Thank you for taking the time to respond. I didn't realize the 840M was on par with the HD5500. But it does make sense that unless I needed to use every MB of RAM for the system, would I ever need the dedicated 2GB of the 840M. It's kind of funny that my Gateway with the GMS 4500 was an extended warranty replacement and that it just happens to be one generation older than my ideal system.
Actually I looked at the specs page for your Gateway model and it looks like your laptop may have GMA 4500MHD in it which should be able to do hardware decode of 1080p content. Can you take a look at what CPU-Z and GPU-Z say about your chipset?
I've been putting a bit of thought and don't think I see the justification for $150 more for the i7 unless for some reason it could possibly carry games a little further than the GPU would typically allow. My first computers with Half-Life and Quake has such weak graphics cards (16-32MB Radeons) that the CPU carried most of the burden.
Most games these days are far more GPU-reliant than CPU. Some games have a mixed load, but for the most part a better CPU won't get you anywhere for games. In terms of gaming you'll get far better performance from running a Core-based Celeron or Pentium and a mid-level graphics card (say R7 260X or GTX 750) than you would with an i7 and a low end card. But for laptop gaming, you pretty much have to buy a "gaming laptop" or just stick with older and/or non-demanding games. In your case it seems like you'll be doing the latter so i5 or i7 doesn't matter, particularly when they're both dual core (if anything a tri-core or higher CPU will help gaming more than a few hundred MHz clock speed).
If the 8GB of RAM doesn't seem like enough, although it will probably be plenty, I've considered upgrading it to 16GB with a low CAS. Either way, an M.2 SSD will be added to the computer as well to make up for the 5400 RPM stock drive. Again, thanks for you input, much appreciated.
Yeah as said unless you're doing workstation stuff on the laptop, you will never need more than 8GB for the reasonable life of the laptop. Definitely agree with the SSD though--any computer from the Core2 and later days is seriously impeded in performance by using a HDD as the main/OS drive, so having an SSD is essentially a requirement for
any modern day PC.
This is a good thread for me; I want to learn from people with knowledge in that department.
Quick question (generally): Is it a good thing to buy a refurbished laptop from say few years back that was retailing @ that time say @ $1,200 (limousine, full metal jacket),
that is selling now for say $300 (pro business laptop), or a new laptop retailing @ say $600 (full plastic).
My personal advice to people is actually to
never buy a brand new laptop, provided you:
a) Know enough about computers to not need "tech support" and warranty.
b) Don't
need cutting edge features like super-slim/thin, touchscreen, Haswell/Broadwell CPUs, super-resolution displays, 1080p webcams, etc.
Buying a new laptop is actually worse in most cases than buying a new car. I've never paid more than $400 for a laptop because it just isn't worth it. The best type of laptops in terms of bang for buck is definitely the business laptops. They're much higher quality than "retail"/consumer laptops and once they're a year or two old, they sell for
much less than they originally did. Dell Latitudes are really good for this as there's
tons of them available off-lease and through other channels very soon after they're new/released. For example a year or two after my Latitude E6320 (my current laptop) was released, I picked up a very lightly used one (which looked nearly new when I got it) for ~$350. This is a laptop that even at the time, would sell for over $1500 brand new as configured on Dell's site. 6-8 months before that I got an E6420 for my mom at around $700. They're nearly the same laptop and had about the same retail value but in me getting mine a little later I saved a bunch of money--I paid about 1/4th what it was worth, my mom about 1/2. Mine also came with an SSD while my mom's I swapped an $60 SSD in after purchase. Still my mom would have otherwise bought a consumer laptop at a big box store for over $1k and been much worse quality so I'm glad I intervened.
So really my best advice is to buy a 1-2 model-years old Latitude, at no more than $400, provided you don't want/need stuff like touchscreen or "convertibility" (though there are Latitudes with touchscreens now I think, though you will pay a couple hundred premium at least, I would imagine). If you want stuff like a convertible well then you're pretty much at the mercy of the retail market. There are some nice models you can get at decent prices though like Lenovo Miix, albeit you're dealing with pretty small screen sizes then as well.
I would love to truly know what are the main essential features to look for in a laptop, and for roughly $500 (MSRP).
I Know it's not an easy task as each person has very limited experience with only the ones they used in the past.
But their experience is valuable in their own intertwined pros and cons.
* I have heard that Asus is a better bet than HP? ...Looking @ the price range of the OP ($750-1,000), it opens doors to a vast range of high performance laptops from the likes of Dell, Asus, iMac (Apple?), ...and with SSD hard drives, and from here I don't have much knowledge on what is truly essential.
