Page 1 of Laptop recommendations please...

Ideally want something mid-price, £600 odd.

I need it to be able to handle CAD without a struggle, so I'm guessing it would need to be 8gb ram at least, preferably 12gb, i5 or better and probably most importantly, have good graphics capabilities. That might mean a separate graphics card or at least decent on-board graphics.

I'm wondering whether a gaming capable laptop might be good for this?

Anyone spotted anything that caught their eye?

Cheers.

I asked similar question about 18 months ago and went for my 1st macbook air, basic, 4gb and 128ssd and honestly its a workhorse and does everything i need with my 1tb external hard drive.....took me a while to get used too but wouldn't go back to windows now.

I'm sure a Macbook would be good, but I might have to plump for something a bit higher up the spec chain. I think I'd need more like £600 x2 in that scenario, sadly.

I'm not expecting to do anything too power heavy - moderately basic 2D stuff, no 3D renderings of the space shuttle... I realise 600 quid is pretty paltry for anything powerful.

I was looking at laptops yesterday, and Dell had some 17" ones with dedicated graphics in that ball park price range. I think i5, and 8gb RAM.

keep your eye on hukd and read the comments, obviously you get the unhelpful ppl, slagging off something for no reason but you do get those posting to benchmarks and explaining why it may/may not be good value for money.

most of the bargains I've noticed  recently seem to be the lower end of the market though

Depends what you mean by 'CAD without a struggle' I suppose.  'Proper' CAD machines would have a card such as an Nvidia Quadro card - that can easily cost that much and more.
Sorry, I can't really help with the recommendation - other than possibly managing your expectations depending on how high end you may need.

Ste

Current Intel CPU line-up explained:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/02/pentium-core-i5-core-i7-making-sense-of-intels-convoluted-cpu-lineup/

Made me realise that if I replace my current aging laptop (which I probably will this year), I don't need to go for an i7 to match my desktop, an i5 would be fine.

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A year ago I bought a Toshiba Satellite L50 
It's i7 core.

I do lots of Photoshop and design on it and run several things at once. 
Downside is it's not 1080 screen, but it does all I want.

The surprise is I bought this from Very for about £650 and on buy now pay in 12 months 0%. So an even bigger plus for me last year.






I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which i`m dying are the best i`ve ever had.

Quote:
Rob Shepherd says...
"Current Intel CPU line-up explained"
That was very useful. Looks like the latest gen of i5 is probably best bang for buck.

Been looking at low end gaming laptops, such as:
 http://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-15-ak002na-i5-6300HQ-Graphics-Olufsen/dp/B01BVHIC1Y/ref=sr_1_45?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1456743335&sr=1-45&tag=myrev09-21

Something like this is tempting, but it is ex-display:
 https://www.svp.co.uk/computing/laptops/intel-core-i5-laptops/hp-envy-13-d061sa-13-3-intel-core-i5-6200u-windows-10-ram-8gb-256gb-ssd-laptop-aluminium.html

Too much choice is the problem as usual...

Never expected to get a machine with a Quadro graphics card, and probably wouldn't even be that much benefit for the low complexity of stuff I need to do.

Cheers all.

did you make a decision in the end?

a little while ago I had to take the missus' laptop apart to fix a problem with the power socket in the laptop (a clip which holds it had snapped so blue tack now holds it in place as you couldn't push the lead all the way in ass the socket had moved too far inside!)

I pretty much had to take the whole thing apart to get to it, and I was a bit heavy handed it seems, 'cos now the power button is bit flaky, looks like I damaged the ribbon connecter slightly :( . I'm hoping the £10 one I've ordered off eBay will be fine and fix it.

anyway, I don't really want to spend that much but curious what you went for.

Talking of replacing laptops, decided to get a Macbook Pro, probably the i7 model. The annoying thing is I think Apple is about to announce a new line up any day now, but... meh I can't really wait.

Mine is over 6 years old and creaking.

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