Suggestions For New Laptop?

I need a new laptop. It’ll be only the second one I ever owned, and the first I ever bought.

Can anyone suggest something fairly up-to-date but affordable that’s got Win10, fairly fast processors, fairly long battery life, and a decent warranty, and is upgradable to say, 16 GB of RAM or better?

And anything else that I should be asking about that I’m not?

What’s “affordable?” I don’t know, maybe $150 to $200? I see lots of them online, and many are new, not refurbished. Not that I mind a refurbished one, I’m pretty sure I’d get a better deal that way.

Thanks for any help.

P.S. I take it very robust security software is available for laptops, right?

 

Not sure you are going to get what you want with that budget - considering a fairly decent and affordable desktop monitor alone can easily cost $150 - $200. New notebooks in that range typically are not very fast and have very little, if any upgrade options. Refurbished may be your only option.

 

With these refurbished, “budget” laptops, I’m typically seeing 4GB RAM (sometimes 8GB, some DDDR3) with either 500 GB HDD or 32GB eMMC for about $149 to $230.

I assume that the HDDs are all upgradable, but I’m not seeing much information on whether or not additional RAM may be installed in most of these machines.

I’ve been getting by just fine on my desktop with 16GB RAM (4 × 4GB DDR3L-1600 UDIMM) and a 1TB HDD.

I see a lot of comparisons online for the relative speeds of eMMC to SSD, but not to RAM. But I’m guessing that RAM is faster than even SSD (or at least as fast). Could you comment on that?

I DO see an add at the link you sent me for a refurbished HP 15-cd040wm Pavilion Laptop with 12GB RAM, 1TB HDD and a 15.6" monitor for about $350.

And I was able to determine from this webpage that this machine can be upgraded to 16 GB of RAM.

Maybe I’m off-base here, but this seems like this might be a pretty good choice for me, even though it’s about twice as much as I had wanted to spend.

Any comments?

 

You don't normally compare SSDs to RAM. SSD (solid state drive) is your disk storage. They are normally compared to hard drives and are MUCH faster than hard drives.

If I had 8GB, I would probably consider upgrading to 16GB. But if I already had 12GB, probably not as it is not likely I would see any difference.

 

Avoid those like the plague, they'll require a lot more extra drive space during Win10's six monthly upgrade cycles. They're a lot slower than real SSDs as well.

 

To follow the most popular option by the vast majority of 'tech savvy' users, building your own system is not only considerably cheaper (as opposed to store shelf / sale-ready PCs e.g. Best Buy, Wal-Mart), but fully customizable giving you freedom from compromise. For instance... imagine you happen across a laptop that seems nearly perfect on the surface, judging by the summarized overview of it's specifications, and since it looks promising, you give it a more serious consideration by expanding the full details only to find it has a mechanical hard drive rather than solid state. Or maybe the CPU only has 4 cores when you had your heart set on 8. Maybe the screen is 16 inches when you wanted at least 19.

The point is... this kind of disappointment, no matter how minor or major, is completely avoided when you literally choose every last aspect of the computer when you build your own. Naturally, the biggest hang-up about going this route is a lack of knowledge or inability to assemble all those parts once you've actually received them. Sure, there are services you can seek to do this for you, but as a personal suggestion I'd like to offer as another alternative... (a suggestion which I have actual enthusiasm for yet rarely ever get to share)... digitally build it, and have your finished creation shipped to you ready to run.

Its My Absolute Fav brand name system for quite a few reasons, but something I particularly felt would appeal to you ... is the Chat feature available for building your customized computer. You seem like you might feel more comfortable and confident in your decisions if you had a guru as a guide, giving you expert knowledge to confer with as you go along.

However... although I find only one 'con' in going this route, this single downside might be more than enough to strike it off the list as not an option, no way, no how. Referring to one of your previous posts, you have a desktop computer that you consider just fine... so with that and the only mention of any kind of budget being $250 & $350 the cost would almost certainly be a deal breaker for you.

I haven't so much as even clicked on the laptop section, but looking at some of the cheaper desktops offered, I think the lowest price I saw was around $750, maybe $600. Although it may not serve to compensate for the cost (rather, it may, in fact, make it even less acceptable), but there is financing available through Affinity, offered in monthly payments over a course of 3, 6, or 12 months.

Frankly, this site provides high-end systems focused on and designed for intensive gaming, so honestly, if this isn't more along the lines of what you're looking for, it's not really the way you would want to go. I just truly swear by this brand, and will probably remain one of their loyal customers unless I learn of any other that can come close in comparison.

