Laptop Purchase Advice under $1000

teehee on 05/08/2015 - 12:05
Last edited 05/08/2015 - 12:36 by 1 other user

Hi all looking to purchase a laptop under 1000 for mainly movies, browsing and occasional light gaming (rts, rpg). prefer 15" 1080 screen for movies.

Dont mind if its refurbished. can use educational discount

ive been looking at a few options:

including lenovo e550, Y50 (which is 100 over my budget) and dell outlet one with radeon m270 $999) http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/product…

i dont quite understand why the machines with the 840m are so cheap when its a significantly superior graphics card?(even if its a 768 screen). and can the integrated batteries be replaced? does the dell outlet accept educational discounts or eligible for any cashback?

thanks again everyone

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  Nerazzuro on 05/08/2015 - 12:16

  I'm also looking for this!

  Was close to getting the Lenovo e450 deal when it was on…

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  stargalaxy on 05/08/2015 - 12:42

  http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/131498284724?_trksid=p2060353.m27…

  Office bought this one, it is nicely built and pretty good for the price.

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    teehee on 05/08/2015 - 14:24

    the graphics card is pretty standard on that otherwise it would be ok

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  Zachary on 05/08/2015 - 16:14

  For light gaming, any laptop with a 840M or 940M or AMD's equivalent(not sure what they are as I'm usually an nVdia fan boy) should get you going well.

  If you can somehow find one with a GTX850M or the newer model GTX950M(again, any AMD equivalents to these), for around $1k - that should be perfect for what you're doing(though might be a little overkill if you're only light gaming, IMO; though might help if you're light gaming on 1920x1080 res(of course it depends on what context you mean light gaming by; light gaming as in playing not so hardware demanding games or light gaming in you play very hardware demanding games but not more than 2(or less) hrs a day straight))!

  I don't know how you will be able to get a 1920x1080 res screen on there for around $1k(along with either a entry level graphics cards or mid-range ones), but good luck searching…

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    teehee on 07/08/2015 - 13:01

    well the lenovo i5 with 960m gt is going for $1050ish after educational discount and cashrewards.

    not sure whether thr m270 is going to be like gaming wise but ill only play once a every few weeks, no time anymore

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      Zachary on 07/08/2015 - 13:27

      Oh nice, you found a laptop with a GTX 960M for $1050! Good job.

      Is the Lenovo any one of these: http://shopap.lenovo.com/au/en/laptops/lenovo/y-series/y50/ ? Wait it would be the first one that's priced at $1,199.00 with the coupon discount(or that's without coupon and with the coupon you get it for $1050?). Nice find, you got a nice mid-range graphics card AND a 1920x1080 res screen!

      Though be wary of postage and handling as that might kill that deal….you know like $100 postage and handling, of if it's free - good!

      Hm, in regards to m270, check here: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark… It seems to list all mobile graphics cards in order of performance, from top performing card(s) to the lowest. Looking at the site, it would appear that the AMD Radeon R9 M270 (95th place) is weaker than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M which his in 49th place.

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        teehee on 07/08/2015 - 13:31

        yep its the $1199 free postage almost ready to go with it. will need to buy an ssd at some point though a dthe just 5hours battery tme doesnt seem like much? I imagine it will end up being closer to 3 in real life scenarios

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        Zachary on 07/08/2015 - 13:50

        +1

        @teehee: It will be 5 hrs when you use it brand new. But eventually battery wear will come in and yeah, you will get less than 5 hrs of battery life each time you use your laptop powered by the battery.

        I used to have a good 3 hr working life on my battery for my laptop, now it's about 1 hr, maybe less(don't remember now), when I power it via the battery. And eventually if your battery degrade fast enough, it will get windows saying you need to replace the battery ASAP, or else bad things will happen.

        Don't worry, Windows is just letting you know that your battery charge is less than 40% of its original maximum charge value, even if you charge it all the way to full, the full charge now is still not as high as the original full charge value that the manufacturer gave you, when new.

        That's what the charge cycle information is there for, in the battery section - how much full charge cycles can your batter last before it becomes completely unusable. Oh, just checked the tech spec page and they don't seem to list the charge cycles, hm…

        Oh well just be prepared for your battery to not last as long as specified. You can always just run it straight from your charger, so just remove your battery(probably best not to remove this whilst your laptop is on) and work from there, that way your battery doesn't degrade as fast. Oh yeah, and if you do this way, be prepared for any brown/blackouts you might get…..

        And the other things too to consider like storing your battery in good cool place and not to have your battery charged more than 40%(if for long term storage) and keep checking on your batter every two or so months to make sure it's still got charge and if it doesn't charge it up a bit more so it makes the 40% or around that mark and then take it out and put it in storage. Don't leave it completely flat and store it or don't leave it completely fully charged and then store it, though the latter is still a better than the former.

        This is what I'm currently doing to preserve whatever's left of my battery, running on my charger and if a blackout/brownout occurs, well there goes my work or and whatever else I was doing before it happened…

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  leighjames on 05/08/2015 - 16:41

  Lenovo Yoga well worth a look, MS Surface, Apple Air