Need your suggestion for a Laptop

[AMDisTheBEST]

I am looking to buy a new laptop before I head off to college next fall. My budget is a bit over 500 dollars, around 525 is good BUT I am willing to go up to 650 dollars if the cost is justified. The Criterias are...

1) I want a laptop that has good battery life. 5 hours in a single charge or more. The battery must be removable so I can purchase another battery if I want more battery life.

2) Hard drive needs to be 7200 rpm or SSD. Storage must be 1 tb for hdd or 240 gb for ssd

3) The CPU should be equal to if not more powerful than the latest gen mobile Intel I3. AMD IS PREFERRED

4) Laptop is multipurpose. Besides general word documents and running other academic software, I also plan to do light-moderate gaming on it. It should have the graphics capability equal to if not more powerful than a Nvidia 940m. Once again, AMD SOLUTION IS PREFERRED. I like the idea of AMD hybrid cross fire laptop especially because it sounds so cool. :wub:

5) RAM must be 8gb or more and must be at 1600mhz. This won't matter so much if other Criterias are fulfilled.

Can anyone offer any suggestion?

 

[Puffnstuff]

You should wait until just before you are ready to buy and see what is available since that is over half a year away models and prices will change as will features.

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

yeah, i was thinking about that too. However, i tend to think buying new hardware when it's just release means it'll last longer. AMD fx 8800p laptop just came out this june. I can't wait to get my hands on one

 

[Ketchup]

What he said. If you want to buy a laptop to start using now, great. If you don't need anything before schools starts, wait until the time gets closer.

I will just say that "good laptop" and AMD should not be in the same thought process. AMD is OK for something cheap, but are too hot and power-hungry for a decent budget like yours.

 

[lakedude]

I can see by your handle that you are a big AMD fan. I'm a strong believer in competition so I support AMD when I can. AMD is perfectly fine if you don't care so much about power consumption, like in a desktop or even in a laptop that doesn't stray too far from a power cord.

Thing is you mention battery life as a big concern, even going so far as to say that you might get a second battery. This being the case you want a system that draws less power. Work done per watt is the most critical issue if you are concerned about battery life and AMD is just not the way to go here, sorry (I hope this changes in the future). Intel chips are far more efficient.

Also I'm not sure AMD makes anything that meets your standard: "The CPU should be equal to if not more powerful than the latest gen mobile Intel I3".

The latest gen i3 destroys most anything mobile AMD makes in single threaded performance. If you are able to run software that makes use of more cores AMD can come out okay but at the expense of massive relative power consumption.

If you are dead set against Intel for some special reason you can certainly buy a decent enough AMD system but it will be inferior (unless there is a drastic change soon).

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

But more powerful the cpu, lower the battery life. I have seen some mobile i7 that lasts for only 3.5 hours in this budget range. I am very conflicted between getting a fx 8800p with a hybrid discrete graphic card and a intel i5 6600u with a Nvidia 940m. I will probably buy laptop in the summer unless I see a big sale in the upcoming holidays.

 

[Jhkh]

But more powerful the cpu, lower the battery life. I have seen some mobile i7 that lasts for only 3.5 hours in this budget range.

I don't think so. The die shrink is the key to lower the TDP, and Intel is the one selling 14 nm at the moment.

The I7 you've seen have most likely a cheap battery.

AMD's 14 nm chips are not ready yet. Just compare the TDP of the pc's cpu in your price range. Most likely intel will be more efficient for the same computing power.

And yes, I liked AMD, I still have two of them, including an old athlon x64 from 2004 that still runs.

 

[Puffnstuff]

My i7 is a power hog and might make it 3 hours on the battery if I'm using processor hungry aps. How you are using it is everything and the more power hungry your use is the shorter the battery life will be. I keep forgetting to swap my gpu to the integrated one which would conserve more power.

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

My i7 is a power hog and might make it 3 hours on the battery if I'm using processor hungry aps. How you are using it is everything and the more power hungry your use is the shorter the battery life will be. I keep forgetting to swap my gpu to the integrated one which would conserve more power.

shouldnt it be doing it automatically? Ive heard both nvidia and AMD have technology that auto switch gpu depending on how demanding the tasks are

 

[MongGrel]

You should wait until just before you are ready to buy and see what is available since that is over half a year away models and prices will change as will features.

This.

 

[VirtualLarry]

shouldnt it be doing it automatically? Ive heard both nvidia and AMD have technology that auto switch gpu depending on how demanding the tasks are

Actually, all they really do is look at the filename and possibly the hash/CRC of the .exe, and switch on that as appropriate.

 

[nfriedly]

I think most of what I was going to say has already been covered (AMD vs battery, waiting a bit), but...

2) Hard drive needs to be 7200 rpm or SSD. Storage must be 1 tb for hdd or 240 gb for ssd

...

5) RAM must be 8gb or more and must be at 1600mhz. This won't matter so much if other Criterias are fulfilled.

You might find that it's a much better deal to add these aftermarket. And, I *highly* recommend the SSD - it's boosts performance, battery life, and durability!

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

I think most of what I was going to say has already been covered (AMD vs battery, waiting a bit), but...



You might find that it's a much better deal to add these aftermarket. And, I *highly* recommend the SSD - it's boosts performance, battery life, and durability!

yeah, i do plan on buying a 240 gb ssd and then buy an external adapter, mount the 5400 rpm hdd in it and use it as external storage. i wonder if i can simply install all my games and storage big programs on there

 

[nfriedly]

yeah, i do plan on buying a 240 gb ssd and then buy an external adapter, mount the 5400 rpm hdd in it and use it as external storage. i wonder if i can simply install all my games and storage big programs on there

I have a 480gb SSD in my desktop and install all of my games and software there; so far it's been big enough on it's own. I'm fairly aggressive about uninstalling games once I beat/get bored with them, though, so your mileage may vary. (I might only have 5-10 games installed at any given time. )

The external drive is probably fine to stay on your desk at home or whatever, but if you're actually using it as a laptop (e.g. transporting it around and using it in oddball locations), then it might start to get old.

 

[Fallen Kell]

yeah, i do plan on buying a 240 gb ssd and then buy an external adapter, mount the 5400 rpm hdd in it and use it as external storage. i wonder if i can simply install all my games and storage big programs on there

Well if you get a decent enough laptop, it will have M2 slots meaning it will be able to have both a SSD and a HDD. That being said, your budget will be very tight since most systems that have that capability start around $800. Even the back-to-school deals that you will see around July/August may keep these types of laptops just out of reach.

What are you planning on majoring in? Also, most colleges/majors have computer hardware requirements. You should really look them up. I know my college essentially required desktop level performance. Only the highest end of the highest end laptops could meet them, so $2500-3000 laptops at the time (we needed to be able to run 3D CAD software, lab simulations, custom programs, etc... heck, one of our assignments required software that took 2 weeks to run, not something that could be easily done on a laptop).