If your budget is significantly lower than what you can find on their official website, you might want to check Wal-Mart but I don't think they carry laptops from iBuyPower. At any rate, when it comes down to it, brand name means little... when the parts comprising your computer have ten different ones I'd go with building your own.

 

First off, the OP has stated he wants a laptop, thus this thread is about laptops, not PCs.

Second, the parts industry for home built laptops is virtually non-existant thanks to the lack of an ATX Form Factor standard for laptops.

Third, unless you already have several components on hand you can bring into your new build, as well as a "legal" license for Windows, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible for home builders to build a comparable system at a comparable price, let alone "considerably cheaper".

Why? Because Dell, HP and the others can go to Intel, AMD, Asus, Micron, Microsoft etc. and promise to buy 1,000,000 units over the next 12 months and therefore demand and get very substantial volume discounts. Home builders have no such clout.

Yes, home builders can compromise here and there based on their own needs, but don't think for a second the big factory makers don't make cost cutting compromises too. They tend to use cheaper, less flexible cases. Cheaper quality power supplies. Off-brand RAM and other less expensive components.

Yes, home builders avoid labor and mark-up charges, as well as profit margins, but that does not mean they get equal quality.

I always say I cannot compete in price with the factory builders, but I sure can build a better computer.

 

Sooo... there's absolutely no service that will custom make a laptop for you? Seems a bit hard to believe... I really wouldn't know. I would only ever have a laptop as a secondary/alternative device, and iBuyPower offers laptops as well, just fyi. Honestly, the option to finance was the deal 'maker' for me. I'm not exactly upper class... hell, I'm not even middle class. The only time I could afford to drop 2 g's on a damn computer system would be at tax time, and that much would be close to half my entire tax returns. Payment options are a highly appealing factor under my particular circumstances.

 

Who said that? I sure didn't.
I said,

If you do some research, you can find sites that will custom build a notebook for you. But if you look at the available options, they will be extremely limited and you will still end up with a proprietary notebook.

Look on Newegg for example. You will see the PC parts industry, thanks the ATX Form Factor standard, will let you buy a Gigabyte Intel motherboard, Crucial RAM, WD hard drive, Samsung SSD, MSI graphics card and an EVGA power supply and put them in any number of Fractal Design cases and you can be certain all the components will physically fit together properly for mounting and cable connections - then work perfectly together to run Windows and all your favorite programs.

Or, you could have selected an ASUS AMD motherboard, Corsair RAM, Seagate hard drive, Sandisk SSD, ASRock graphics card and a Seasonic power supply and put them any number of CoolerMaster cases and you can still expect all the components will physically fit and work perfectly together.

Now here's the best part. In two years, if you want, you can replace that Gigabyte or ASUS motherboard for a new MSI motherboard, and still use your old graphics card, power supply, drives, and case. Or take all your components out and put them in a new NZXT case.

The ATX Form Factor standard lets you mix and match components from 1000s of different manufacturers and you can be certain they will all be compatible. There is no such standard for notebooks.

 

Agreed.
In a nutshell...
Your options will be determined by the motherboard and the case.

 

Like a one of a kind laptop? A DIY in which you pick your own case, mobo, screen, etc. and assemble it yourself? We're not there yet.

 

Never will be either. At least not to any level anywhere near what the DIY market is for PCs.

The AT, then later the ATX form factor standards came about because Intel managed to get all the major hardware makers (and Microsoft) together in the same room and then got them all to agree on an industry standard for voltages, shapes, sizes, connectors, protocols, mounting hole locations (even screw thread counts!) and more so they could all compete with the IBM PC with their "IBM clones".

There is no way you (or Intel or anyone else) will ever be able to get Sony, Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, HP and Acer together and get them all to agree to use one industry standard form factor for things like notebook cases, batteries, charger voltages, connectors, and more.

Not even Intel was able to do it again when they introduced the short lived BTX Form Factor standard that never really got off the ground (the only good thing out of that was the option to move the "ATX" power supply to the bottom of the "ATX" case).

So we, the consumers, will always be the losers when it comes to choices in the notebook market.

I should, however, point out that much of this problem is our (consumers) own fault. We have demanded notebooks be thinner, lighter, more powerful and have longer batter run times. Those advances could not be possible (at least not in any timely basis) if all the major industry players had to agree on a form factor standard first.