Buying a laptop

[Billyboy294]

A friend of mine who knows little about computers has asked me to get him a 14 in laptop for ' light' usage for around 10,000/12,000 baht.

I am no expert but the best one for him i have seen is a Lenova 100S-141BR (11,900 for 10,900.) There are two changes from the spec given on the internet .Instead of Intel Celeron it has a Pentium N3710 and instead of 500Gb it has SDD 128. It has Windows 10 Home. From Powerbuy. I have looked at JIB, Banana and IT City.

Any other thoughts, i have only looked in Tukcom so are there better places to look.

[Man7]

If he doesn't take a ton of pictures or videos he want's to save only locally on the hard drive, I'd take the SSD over the  HD.  Faster overall performance.  The chipset I'd have to look up, but I'd probably take the Pentium over the Celeron too.    No idea on price/value here though.

[Billyboy294]

This is now the likely purchase. Any comments.

Dell Vostro 3565 15.6in. 12,990 Baht.

 DELL Vostro 3565 2.2GHz A8-7410 15.6" 1366 x 768pixels Black Notebook :

15.6'' LED HD (1366x768), AMD A8-7410 (2M Cache, 2.20 GHz), 4GB DDR3L 1600MHz, 1000GB

HDD, AMD Radeon R5, DVD±RW, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac/a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, Windows 10 Home

[Man7]

Looks like a basic budget laptop.. low resolution screen,  doubt the needs the 1000gb drive, 4GB ram is low these days IMO.  I'd keep shopping... also look at used ones too if he just needs basic.    

[Garzan]

I do all my computer shopping here http://www.invadeit.co.th/category/notebooks-laptops/ but I am also comfortable shopping online, and when I'm home in Udon, I'm lazy enough to appreciate door to door service. :-)

For basics I'd agree with Pentium, and 4GB. I'd also try for a SSD over HDD, better battery life, less heat, noticeably better response time, and less susceptible to drop damage. (though I've never bounced the heads on a HDD yet.)

My own preference for basic would be i3, 8GB, 500GB SSD, but that might be venturing toward the top end of "basic". My own travel laptop is a 15" Dell 2 in 1 tablet/laptop with a touchscreen and active stylus, i5, 8GB, and 500GB SSD. The 15" screen is ~really~ nice when working on photographs, but pretty much the rest of the time, I wish it was smaller. Other than photo editing, I think an 11-13" screen would be a lot more practical (at least for me.)

Good luck with your shopping. Have you looked at Pattaya For Sale on Facebook? Lots of laptops show up there.

[Bonkabit]

Compared with Australia, Thai prices on computers, phones and cameras seem to be a bit higher. You may wish to compare the prices.

Another thing to check is the warranty. Is it international? Or does it only apply in the country of purchase?

[Billyboy294]

Bought this one for 12,900 baht.

                             HP 15 BA005AX

Processor:  AMD Quad-Core A10-9600P (2.4 GHz, up to 3.3 GHz, 2 MB cache)

AMD Radeon R7 M440 (2GB DDR3)

15.6" FHD SVA anti-glare WLED-backlit (1920 x 1080)

4GB DDR4-2133 SDRAM (1 x 4 GB)

1TB  5400 rpm SATA

[petermik]

15 hours ago, Billyboy294 said:

Bought this one for 12,900 baht.

                             HP 15 BA005AX

Processor:  AMD Quad-Core A10-9600P (2.4 GHz, up to 3.3 GHz, 2 MB cache)

AMD Radeon R7 M440 (2GB DDR3)

15.6" FHD SVA anti-glare WLED-backlit (1920 x 1080)

4GB DDR4-2133 SDRAM (1 x 4 GB)

1TB  5400 rpm SATA

With or without operating system?

[Woofiee]

Wish I saw this thread earlier. 

The absolute minimum system these days needs 8GB ram - you can get by on 4, but you'll be hitting VM as soon as you open enough browser tabs or a few apps. Modern operating systems require a lot of ram for services that run in the background, and not all are equally efficient with releasing memory over time. In any event - RAM is really important these days; hard disk space, less so. 

If you can update that to at least 8GB, and cheaply, do that asap. Otherwise, I'd return it. 

[Billyboy294]

4 hours ago, petermik said:

With or without operating system?

Plus 400 baht for Win 10 etc.

[taylor1975]

7 minutes ago, Billyboy294 said:

Plus 400 baht for Win 10 etc.

A real version or a copy?

[Billyboy294]

2 hours ago, Woofiee said:

Wish I saw this thread earlier. 

The absolute minimum system these days needs 8GB ram - you can get by on 4, but you'll be hitting VM as soon as you open enough browser tabs or a few apps. Modern operating systems require a lot of ram for services that run in the background, and not all are equally efficient with releasing memory over time. In any event - RAM is really important these days; hard disk space, less so. 

If you can update that to at least 8GB, and cheaply, do that asap. Otherwise, I'd return it. 

