After a few hours research I bought a Dell Inspiron 15 from the ebay 20% off sale as it was the cheapest laptop with dedicated graphics to play some old games
advertised price $699.00
price after 20% off $559.20
2% cash rewards as well
best value for the specs I could find on the interwebs
But who uses it though, a lot don't have any.
what % of users do you think will ever use >100 on their personal laptop?
what % of users do you think
I would… All PC's / laptops at our place are wired…
= 100%
I'm gonna call bullsh*t on that.
Call what you like.
We wired all our rooms when we renovated. Only the phones (and the Wii U) use the wireless…
100 Mbps is just too slow when copying large files across the network…
@jv: I believe you re-wired. I just find it hard to believe everybody in your house with a laptop has a network cable to attached to it at all times.
i got the older better built version of this from the direct factory outlet for $399 i5 4200u :) .. 12 months warranty! and its in great condition.
this ones not the best at all. got one in the office its so bendy!
haha what it bends? like the iphone6+?
I'm only buying tech that is made from heavy duty reinforced steel from now on.
the plastic flexes everywhere you press
The design looks almost identical to the laptop I had in the 90s.
Nothing like a nineties laptop if you really saw it.
If i was on a budget I'd get the one above this for ~$680. It has double the RAM (8GB), double the hard drive space (1TB) and better processor (an i7 with 4MB cache instead of i5). And only 120 bucks more.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Dell-Inspiron-15-3000-Series-HD-L…
But I think the best deal on Dell is for this 15 5000.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Dell-Inspiron-15-5000-Series-Lapt…
Only $999 for
-i7 Fourth Gen with 4MB cache
-Full HD IPS display 1920x1080
-AMD Radeon HD R7 2GB Graphics
-16GB RAM 1600Mhz
-1TB Hybrid with 8MB cache
-Looks a lot better!
yeah for $1k that is a much better laptop
Worth every bit of penny stretching.
Is there a version of this but with SSD?
It would be far cheaper to buy this and upgrade to an SSD yourself. It'll cost you an arm and a leg to buy a Dell with SSD configured.
None of the Dell PCs sold via their ebay store include the OS/installation media.
How do you do a clean install on an SSD without it?
Take out old hard drive, put in SSD and install Windows from USB.
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/a/install-windows-8-…
OR
If you dont have a Windows copy handy. Get a Data Transfer Kit and connect SSD via USB to your laptop and clone the hard drive. Take out old hard drive and put in SSD and you're good to go.
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/laptop/3366618/how-upgrade…
It would be far cheaper to buy this and upgrade to an SSD yourself.
won't that void the warranty though?
warranty nowadays is for parts only
What I did was I took out HDD, put the SSD in. Also took out the ODD and bought a Caddy Bay from eBay and put my HDD there. Too easy :)
No. PC manufacturers still want us to believe an SSD is a luxury only suitable for laptops that run into four figures. And that 500GB 5400rpm rpms are better.
Wow that laptop is a colossal failure of engineering. Take a decent low power processor similar (same?) as a Macbook Air, and absolutely squander every single benefit it offers. Put in an utterly oversized 15.6" chassis. Add in a DVD drive, because now we have too much space, even though no one in their right mind wants a DVD drive in a laptop they want to carry around. Blu ray, maybe, there might be a day you will find that useful. But DVD? When $40 odd gets you blazingly fast 128GB USB drives. Slot in the most awful 15.6" display you can find that makes the worst of the large screen size. Forget Apple, Asus manages to put that CPU in a 1.45 KG chassis: http://www.saveonit.com.au/index.php?url=products/productdet…
This starts at 2.4kg. For a ULV processor.
Add in a worthless video card, that isn't really better than integrated graphics in any meaningful way as you'll realize when you try to game on this. Some delightful crapware from McAfee and friends. A woeful 4 cell battery. No backlit keyboard. Skimp in every possible way on the things that will actually matter in the experience of using the computer.
There's cheap and there's nasty. This is nasty. This for example is a laptop in this price range that is not utterly a travesty: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/170348
Dell needs to die. Evaporate. At least their consumer hardware.
trying to separate the emotion from the facts here.
genuinely interested - as if it's as bad as you say it is - I can probably still cancel the transaction.
the computer you linked (that is now $899…) - has integrated graphics. will that perform better than the dell when gaming?
The dell has a very low end graphics card. It will perform better in gaming, but only slightly.
It pisses me off when manufacturers take advantage of consumers' lack of knowledge of graphics cards' model numbers and put in low end cards that are barely better than the integrated graphics that serve no purpose other than to drain battery life and be a waste of silicon.
They are both terrible for gaming, slightly less terrible isn't going to help much. For gaming you're really looking at four figures for anything useful. Look for deals on logical blue one. They tend to have decent graphics cards. The graphics card is almost always the bottleneck for laptop gaming. Not the video ram (the 2 GB isn't going to do much here because of the lack of horse power).Not cpu.
I am not sure you can do much better for 550ish, so it depends on how far your budget stretches. The worst thing here is the ultrabook low power cpu in a big heavy chassis. The rest is par for the course in this range.
Want portability find a 13/14 inch.
Don't get a 15.6 inch with a 1366 768 resolution. Even though they are everywhere. Get a high res 15 inch if you're going that big.
That Dell someone linked for 960 after discount is an awesome deal and the minimum you want for any gaming.
That Dell is almost twice the price, sure it has a 1080p screen, but the M265 wouldn't be able to run any games at that res, it's barely better then the 820M, if at all. It also has the same CPU.
Yes you're right. Slightly better CPU but the i7 name is a misnomer. Graphics card does seem a fair bit better: http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-R7-M265.109394.0.htm…
Just buy this: http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/y-series/y40/
USe a forwarder if you can get them to ship to one. Incredible deal. Get third party warranty or insurance if you're worried. You still come out way ahead, and you'll be paying twice as much for a better portable gaming machine than that.
You hurt Michael's feelings :(
Actually, I wouldn't buy a laptop without a DVD drive. I'm old fashioned like JV in that regard.
Inspiron 3000 series chasis looks cheap and nasty. If you're a metallic chauvinist like most Apple users, go for at least 5000 series.
Sorry OP but I bought an inspiron 3000 a few months back and the build is absolutely rubbish. When I open and close the lid it bends!!!
Made out of plastic so I assumed it wouldnt last that long esp with kids around.
Lucky they do have a 14 days return policy so got my money back.
Have a look at their refurbished/as new link (dont have it handy will find soon). Huge discounts
That's crap. My $50 2nd hand Lenovo is indestructible and it was made in y2006.
The 820M is absolute rubbish - basically no better than using the integrated graphics. At a minimum, you want the 128-bit 850M for any gaming laptop.
I looked at some game benchmarks for the HD4400 and the 820M and the 820M trounced it. The 840M was better again.
With the 840M you should be able to play most games at low to medium settings at 1366x768 with a playable framerate. I've seen videos of people playing Far Cry 4 at a good framerate on an 840M.
Why anyone would want to game on a laptop beats me. So many compromises. And keyboards just don't feel right.
I agree personally, but for some space is an issue. Also portability might be a requirement
I just went to JB and had a play with some Inspiron 3000s, they weren't THAT bad. Sure they are all plastic and cheaply made, but what do you want for that price? I grabbed one of these for $679, it should be fine. JB wanted $998 for it!
As long as it's better than an Inspiron 1520 from 2008 I'll be happy :)
Good to hear this, I too ordered one after countless hour research. Got words from mate saying that it's not bad for gaming, and for that price, couldn't ask for more.
what ???
Does it have dial up too ?