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Thread: Buying a new laptop

  1. #201
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CJay View Post
    I'm hoping to get the Logitech MX2 (iirc). All the top tech people seem to love it. There's a more slimline mobile version as well, or the previous generations which at cheaper. The mx2 only came out this year I think.

    Do you not like trackpads?
    Depends on the trackpad but in my own error I never checked what was on the XPS before I bought and I see now it has no buttons. If it doesn't have an actual mechanical press for the buttons then it would drive me insane. The first thing I turn off on any laptop is the pad tap to click.

  2. #202
    Senior Member mugbull's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Giggles View Post
    Depends on the trackpad but in my own error I never checked what was on the XPS before I bought and I see now it has no buttons. If it doesn't have an actual mechanical press for the buttons then it would drive me insane. The first thing I turn off on any laptop is the pad tap to click.
    Interesting, that's what I turn on first. If i'm already using a trackpad then i just go all in, don't want to be pressing down to click. Might as well use a mouse at that point

  3. #203
    Senior Member CJay's Avatar
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    Yeah, you don't need buttons on a trackpad. It actually confuses me when I have to use one with buttons. Apple trackpads are miles better, but apparently Windows laptops have gotten better recently. I didn't realise top end laptops still had buttons.

  4. #204
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mokbull View Post
    Interesting, that's what I turn on first. If i'm already using a trackpad then i just go all in, don't want to be pressing down to click. Might as well use a mouse at that point
    That's why I want to buy a mouse.

    I inadvertently drag stuff all the time with those stupid touch ones. Worst thing about my work HP one is that you can't save it that it has to be clicked so you have to go into the control panel every time you switch on to change it.

    I used to love the little ball/stick thing they had on the IBM ThinkPads.

  5. #205
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    It does click thankfully. Might still get that mouse though.

    https://youtu.be/xCb3KlaQAKI

  6. #206
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    What's this Thunderbolt 3 port about? Most searches I've done seem to refer back to plugging in apple stuff, but it looks like a USB-C port. Is it just a standard one of those with a marketing name?

  7. #207
    Senior Member CJay's Avatar
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    It's a faster USB C port.

  8. #208
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    Happy days. Must get a few C to C cables.

  9. #209
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    The touchpad on the XPS isn't actually that bad as touchpads go. The touch to click is a whole lot less of a pain than it is on my HP one that I use for work, but for all the gestures they have it's shite that they don't have one for middle click (like the way you can click the scroll wheel on a real mouse to open a link in a new tab in Chrome).

  10. #210
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    I'm looking for something with a decent screen, SSD and decent battery life.

    http://www.argos.co.uk/product/6552624

    That looked perfect but they seem to be out of stock.

    Any suggestions?

  11. #211
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    What shops can I actually go into to buy a laptop? Pretty much the only place I can think of is Curry's.

  12. #212
    Administrator SvN's Avatar
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    I always use pcspecialist.co.uk

  13. #213
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    The custom built ones? I was looking at their laptops - are they any good? I like how with your normal name brands I can read proper reviews.

  14. #214
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boydy View Post
    What shops can I actually go into to buy a laptop? Pretty much the only place I can think of is Curry's.
    Do you have Harvey Norman or DID there?

    That said, online will be better. I just bought direct from Dell.

  15. #215
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    Also, the fact that it's 2017 and there are still so many 1366x768 screens about is disgusting.

  16. #216
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Giggles View Post
    Do you have Harvey Norman or DID there?

    That said, online will be better. I just bought direct from Dell.
    Harvey Norman only seems to sell furniture judging by their website? What's DID?

  17. #217
    Administrator SvN's Avatar
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    I use PCSpecialist for all of the PCs and laptops in my office. There's 3 laptops that are 4 years old* and 3 desktops that are anywhere between 3 years and 6 months old. All still run great and have never had any issues.

    *I did upgrade the laptops by installing an SSD about a year ago.

  18. #218
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boydy View Post
    Harvey Norman only seems to sell furniture judging by their website? What's DID?
    DID Electrical, though it may only be here.

    I'd have a check of Harvey Normans site if they operate there. They definitely do stuff like laptops, TV's, etc as well as the furniture.

    EDIT - yeah I see now. There seems to be loads more stuff on harveynorman.ie than is on the .co.uk one.

  19. #219
    Senior Member CJay's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boydy View Post
    I'm looking for something with a decent screen, SSD and decent battery life.

    http://www.argos.co.uk/product/6552624

    That looked perfect but they seem to be out of stock.

    Any suggestions?
    It’s in stock on Amazon. Probably more expensive than at Argos though. It’s probably got the best combination of decent screen and specs at this price range. I looked for quite a while for my wife before she told me she didn’t want to spend that much, at which point I told her she may as well just stick with her current crap one in that case. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01NCU9B..._vQUWzbYQ6WKHF

  20. #220
    Senior Member CJay's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boydy View Post
    Also, the fact that it's 2017 and there are still so many 1366x768 screens about is disgusting.
    FHD + 8gb ram + decent processor + ssd for under £500 is very hard to find. There seems to be a compromise in one of those factors with every laptop.

  21. #221
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    The RAM would probably the best one to scrimp on and so long as you can expand it. That said, it's about a decade since I bought RAM so it could be expensive now.

  22. #222
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CJay View Post
    It’s in stock on Amazon. Probably more expensive than at Argos though. It’s probably got the best combination of decent screen and specs at this price range. I looked for quite a while for my wife before she told me she didn’t want to spend that much, at which point I told her she may as well just stick with her current crap one in that case. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01NCU9B..._vQUWzbYQ6WKHF
    Yeah, £100 more though! Bit annoying when I know I could have had it for the Argos price.

