best lap top under $500

[paceman]

Sorry to throw a spanner in the works here but I would be looking to swap out the hard drive for an SSD. After many hours of corrogations a mechanical hdd may not be too impressed with the rough ride. Just sayin'
Maybe your external hdd would be in the same boat, or 100 series. 

+1

They are a nice cheap upgrade to a laptop nowadays...

[Bird]

+1


They are a nice cheap upgrade to a laptop nowadays...

they aren't cheap for a decent size sadly otherwise it would be a great idea as he wants to use it for storage of photos/movies...

[jetcrew]

http://www.computeralliance.com.au/hp-250-g3-l9v92pa-15.6-core-i5-notebook-windows-8.1

Hows this look after re-looking with comments posted in mind

Up to $600 max now and loking for best processor and 4 gb

the 500gb is fine as I will have external hard drives, this home PC only has 500 and its served me fine .

seems like a good unit.. 

[filcar]

they aren't cheap for a decent size sadly otherwise it would be a great idea as he wants to use it for storage of photos/movies...

$205 for Samsung 500GB at MSY. MSY may be worth checking out for a cheap laptop too, Bendale would probably be closest to jetcrew.

http://www.msy.com.au/home.php

[tryagain]

http://www.computeralliance.com.au/hp-250-g3-l9v92pa-15.6-core-i5-notebook-windows-8.1

Hows this look after re-looking with comments posted in mind

Up to $600 max now and loking for best processor and 4 gb

the 500gb is fine as I will have external hard drives, this home PC only has 500 and its served me fine .

seems like a good unit..

I think that looks like a pretty good deal which will do everything you want, as others have said a SSD (solid state drive) as opposed to a the traditional HDD with it's moving parts is worth considering, you could ask them how much it would cost to upgrade too one and then decide if its worth it, I havent mentioned it as I normally hate it when someone is looking for something with a specified budget and people recommend things 50% more expensive. Have a read here and it will spell out the differances, they used to be a lot more expensive but prices have come down a lot lately.

[jetcrew]

thanks mate i found a good site to bring up comparisons and did a lot of reading on intel Vs AMD and the HP here has an A6 Quad which for the money scores pretty good on the cpu compaoro test thing . So need to compare that against the other one ..funilly enough the one we have is HP and they seem to do plenty of ports and stuff and they look sleek.

http://www.thegoodguys.com.au/CompareProductsDisplayView?storeId=900&catalogId=30000&langId=-1&compareReturnName=Laptops%20&%20Notebooks&searchTerm=&categoryId=11530&catentryId=765502;731003;731010;731012&returnUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegoodguys.com.au%2Fcomputers-tablets-and-accessories%2Fdesktop-and-laptop%2Flaptops-and-notebooks%3FfromPage%3Dcompare%23facet%3A11211410599101956585685840123534848325648481253256484841%26productBeginIndex%3A0%26orderBy%3A0%26pageView%3Agrid%26minPrice%3A%26maxPrice%3A%26pageSize%3A%26

[jetcrew]

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-5200U-vs-AMD-A6-6310

Above are the scores for the 2 processors for the 2 HP ..it seems there are good buys on the HP ..of note is the i5 machine comes with windows 8 and the AMD has windows 10.

I will call them up on Monday and see if they can have windows 10 on it not even sure they are same model as good guys keep the model off the spec sheet.

If i can score the i5 machine with windows 10 thats a good deal from what i have learnt .

Thanks for all your help i have learnt more about computers and cpu etc today then I have learnt in my whole life 

[filcar]

http://cdn.msy.com.au/Parts/notebook.pdf

First unit on Mainstream 3 page 3 of the pdf,  $519

HP 15-AF124AU(P4Y45PA)
CPU: AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 2.0GHz
64bit OS: Windows 10
RAM: 8GB DDR3
HDD: 1TB SATA
Graphic: Radeon HD Graphics
Integrated VGA
Screen: 15.6” LED Screen
*1yr Warranty *DVD Writer *Spk,Mic,HD Webcam
*WiFi *Card Reader *USB3.0 *HDMI *2.19kg

[jetcrew]

Thanks filcar my eyes were shot but then i found the zoom feature

been doing some more research and in basic terms when looking at adds these are the scores out of 10 for the following these are not the best just the common ones in the cheaper lap tops

1st - i5 5200u            8.0/10
2nd - i35005u           7.9/10
3rd  - A6 6310           6.8/10
4th - Pentium n3700  6.7/10
5th - A4 6210             6.6/10
6th - A6 5200             6.2/100
7th - Celeron 3050     6.1/10

So when reading adds look for the actuall model of the AMD A6 as you can see 1 of them comes 3rd and the other 6th .

