Current Events > Laptop shopping bumming me out

(+) Yeah! (+)

Was looking for something cheapish for coding and educational endeavors. Figured I could find something reasonable in the $500 range, but I havent been laptop shopping in a while and forgot how expensive they are compared to desktops. Anything I could get in that range is already obsolete and would probably struggle handling modern IDEs and even internet browsers. 8gb of RAM is crucial and is likely quickly becoming insufficient. i5 processors are the minimum of acceptability and probably wont last another year. SSD is a requirement at this point. Now find me a quality laptop with those specs under $900 and Ill be amazed.

Whats criminal is how expensive obsolete technology is. Its a struggle to justify spending $500-800 for a baseline that wont last a reasonable lifespan. Which is why this is frustrating.
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EnragedSlith posted...

8gb of RAM is crucial and is likely quickly becoming insufficient. i5 processors are the minimum of acceptability and probably wont last another year. SSD is a requirement at this point. Now find me a quality laptop with those specs under $900 and Ill be amazed.

Dude checking Amazon if you're alright with a 13-15" 1080p screen you can find that ez for about $600-$700

A lot of people in your position buy used thinkpads/ultrabooks and throw a ssd in them.
2.5" sata SSDs are pretty cheap now.

You can get a decent laptop for under $400 (including buying a new battery) by doing this.
Also newegg has some pretty decent laptop deals from time to time.
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A lot of people in your position buy used thinkpads/ultrabooks and throw a ssd in them.
2.5" sata SSDs are pretty cheap now.

This is exactly what I did for a general use laptop, with a good spec ThinkPad.

https://www.productchart.com/laptops/

Filter as needed
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ArchiePeck posted...

A lot of people in your position buy used thinkpads/ultrabooks and throw a ssd in them.
2.5" sata SSDs are pretty cheap now.

This is exactly what I did for a general use laptop, with a good spec ThinkPad.

Weirds me out a bit. Even directly from Lenovo. Its not like I can replace parts if something caused unrelated pieces to become damaged.
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EnragedSlith posted...

ArchiePeck posted...

A lot of people in your position buy used thinkpads/ultrabooks and throw a ssd in them.
2.5" sata SSDs are pretty cheap now.

This is exactly what I did for a general use laptop, with a good spec ThinkPad.

Weirds me out a bit. Even directly from Lenovo. Its not like I can replace parts if something caused unrelated pieces to become damaged.

It's super easy. I've swapped out hard drives for SSDs in several laptops. Really hard to mess it up ime and worth doing to save on the markup
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EnragedSlith posted...

Whats criminal is how expensive obsolete technology is. Its a struggle to justify spending $500-800 for a baseline that wont last a reasonable lifespan. Which is why this is frustrating.

which is why you spend a lil bit more for a macbook which will last at least 8 years >.>
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Parappa09 posted...

EnragedSlith posted...

Whats criminal is how expensive obsolete technology is. Its a struggle to justify spending $500-800 for a baseline that wont last a reasonable lifespan. Which is why this is frustrating.

which is why you spend a lil bit more for a macbook which will last at least 8 years >.>

Get out
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my cousin found a macbook pro on ebay and won it. he said he saved a lot of money from that. think he upgraded the ram and now its all he uses for college. hes some sort of computer related engineering bachelors degree with coding and programing and something else i wasnt paying attention to.
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In Brazil it's impossible to find a laptop with 8 GB RAM below R$2500. I sincerely have no idea how I managed to buy an ASUS one with 8 GB RAM for R$1400 back in 2013.
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EnragedSlith posted...

Figured I could find something reasonable in the $500 range, but I havent been laptop shopping in a while and forgot how expensive they are compared to desktops. Anything I could get in that range is already obsolete and would probably struggle handling modern IDEs and even internet browsers.

Those are two of the least resource-intensive things you could do on a computer. Unless you're using a really heavy IDE? I know IntelliJ is usually considered pretty heavy but even that will run on a Pentium okay (though I'll admit it isn't a stellar experience).

8gb of RAM is crucial and is likely quickly becoming insufficient.

Lots of people are still using 8 in budget gaming rigs just fine. It's way more than enough for your use cases.

i5 processors are the minimum of acceptability and probably wont last another year.

No i5 that has ever been released became obsolete in a year. What makes you think that's going to happen this time?

Now find me a quality laptop with those specs under $900 and Ill be amazed.

https://bit.ly/31kZmlM

For what you want (i5, SSD, 8GB ram), you won't find a computer in the $500 range, but there's tons under $900.
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Parappa09 posted...

EnragedSlith posted...

Whats criminal is how expensive obsolete technology is. Its a struggle to justify spending $500-800 for a baseline that wont last a reasonable lifespan. Which is why this is frustrating.

which is why you spend a lil bit more for a macbook which will last at least 8 years >.>

This is what Im going to do next. I am seriously never going to buy another windows computer. Theyre just filled with bloatware and all kinds of pop up messages.
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