Laptop Choice?

I know nothing about laptops or generally much about what makes a computer good. Which is unfortunate as I need a new laptop. I was thinking of getting something from the PC world sale, maybe in the £400-500 region:
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/sale-computing-274-commercial.html?intcmp=sale-banner--saveoncomputing-cp274-computing-241213#laptops

I need it for pretty basic work, so just all the MS Office stuff, but primarily for personal use, so, posting on LFGSS, looking at Strava, laughing at stuff written on the Guardian website etc

Someone please help a luddite. Any suggestions for things to look out for, brands to avoid etc etc would be appreciated.

You don't need MS Office for basic stuff. Get Libre Office as a free download, it'll work just as well.

If you have a good internet connection through most of the day then a Chromebook might suit you?

You don't need MS Office for basic stuff. Get Libre Office as a free download, it'll work just as well.

If you have a good internet connection through most of the day then a Chromebook might suit you?

These things look pretty good, I'd never heard of them - thanks for the heads up!

Are they basically just a step up from a tablet but not a full on laptop with all the nonsense that I probably won't need?

I tend to always get a decent connection yeh. Is that with reference to the cloud access?

It really is just internet browsing, streaming and downloading stuff (legally of course), moving info to and from mp3 player / garmin etc and basic word and excel that I need. So not much.

You might have difficulty getting the garmin to communicate with it, as it (a chrome-book) is all web based

^Sorry Branwen, you're gonna have to imagine you're talking to a caveman here...

Why is that? If it's got a usb port, can you not up load and download stuff? And will it work for trainerroad?

Chromebooks aren't based on Windows OS they are a Google based 'cloud' OS system (in very broad terms).

If you want to use 3rd party electronics I'd stick to a laptop with Win 8.1 if I were you.

I think the Garmin will be fine, as Chrome OS supports USB devices, but you might have to transfer files manually.

I think Trainerroad only works on Windows and maybe Mac OS. It doesn't support either Linux or Chrome OS yet (if ever).

I use a Garmin with Linux, which is pretty much the same experience as Chrome OS.

There are some issues.

Yeah you can work out routes on most routing websites, and export to GPX or some other format that the Garmin will recognise.

Yes you can transfer those to the Garmin and it will work wonderfully.

Yes you can update maps for free and other stuff really easy.

But... when it comes to something like a firmware update in the Garmin to solve some obscure bug that's affecting you. Well, now you're screwed. As Garmin Express is limited to only very popular OS's, and the web updater won't work as it only works by installing a listening service in Windows, etc.

The Linux and Chrome OS experience is that you can actually be in a far better place than most Garmin users 90% of the time, but that last 10% of the time will really bite your arse.

Oh, and the Garmin cloud stuff is fairly useless without their syncing software, so you'll be using something else like Strava or RideWithGPS to act as the web-based store of routes you've done, etc.

At least with Linux you can dual boot or run a Windows virtual PC to cover these cases. With ChromeOS you're screwed, aren't you?

That's true, but then... I never do dual-boot or run VMs with Windows.

With ChromeOS you cannot, at all, install Windows. But you could install Linux. Not sure what the point in that would be, but hey.

It's worth noting that there have only been 3 things that haven't 100% worked (including firmware updating) on Linux that I've used:
1) Garmin devices
2) Fitbit devices
3) Jawbone devices

Everything else has been perfect with no driver setup or config to worry about (so I assume it would be the same for ChromeOS).

But something about devices that need to "cloud sync" at some level means that you really need Windows or OSX to get the most out of them.

Your choice of downloading may not work, don't think they cope well with torrents or newsgroups.

There's a thread on them on here somewhere if you search.

Looking to pickup a new ultrabook for work - something like the Dell XPS 11 but I'm not fussed about touch screen.

around the 1k mark

Bump

get an HP or Lenovo, with SSD, and uninstall all the pre-installed vendor crap that comes with them.
done.

I have a few pals who got these from uni and they all love them.

Not sure if there is a newer thread but here goes....

Budget was £3-400 for a 15" ish laptop that was thin & light, no optical drive, but realised all the cheapies are rubbish at video and anything remotely demanding so budget upped to £500-600

Looking for a 13.5-15" light and thin job, needs to be able to manage more than 5 hours light use, but equally be able to crunch videos', big RAW files, have a decent screen (at this price point).