I am no expert just spent an arvo reading and looking into it all hope that helps another novice when trying to work out whats what.

i have made up a reference sheet with all the ones in my price bracket to compare prices and equip.
Jet

Jet


 

[BrisVegasGolfer]

I've bought a couple of these style laptops in the last 6 months.  I got a Lenovo Yoga for me with a 128Gb SSD and Intel i5.  Brilliant computer, but over your budget.

This week I got a similar, slightly downspec Acer Aspire R3-131T-P9TP 11.6" 2-in-1 Laptop for $528 http://www.harveynorman.com.au/acer-aspire-r3-131t-p9tp-11-6-2-in-1-laptop.html .  Tradeoffs for the price...it's got a traditional 500Gb HDD, lower res screen and not as good a CPU (still quad core Intel though).  It's got proper USB slots, LAN port and HDMI out.  Good little rig and will do my kid for a few years at high school.  It's a good size to throw in a bag or in the glovebox too.

[Bird]

Don't forget to look at the video card and screen resolution.. some of them are only 1366 x 768 and trust me you don't want to look at photos and movies on them...

[achjimmy]

For my money you can't go past a Dell Latitude. They are a business grade laptop and really good value for money if you can pick one up from their factory outlet. Unfortunately they are out of stock ATM so it depends on how much time you have..

Dell Outlet

Plus whatever

[Hairs]

2011 We bought from the same Ebay Seller the unit I am posting on now.
Not there is nothing wrong with the laptop(ATM), but we needed another unit.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/171928945734?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
Works a treat, maybe we were lucky 

[jetcrew]

in relation to the dell

well I'll be came across this on the JB site will drop in there tomorrow and see if they actually have stock .


https://www.jbhifi.com.au/computers-tablets/laptops/dell/dell-inspiron-15-3000-15-6-laptop/944781/

Dell have them on sale with the pentium N3700 for $449
http://www.dell.com/au/p/inspiron-15-3552-laptop/pd?oc=z510433au&model_id=inspiron-15-3552-laptop

think i might just go that way if they can supply as our home Pc is dell and still going and comes in under my $500 budget and the pentium is no slouch for what i want to do . and no bad reviews i could find for build quality and robustness which is what i will need .

its only  15.6-inch HD (1366 x 768) Truelife LED-Backlit Display  I know thats lower BIRD but I need to pick something and under $500 something is a sacrifice

jet

[Bird]

take a USB with some photos and a movie on it and see how it looks.

[jetcrew]

take a USB with some photos and a movie on it and see how it looks.

will do mate I will hit the shops and have a feel over a few tomorrow with a usb in hand but i,m not sure i will find better than that in the sub $500

jet

[McGirr]

Traveling on the road since Jan 2015 we use a basic laptop computer and carry 2 x 1 Terra bite hard drives. It stores all our pics and movies we have downloaded.

Mark

[tryagain]

think i might just go that way if they can supply as our home Pc is dell and still going and comes in under my $500 budget and the pentium is no slouch for what i want to do . and no bad reviews i could find for build quality and robustness which is what i will need .

its only  15.6-inch HD (1366 x 768) Truelife LED-Backlit Display  I know thats lower BIRD but I need to pick something and under $500 something is a sacrifice

jet

I have heard people say that Dell's business grade computers (which people have been reccomending) are excellent but their consumer grade computers are not in the same league and can be a little hit and miss especially with age, it's probably not too different to any of the other brands though.  For the price range your looking at HD instead of FHD is a sacrifice thats made but I personally dont think it's as big of a one as alot make out and will be no worse than what you are using now. Bird suggestion of having a look it the flesh is the way to go, sure FHD looks better but HD isnt bad. I personally would still go This one over the Dell for the extra $15. Also fyi all windows 7 & 8 computer's can upgrade free to 10 for free until the end of July so it doesnt really matter what it comes with.