I am no expert but as I said I bought this on behalf of a 76 year old guy who knows  little about computers and who only wanted it for watching movies and for Skype. Was most impressed with the quality of movies on the 1920 x 1080 screen

I did watch a video of how to install an extra 4 GB  and it seems easy enough if you know how to remove dozens of screws and take the back off. Just for interest i will ask at the shop (JIB)  how much.

[Woofiee]

Just now, Billyboy294 said:

I am no expert but as I said I bought this on behalf of a 76 year old guy who knows  little about computers and who only wanted it for watching movies and for Skype. Was most impressed with the quality of movies on the 1920 x 1080 screen

I did watch a video of how to install an extra 4 GB  and it seems easy enough if you know how to remove dozens of screws and take the back off. Just for interest i will ask at the shop (JIB)  how much.

Thats always the mistake: It doesn't matter what they think they want to do with it.  What matters is how viable the system will be in the long run; there's where value-for-money really comes to play. Good on you for checkout out upgrades. 

[Billyboy294]

4 minutes ago, taylor1975 said:

A real version or a copy?

Have a guess and you will probably be correct.

[taylor1975]

Just now, Billyboy294 said:

Have a guess and you will probably be correct.

I thought so!

So how does the automatic update cope? .....because you can't deactivate it in W10

[Billyboy294]

7 minutes ago, taylor1975 said:

I thought so!

So how does the automatic update cope? .....because you can't deactivate it in W10

I have a copy installed on my PC  by a friend and i never had any problems with updates. He looked it the laptop and said it was the latest version and if I understood him correctly , he seemed to think there should be nothing much more to come in the way of updates.

The price included a bag, a mouse, mouse pad  and  twin speakers.

[petermik]

12 hours ago, petermik said:

With or without operating system?

 

7 hours ago, Billyboy294 said:

Plus 400 baht for Win 10 etc.

Copy........asking for trouble sorry Billy

7 hours ago, taylor1975 said:

I thought so!

So how does the automatic update cope? .....because you can't deactivate it in W10

Oh yes you can

[petermik]

7 hours ago, Billyboy294 said:

 

The price included a bag, a mouse  and  twin speakers.

So the mouse is happily listening to the speakers  while cosily tucked away in the bag

 

good luck Billy and I hope your friend appreciates your,e efforts

 

p.m. me if you have problems

[taylor1975]

6 hours ago, petermik said:

Oh yes you can

Go on then. How?

[petermik]

20 hours ago, taylor1975 said:

Go on then. How?

Go into the registry............Google "how to enable/disable windows updates" it,s a simple job 

[taylor1975]

3 hours ago, petermik said:

Go into the registry............Google "how to enable/disable windows updates" it,s a simple job 

Fair enough. I guess a hacked copy already has it done.

[Billyboy294]

Ok what other 15.6 Laptop with a 1920 x 1080 screen would you experts  recommend for around 13,000/14,000 Baht.

[petermik]

On 6/7/2017 at 3:17 PM, taylor1975 said:

Fair enough. I guess a hacked copy already has it done.

Doubtfull  

[petermik]

8 hours ago, Billyboy294 said:

Ok what other 15.6 Laptop with a 1920 x 1080 screen would you experts  recommend for around 13,000/14,000 Baht.

I looked into buying one over here Billy and I gave up and bought one off Ebay UK when a pal of mine was coming over and he brought it with him......Lenovo Ideapad 305 Win 10 ex demo 6 months warranty 8,500 baht,I,ve had it 5 months now and very happy with it,absolutely as new,took a bit of a gamble yes of course but a calculated one.

p.s. I,m no expert just a little knowledgeable thats all

 

[freedom42]

On 6/2/2017 at 11:14 AM, Garzan said:

I do all my computer shopping here http://www.invadeit.co.th/category/notebooks-laptops/ but I am also comfortable shopping online, and when I'm home in Udon, I'm lazy enough to appreciate door to door service. :-)

For basics I'd agree with Pentium, and 4GB. I'd also try for a SSD over HDD, better battery life, less heat, noticeably better response time, and less susceptible to drop damage. (though I've never bounced the heads on a HDD yet.)

My own preference for basic would be i3, 8GB, 500GB SSD, but that might be venturing toward the top end of "basic". My own travel laptop is a 15" Dell 2 in 1 tablet/laptop with a touchscreen and active stylus, i5, 8GB, and 500GB SSD. The 15" screen is ~really~ nice when working on photographs, but pretty much the rest of the time, I wish it was smaller. Other than photo editing, I think an 11-13" screen would be a lot more practical (at least for me.)

Good luck with your shopping. Have you looked at Pattaya For Sale on Facebook? Lots of laptops show up there.

I have used InvadeIT and can say they have been great. They sell through Lazada, and Lazada will pay for the shipping (saves you the shipping cost from InvadeIT). They have their items here http://www.lazada.co.th/invadeit/