Be Excellent To Each Other

I'm shopping for a laptop. It's an absolute nightmare. Laptop manufacturers seem to think it's ok to produce thousands of identical laptops with names that only differ by one letter or number without actually explaining what the bloody differences are, requiring you to manually compare a million different variables and at the end of the day most of the differences don't matter. Why hasn't a manufacturer just made a website where you go on, select a case size, select a few of the inside bits et voila, it spits out a price at you. Some, like Lenovo, allow you to customize what you're getting, so the idea is halfway there...

I feel like just giving up and buying an expensive Macbook, simply because they've sorted it all out and only made 3 models. But I'm not probably not going to buy a Macbook, as they're expensive, small and most of all I'm not a giant ponce.

THINGS I THINK I WANT (in order of importance)

• Either comes with an SSD, or I can easily swap out the optical drive with an SSD. If it has no optical drive then I'll swap the HDD.
• 14-17 inch ? Probably 15?
• A not-shit keyboard. And either a not-shit trackpad or a track-NIPPLE.
• Graphics that are capable of OpenGL 4.x and DirectX 11.x -- it doesn't have to be fast, it simply has to support that API level
• Does not heat up to nuclear temperatures and make as much noise as a vacuum cleaner
• More than 4GB RAM?
• Not-shit processor?
• Prefer higher battery life?
• The moon on a stick?

My main uses are for internet and programming things. I don't particularly want to play decent games on it, other than the amazing ones I make myself. Budget: No more than £600? Maybe? Less? One of those cheapo £350 ones? I HAVE NO IDEA. Too many options.

Thanks.

I sympathise because it is absolutely a fucking minefield. The worst thing is when some companies refresh their line every year or so and us incredibly similar model numbers every year (I'm looking at you HP!) so if you're Googling for reviews and/or actual stock you never know which versions you're looking at.

I just noticed this deal and I've heard good things about the Surface Pro machines:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/microso ... od-1923230

It's a first gen machine admittedly and you'd need to get one of those type cover things to give you a physical keyboard but it's pretty powerful for such a portable machine and that's over £100 off Amazon's current price for it. I think APOD has one and he seems to be around so he could possibly comment on how good they are in general?

Heh, except it's only a ten inch screen which I didn't realise and makes it useless to you. That'll teach me not to read a single post!

Surface pro is great if it fits with your usage case. Mine is Notepad 40%, Tablet (not on the go) 40%, laptop 20%. I've seen nothing since that comes close to offering what the surface does for that.

As a permanent laptop replacement however it would drive you crazy for the lack of positioning options and flat keyboard.

These are both resolved on the surface pro 3 which is also svelter and 12" screen. But that's on a three month lead time to dispatch and destroys your budget.

How set in stone is your budget?
There's a very nice i7 with 1080p screen (most manufacturers seem to want you to buy a 1366x768 POS), 8GB RAM and a decent graphics card for £679

http://www.dmxdimension.com/dell-uk/ins ... iron15-new

PC Pro ran a budget laptop megatest in their most recent issue.

Winner was the ASUS X552CL at £400 - http://www.ebuyer.com/579678-asus-x552c ... 2cl-sx047h

Very nice specs for the price (discrete GPU for example), but the standard 1366x768 screen.

The premium you pay for laptops with a pre-fitted SSD is still totally mental for some reason (considering how cheap they are to buy separately), so I'd definitely say buy a decently specced laptop in all other areas and then fit your own SSD and save a fortune.

Thanks for the suggestions. There's a PC world 5 minutes walk way, so I'm going to exploit their physical presence and go about mashing my hands on keyboards there, looking at sizes etc. Then I'll probably buy something online and contribute to the decline of physical shops.

I'd looked at but discounted the Surface pro -- I'd be doing a lot of typing on this thing, so I'd have to buy another 150 quid for the keyboard? (Or can I use one of my ps/2 or usb keyboards?). I already have a 10 inch Android tablet, and my girlfriend won a free iPad air the other week. So to me the surface fits into the same category? I'll take a look tomorrow though. (Also, I think I looked at the PRO 2s, which are more expensive).

I'd come to the same conclusion regarding SSDs. They jack the price up by hundreds for some reason, whereas I could just buy one off the shelf and stuff it in myself. ODD.