[jetcrew]

At jb and they have a

Lenovo G50 -45
Amd A6 6310
8Gb ram
1Tb hdd

$599

SEEMS A WELL BALANCED SYSTEM  being told windows 10 will eat up 2gb of ram

Many systems with i3 have 4gb ram ..bloke reckons better with the A6 and 8 gb ram than an i3 with 4gb ram

Thoughts on that

Jet

[Bird]

if ya happy - go with it... good chance you could upgrade it to Windows 7 as well

[jetcrew]

if ya happy - go with it... good chance you could upgrade it to Windows 7 as well

Lol mate 


I did drop into the pc shop as well and he offered a good one

Hp
I3 4th gen
8gb
500hd
$600 or upgrade to the latest gen i3 for $75 more

He realky took the time to explain the differences and spent 30min with us ..i will prob buy from him as a small store with excellent chstomer service ..they deserve the sale

So i beacket crept only $100 not bad i compred the A6 to the 4th gen i3 and the i3 still won out.

He also said he can replace the disk drive with a 128 solid state for $150 uf i feel i want more zing but not likley for me .

So an i3 is more than enough fir my needs and ge preferrs intell in laptops he said ..he uses amd in towers but reckons the amd run a little warmer in laptops ...not sure uf thats true but he did not try the hard sell ir anything .

He actalky listened to what we wanted instead of just pointing at 2k machines like harvey norman did

I showed him tne soecs on philcars link and he even agreed it was very good value ..just swap out the 5th gen a6 to an i3 .

Nearly there now having a coffe as my head hurts

[Fizzie]

Theo

The local shop's offer sounds pretty good so I'd go with him rather than any of the big boys.

Ask him if he can load Windows 7 into it - the bloke I deal with refuses to have anything to do with 10, & installs 7 on all his shop build / refurb'ed machines! 

[jetcrew]

Theo

The local shop's offer sounds pretty good so I'd go with him rather than any of the big boys.

Ask him if he can load Windows 7 into it - the bloke I deal with refuses to have anything to do with 10, & installs 7 on all his shop build / refurb'ed machines! 

was nearly there till he tried to give me a bum steer on the i3 ..I wa susing my myswag knowledge and using the comparion tool to check performance and he was tellibng me the 13 was a better version than what it was. he claims to have no meant to but it put me off buying right there ..he was just to vauge on excatly what i3 I would end up with and I got spooked.

Since then have come home and the lenovo site special is looking very good with the recomened E450

only 14inch but thats what we have now and actually prefer the size

I will post up a question below very soon regarding a $20 upgrade on the hard drive ..went back to JB to thank the guy for his time today..and told hime I was thinking of the lenovo special on line and he said .."jump at it best system for price" and he wished they had that sort of flexibilty to put better packages together.

Jet

[prodigyrf]

I'd spend that little bit more for a Toshiba business one (15.6" screen is good bang for buck) as they'll take a bit of punishment and this guy is very competitive-
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Toshiba-Satellite-15-6-Laptop-Intel-i3-4GB-500GB-Windows-7-Pro-8-1-USB-3-0-HDMI-/231094942268?hash=item35ce54fa3c:g:vxgAAOSweW5VPtrY

[jetcrew]

so herer is my question..

what is the difference between

500 GB HDD 7200rpm   OR  500GB 5400rpm with 8GB cached Hard drive  its a $20 upgrade

Dual band 3160AC Bluetooth 4.0 OR  Intel dual band AC/B/G./N 7265   Its a $15 upgrade

Cheap upgrades are they worth anything to me ..can get the 14 or `15 at $600

i3 5005u  3Mb 2.0GHZ
8 Gb Ram PC3 - 12800 1600Mhz DIR3L
Then the hard drive option as above
Comes in at  $619.00 delivered with above options selected or $549.00 without options selected

Jet