music

[Revy ~ Two Hands 862]

What tasks do you need your laptop to achieve?

Video Editing & 3D modelling is Very RAM, GPU, & CPU Intensive

Gaming is CPU, and GPU intensive not so much RAM

Word proccessing, internet browsing are not taxing at all.

Photo manipulation can be fairly intensive depending upon the number of layers and complexity of software.

 

You really need to know what your going to be doing with it to decide.

If the tasks are not intensive you probably want something like an i3 Quad Core, Integrated graphics card, 8GB Ram, HD space doesn't matter

external hard drives are very cheap nowadays. Since you say Pc I assume you mean it'll be a Windows machine since most work software is either Windows or Mac, unless your doing programming or networking in which case Linux can do some of these tasks. Anyway I wouldn't get anything weaker than quad core since dual core really are terribly outdated by now.

[Genepool 224]

Thanks for the quick replies all.  At this point, I'm really, REALLY unsure of what I need in terms of a PC.  I could potentially get by with a $200 crap notebook, but I'm not sure about a lot of things at this point.  The course is completely new to me, and I've been out of the academic world for 7 to 8 years or so right now. 

 

I might take some other courses, but it would be on my dime since the grant only pays for courses that go towards earning my degree. 

 

 

What tasks do you need your laptop to achieve?

Video Editing & 3D modelling is Very RAM, GPU, & CPU Intensive

Gaming is CPU, and GPU intensive not so much RAM

Word proccessing, internet browsing are not taxing at all.

Photo manipulation can be fairly intensive depending upon the number of layers and complexity of software.

 

You really need to know what your going to be doing with it to decide.

If the tasks are not intensive you probably want something like an i3 Quad Core, Integrated graphics card, 8GB Ram, HD space doesn't matter

external hard drives are very cheap nowadays. Since you say Pc I assume you mean it'll be a Windows machine since most work software is either Windows or Mac, unless your doing programming or networking in which case Linux can do some of these tasks. Anyway I wouldn't get anything weaker than quad core since dual core really are terribly outdated by now.

 

With my gaming laptop, it's an MSI Core i7 4700MQ CPU (2.4GHz), 12GB ram, 64bit OS W7, and sports an Nvidia GeForce GTX 770M graphics card with a 16 or 17" display.  This works as a portable workstation for me, allowing me to take materials with me if I need it. 

 

Again, I'm really unsure of what I might need since I've never used a fancy laptop in college.  I mostly used an old Compaq.  I would like to install Photoshop CS5.1 on the laptop I get, so I can do some photography on it by doing macro shots.  I'm doubtful that I will need to do 3D rendering, but I might have to do some simulation stuff. 

[Jonny Music 3,414]

Thanks for the quick replies all.  At this point, I'm really, REALLY unsure of what I need in terms of a PC.  I could potentially get by with a $200 crap notebook, but I'm not sure about a lot of things at this point.  The course is completely new to me, and I've been out of the academic world for 7 to 8 years or so right now. 

 

I might take some other courses, but it would be on my dime since the grant only pays for courses that go towards earning my degree. 

 

 

 

With my gaming laptop, it's an MSI Core i7 4700MQ CPU (2.4GHz), 12GB ram, 64bit OS W7, and sports an Nvidia GeForce GTX 770M graphics card with a 16 or 17" display.  This works as a portable workstation for me, allowing me to take materials with me if I need it. 

 

Again, I'm really unsure of what I might need since I've never used a fancy laptop in college.  I mostly used an old Compaq.  I would like to install Photoshop CS5.1 on the laptop I get, so I can do some photography on it by doing macro shots.  I'm doubtful that I will need to do 3D rendering, but I might have to do some simulation stuff. 

As I have already mentioned to you already, the first link you've posted on your first post on this thread, I would recommend that one (since it will still have decent performance for anything (including gaming) without breaking the bank).

[long gone 8,929]

Did anyone notice my posts about there being no real major differences between the i5 and i7 in those laptops besides cache, base and boost clock speeds??? For all intents and purposes, the i7-4510U is an i5-4210U with 1MB more cache and a 300MHz faster base clock with a 400MHz faster boost clock. That's basically it. You won't be getting anything much else by going to an i7-4510U. Really, the most important question is if the OP needs the GPU or not. It'll be limited to PCIe 2.0 12x speeds anyway because neither CPU supports more than 12 PCIe 2.0 lanes.

[Jonny Music 3,414]

Did anyone notice my posts about there being no real major differences between the i5 and i7 in those laptops besides cache, base and boost clock speeds??? For all intents and purposes, the i7-4510U is an i5-4210U with 1MB more cache and a 300MHz faster base clock with a 400MHz faster boost clock. That's basically it. You won't be getting anything much else by going to an i7-4510U. Really, the most important question is if the OP needs the GPU or not. It'll be limited to PCIe 2.0 12x speeds anyway because neither CPU supports more than 12 PCIe 2.0 lanes.

 

The OP mentioned himself that he has a gaming laptop with a dedicated GPU. Therefore it would be more fitting for him to go with the 1st option he posted with the GT 840M (though at the end it's his decision to make, regardless of what we may suggest).

[long gone 8,929]

The OP mentioned himself that he has a gaming laptop with a dedicated GPU. Therefore it would be more fitting for him to go with the 1st option he posted with the GT 840M (though at the end it's his decision to make, regardless of what we may suggest).

Well I have a gaming desktop, that didn't stop me from trying out a laptop with no dedicated GPU (didn't work out so well in the end -.-). So maybe getting the one with the 840M would be more worth it.

[Troblems 5,617]

@@Genepool, I've moved your thread to the correct location, as well as tagging it as technology.

[Genepool 224]

I'm done with this thread.  It can be closed/deleted.