Infact why can't I buy laptops like I buy desktops? I buy a case, buy some bits, stuff them in myself, et voila.


ps: Macbooks appear to be on some kind of sale on amazon right now, and might even be cheaper elsewhere. But it's currently £666 for a 2013 Macbook air, so they're not as overpriced as I thought (mainly from looking at the Apple website). There's still the ponce factor to consider, though. But at least I'd be able to run XCode on it and therefore make apps for apple things.

USB should work but there's only one USB. And the single screen angle is, like I say, a bitch for extended use as a laptop

Found this on the PC World Website

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-n ... 8-pdt.html

Bit like the surface Pro, but you get the keyboard in the price £549.00. Also has 64GB system SSD and 500GB data drive.

The claim that the price includes a £250 discount as well (RRP is £799.00)

Has any one bought a lappy from the States? If so where are the best sites for 'em?

Cheers

Have a try on a MacBook Air in PC World and see what you think. Bear in mind you don't have to run OS X on it if you don't want to - Windows does work extremely well natively via Boot Camp, though obviously Macs don't actually come with Windows, so you'd need to purchase that separately. But you might be surprised. I genuinely think Apple's build quality is pretty much unsurpassed, and the trackpads on them are an absolute revelation - particularly when you factor in some of the gesture stuff you can do in OS X.

The sale is probably trying to clear old stock as Apple have just released spec bumps across the range of MacBook Airs - but it's a very inconsequential bump, all considered. Now would be a good time to buy a Late-2013 MBA if you can find one at the right price.

Edit: also you live near Watford, don't you? I work for an Authorised Apple Service Centre - which I'm afraid doesn't mean discounts (at least nothing meaningful), but does mean if you have any warranty issues, I *may* be able to help.

Thanks for the offer, but it's TOO LATE! My new laptop came yesterday

I did go into PC World and tinker on a Macbook air. I liked it. What I didn't like about the Macbook air was paying a bazillion quid for a i5-4250U, 4GB ram.

Though I realised I wanted a 15 inch one, rather than 13 or 11. I just thought they were a bit on the small side for my use case, though I definitely see the utility for an ultrabook/macbook if you're travelling around with it tucked under your arm. And if you're going 15 inch I don't see the point in getting an air-like one in terms of thinness (i.e. an ultrabook), as it's already pretty sizable just due to the width of it.

So I ended up buying

• Acer E1 572 (Amazon was the second cheapest place I could find this i7 one)
• Samsung 840 EVO 250GB (though I only paid £85 for it...)
• A caddy to stick the stock 1TB HDD into the DVD drive so I can have the SSD as the system drive.

Acer E1 572
Pros:

• Mainly: The specs for the price. £500 = i7 4500U + 8GB ram + 1TB drive + DVD
• The DVD is important so I can put the HDD in the DVD drive's place and use an SSD drive as the main thing.
• They have E1s in PCWorld so I could go and see that I didn't hate the keyboard, that I could actually type on it without continually mashing the mouse cursor about the place, or that it wasn't made of plastic that snaps in half when you pick it up (though it does have a bit of 'flex' in the lid. Whatevs).
• It's wasn't utter shit

Cons:

• The screen doesn't have a large resolution (1366 x 768)
• The actual screen itself is pretty bad.
• The trackpad isn't so great, but I can deal with it.
• Doesn't have a huge battery life of the ultrabooks, though in theory it should be decent enough. I'll put it to the test tonight.

With the HDD it booted to login prompt in 15s at the fastest (30s at the slowest) and then another 20s to be ready on the desktop. With the SSD installed it takes about 5 and 10. It takes me longer to type my password in correctly than the entire boot process!


ps: The aspiring laptop searchers, I found Notebookcheck.net very useful. It appears to be run by Germans and as such they go into every inane detail, including how easy it is to unscrew and specifics about the temperate gradient across the laptop as it's running.


pps: Zoidberg, I looked at that Dell Inspiron. I think I remember disliking the typing on it? It was high up the list of potentials though, based on the specs/£.



If you're physically going then it's usually worth it (assuming you want a US keyboard..). Is it worth it for online orders? You get slammed by HMRC for VAT on arrival. Also: I've seen lots of US people buying from newegg, but I have no idea about their shipping etc.

Being stuck in Baku my local options are fairly limited.

There are a large number of international 'forwarders' available that are used by the expats over here with the shipping costing between 70-100 bucks.

With regards to local taxes it seems it's a bit hit or miss...it seems to depend if the Customs man dealing with the shipment has had his morning cup of coffee.