    Quote Originally Posted by CJay View Post
    FHD + 8gb ram + decent processor + ssd for under £500 is very hard to find. There seems to be a compromise in one of those factors with every laptop.
    Yeah, it seems to be that way.

    I did find it on Debenhams for £510 but it's the gold version. Not sure about that.

  23. #223
    Bookie Sir Andy Mahowry's Avatar
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    I'd rather pay the extra cash from Amazon.

    Although you would look devilishly cute with it.

  24. #224
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SvN View Post
    I use PCSpecialist for all of the PCs and laptops in my office. There's 3 laptops that are 4 years old* and 3 desktops that are anywhere between 3 years and 6 months old. All still run great and have never had any issues.

    *I did upgrade the laptops by installing an SSD about a year ago.
    That's pretty impressive they're still going well. What models did you get?

  25. #225
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    What's my best way to connect a laptop to the TV to play games? There is a HDMI port on it, but is there something better that I can use from that Thunderbolt port?

  26. #226
    Senior Member CJay's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Giggles View Post
    What's my best way to connect a laptop to the TV to play games? There is a HDMI port on it, but is there something better that I can use from that Thunderbolt port?
    HDMI. Your thunderbolt ports are USB-C. If you had a USB-C monitor you could connect it and probably get display and power out of the single cable. At least that’s how it is on the new MBPs.

  27. #227
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CJay View Post
    HDMI. Your thunderbolt ports are USB-C. If you had a USB-C monitor you could connect it and probably get display and power out of the single cable. At least that’s how it is on the new MBPs.
    Grand job, I think I've a HDMI cable laying around and all.

    I might buy a monitor at some stage anyway so as I'm not hogging the telly.

  28. #228
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    https://www.cclonline.com/product/23...620-/NOT04488/

    That looks pretty decent but I can't find any indication of battery life.

  29. #229
    Senior Member CJay's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boydy View Post
    https://www.cclonline.com/product/23...620-/NOT04488/

    That looks pretty decent but I can't find any indication of battery life.
    http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/getpdf....99.pdf?ver=1.0

    Page 8.

  30. #230
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    Up to 12 hours? Holy shit.

  31. #231
    Senior Member CJay's Avatar
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    I’d be very surprised if that is a real world test. That’s probably best possible case i.e. lowest brightness setting, etc.

  32. #232
    Bookie Sir Andy Mahowry's Avatar
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    Indeed, it's probably closer to 8 in a real world test.

  33. #233
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    Yeah, obviously you won't get the full amount. But the best claim I've seen before that was 10 hours. So even claiming that many is impressive, assuming all the manufacturers' claims are just lies.

  34. #234
    Senior Member CJay's Avatar
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    From reviews it seems like you could easily expect 6 hours plus.

    https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-250....181969.0.html

    Looks like a good choice. I have no idea why they’ve slapped a vga port on it, though.

  35. #235
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    That's the G5. I can't seem to find any proper reviews for the one I linked (the G6).

  36. #236
    Senior Member CJay's Avatar
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    Fair point - thought it was just a different processor. It shouldn't be a worry, anyway. You going for it?

  37. #237
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    Yeah, think I'm going to.

  38. #238
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    Ordered it. Holding you responsible if it's no good, @CJay.

  39. #239
    Senior Member CJay's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boydy View Post
    Ordered it. Holding you responsible if it's no good, @CJay.


    My real advice is to buy a MacBook Pro.

  40. #240
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    I need Windows.

  41. #241
    Senior Member Pepe's Avatar
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    I thought you could install Windows on Macs nowadays.

  42. #242
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    What would be the point?

    Also MacBook Pros are far too expensive anyway.

  43. #243
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boydy View Post
    What would be the point?

    Also MacBook Pros are far too expensive anyway.
    They can boot either once you do. But yeah, when I was looking lately I was shocked by how expensive they are.

  44. #244
    Senior Member Boydy's Avatar
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    I was shocked by how much some of the high end Windows laptops were too. Some of the 'best laptops' reviews lists I was looking at had ones that were £1500+

  45. #245
    ram it up your shitpipe Giggles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boydy View Post
    I was shocked by how much some of the high end Windows laptops were too. Some of the 'best laptops' reviews lists I was looking at had ones that were £1500+
    Mine was €1700 (though I didn't pay the VAT and got it for around €1350), but even in that range there always seems to be a compromise. Screen was mine.

  46. #246
    Bookie Sir Andy Mahowry's Avatar
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    I paid just under £1500 for mine.

    512GB SSD and 4k monitor though.

  47. #247
    Senior Member Spikey M's Avatar
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    My laptop is going massively on the go slow at the moment. Football Manager was almost unplayable last night. I’m going to defrag, clean the hard drive etc today but at 5 years old I think it’s knackered.

    Anyone seen any good offers? I don’t need anything fancy, my current one was only £300

  48. #248
    Pretty Much Amazing Mike's Avatar
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    Spend £80 and stick an SSD in. It’ll feel like new and get you another year out of it.

  49. #249
    Senior Member Spikey M's Avatar
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    Yeah, I’m not poncing about with the thing. I had to google what an SSD was and I’m still not sure. Unless it’s plug and play it’s a no go.

  50. #250
    Senior Member niko_cee's Avatar
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    Replacing the HD with an SSD is piss easy (I managed it following this). Paid £110 for a 480gb ssd and it has improved the thing a lot. New lease of life and all that. Stuck a bit more RAM in for good measure as well, which set me back about £40.

    Had to replace the keyboard at the same time which was a more mixed exercise on the success front.

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