An SSD or at the very least a hybrid drive is
essential for any PC in the last 8 years or so. The point at which Core2 CPUs were out, HDDs were becoming a largely limiting factor in performance. Though SSDs weren't popularised until several years after that time period, it will still greatly increase performance out of those PCs by adding an SSD to them today. Therefore stick with SSD--whether you're going to add one after the fact or get one at purchase,
definitely make sure you have an SSD.
Plus I don't know if a touchscreen is a good thing to have? ...Also what is the best size's screen? ...And what about those where you can disconnect the screen all together from the main keyboard and still be able to operate it with its own touchscreen's keyboard?
That's up to you. The former is really useful for Windows 8/8.1, I'll say that much. However if you're just going to use desktop mode in 8 or stick to Windows 7 (lots of used/off-lease laptops will have 7), then touchscreen isn't necessary. The latter thing you describe are the "convertible" type laptops, which I expanded on above.
AMD16 core computer; is this the best? ...Expensive, say as compared to AMD10?
Huh? There's no 16 core laptops out there, lol. As for AMD, I'd say the only reason to buy AMD these days is for the desktop APUs if you want some decent integrated graphics. For laptops there's pretty much no reason as their power efficiency is just not anywhere near the level of Intel.
Is i7 (Intel) a better IOS? ...Is i5 sufficient enough for a less expensive model like say for $500-600 or so?
Covered above in my first post to the OP. If were talking about dual-core CPUs in laptops, i5 and i7 not much different, might as well go for an i5. If it's a quad-core i7 that's a different story but few laptops have those and you'd only really need one if you needed really good performance and didn't mind the lesser battery life you'll probably have.
How much RAM is good enough; 4 or 8? ...Is more truly essential and that much more beneficial, like 12 or 16 for example?
4GB is more than enough for the vast majority of regular computing uses by mainstream users. 8GB however has pretty much become "standard" so you'll probably find most current laptops have at least that much. You do not need any more than 8GB
unless you have a specific purpose for more than that. If you're not sure if you have a specific purpose, I'm about 99% sure you
don't.
How reliable laptops truly are? ...Do they break often, and do you need a nearby repair center?
If you buy a decent model and aren't careless with it (like dropping it, banging it up, etc.) then I'd say you'll get 4-5 years out of it though the battery may fail sooner than that, requiring replacement. A lot of the more modern slim/ultrabook type laptops don't have user-removable batteries either, so that's something to think about if you plan on keeping it a long time. The batteries aren't hard to replace if you've worked on a lot of laptops but it doesn't sound like you have so perhaps sticking to a laptop with standard removable battery is best if you plan to keep it for some years.
Last; the battery. What is the average time that it last in a laptop that you have picked for yourself based on performance, durability, reliability, support, nice batch of features that you can essentially use for your own personal lifestyle of day-to-day operation?
Two things shorten the useful-life of lithium ion batteries. One is heat, the other is frequent deep discharge. So if you keep the battery in the laptop at all times (like even when plugged in) it will be running warm all the time. A good idea if you use it plugged in a lot is to keep the battery out of the laptop and at no more than 80% state-of-charge. Charge it fully only when you're going to use it. Also discharging the battery to 5-10% on a regular basis is not good for it either. So if you use the battery a lot, try to charge it as frequently as possible/whenever you get a chance, instead of draining it completely before each plug-in. Most people don't understand batteries or battery chemistry and the above is too much "trouble" for many so if you're like the typical user I've come across you'll probably get about 2 years use out of a battery before capacity has noticeably decreased. With proper care OTOH you're probably looking at 3-4 years still having good capacity left.
This is all very important to me because I was ripped off big time with the laptop I purchased from my local store.
...And only to find out later that they cannot repair it near where I live but would have to send it somewhere else.
Yes, it's a Sony VAIO, unfortunately. ...I bought it without knowing that the left speaker was broken, the screen unglued from its bottom surround, a blotch (quite large) in the screen (whitish), few more little things like this. They did not have a replacement (discontinued model), and I kept it after a $50 discount.
So I made my choice; but for my next laptop I want no more turmoil like that. ...And Sony is out of the picture, forever, because they abandoned their laptop's division.
Though most VAIOs were actually pretty well built (myself having seen/used a lot of laptops including having seen the insides of many of them) they did make some crappier models. However your experience can be seen with any consumer/retail laptop IMO--quality usually isn't too great and parts can be scarce and repair can be difficult. A business laptop OTOH most of them are more robustly built and you can pretty much find any part for it easily and repair isn't tough, though if you don't know what you're doing it's still best left to a pro. But overall they have better longevity and a better reparability factor than their consumer/retail siblings.