Lenevo Yoga 2 13.3" @ £599 looked about the deal but really not interested in touch screen fake tablet madness, so what else out there at that price offers more? As I figured that touch screen bollocks and fancy hinge removed probably makes it actually a £400/450 machine?

Other thing was a proper graphics card, do ANY <£600 ultrabooks (right term?) have them?

also after something similar. Any ideas?

You're asking for the impossible.

You want big number crunching with decent graphics card and enough (and fast) storage.

Yet you want a dirt cheap, small and light laptop.

Either you get small, cheap and light OR you get number crunching with decent graphics and storage.

The two do not meet in the price range you're talking about, you need to go a little higher. Even then you're going to sacrifice something until you push past the £1k mark.

If you were talking Macs you're talking about the McBookPro... which should give you an idea of where the price is.

For the Lenovo machines, the Yogas are OK so long as you go for the i5 CPU. But you'd do better with something from the X-range. Though they aren't as thin.

Meh, up the budget or lower the expectations.

I may be wrong, but I'm fairly certain graphics cards have nothing to do with rendering video* or how fast RAW files get processed?

When I say rendering video, I mean rendering applied effects in software like Adobe After Effects or encoding video to different formats etc. Not playing back pre encoded video...

You need CPU and RAM for crunching things

You are both wrong and right. Right and wrong.

The answer is: it depends.

It depends on the codecs, and whether or not the codecs can be run on the GPU and the software pipeline allows them to do so.

But the safest bet is always going to be to have a decent CPU. RAM won't help as much as an SSD will, as the volume of data being moved off disk and through the CPU will saturate RAM in all laptops.

I'm less fussed about graphics etc, but want something that'll last me a few years with a nice form factor. Everything at home already runs ubuntu so maybe something that would run that without driver issues, but with a similar form factor to a macbook air would be perfect...

Too much to ask for!

So,

Looking for a small, laptop for work. will largely be used as a thin client to a windows RDP session and to carry films and TV with me when I travel for work, which is often. the most complex computational task will be a pivot table.

The best I have come up with is the base model 13" Macbook Air.

Anybody have a better suggestion for similar money? Would trade some of the apple build quality for a loss in weight.

Yup I've upped the budget again, basically I could swing two ways...

1) spend just £300, get something thats newer with a warranty that will get it through 2 years and just deal with it being not that great at demanding things, but better than I have now
2) spend £750 on something that will work as I want it to, probably over the top really, but will do more like 4-5 years before I have to worry about it again, however 3 years of that are beyond the warranty.

Found something that will likely do, £750 from John lewis (better spec than from other places, reckon its specced for them), Lenevo U430, 14" ultrabook designated, just under 1.9kg, i7 4500/4510u, 8gb, 500GB HD + SSD, dedicated graphics card, 1080p screen, very good speakers + reasonable screen brightness.
Looks and feel's a bit like an Air, but 1" bigger and £500 less. There is a version with an I5 processor, 4gb, but still has the same graphics card for £699 but for £50 prob worth that £50 for the ram alone, some of the proper techy reviews show the I7 to be quite a lot beefier than the I5, and the I5 is probably more than good enough for what I want.

So, do I get something thats greater than I need, but very nice and won't fuss about anything I throw at it (if it does graphics then I'll prob get back into FPS games), but accept that after 2 years its the same old solid state laptop lottery. Or be sensible and spend less than half that, and know that for the period I need it for, shits covered?

I killed my kindles screen a few weeks back, my thinkbook has been dropped a few too many times (still Works but the screen will literally fall out soon), and I'm kinda taken buy the comfort browsing on a standard Ipad (not mine).

I am thinking of covering all of this With a single Asus T100 Chi purchase. I want some Laptop functionality. But nothing too demanding (simple document stuff Excel etc.). I want to be able to read my kindle books in relative Comfort (OK the screen isnt going to be as Nice to read on). And I want to use it as a tablet for web browsing, and Attached to the bike for turbo training.

The T90 Chi is going to be best for Reading in bed, and travelling.
The T100 is perhaps the best suited to web browsing.
The T300 is going to be better for Laptop use, and film watching.

I figured I'd stick to the middle ground and grab the T100.

Thoughts? oh glorious hive mind.

http://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_Transformer_Book_T300_Chi/
https://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_Transformer_Book_T100_Chi/
https://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_Transformer_Book_T90_Chi/

How are you getting on with the Lenevo @BrickMan?