Buying a laptop

[Billyboy294]

Yes but what i am looking for is the name and model number of a laptop which is better than the one i bought for about the same price. I have already looked at dozens and the HP seemed the most suitable for what my friend wanted.

[Billyboy294]

I have used Lazada but was not keen to use them for a Laptop. I much prefer to walk into a shop like JIB in Tukcom  and get them to show it working as it should and ask them to check certain things especially as i was purchasing on behalf of someone else.

For interest; to add a further 4GB the cost is 1200 baht.

[Billyboy294]

On 6/2/2017 at 10:52 AM, Man7 said:

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.    

I looked at the  'invade' link given below and it just went to Lazada where i had a look before.

Regarding 4GB being low, I looked just now at About 20 laptops and even the ones at 20,000 up to 40,000 Baht all had 4GB. I did not see one with 8GB.

However I am considering buying the HP i bought for my friend and i would upgrade the 4GB to 8GB (can add an extra 4) as my friend who looked at it before suggested it would be better with 8GB. Final cost 14,500 Baht.

Unless anyone here can recommend a better one..

[Woofiee]

Usually you can just upgrade the memory module yourself - most Windows laptops have access through a bottom panel, and it's always cheaper to buy it  separately from a place that specialises in RAM, then from getting the upgraded model from the manufacturer. Upgrades like that ask for silly money. 

Okay - so looking at the specs of the HP laptop, HP says you've got 1 SIMM module on a standard model: 4 GB DDR4-2133 SDRAM.

Crucial Memory is a good place to start looking at what can be added: At least you'll know exactly what kind of ram you need and how much your computer can use. Drilling down, here are the memory specs for your model:

• It has 2 RAM slots, one of them is filled with a 4GB DDR4-2133 SDRAM SIMM module, but you still have 1 free. 
• You can use unmatched RAM, but it is fastest/works best with matched RAM so use 2 of the same kind of module (4GB or 8GB). 
• Yes - you can use 2 8GB modules, as your HP can address up to 16GB ram. RAM is important; the more ram you have, the more browser tabs or programs you can keep open at one time. Your apps can run faster since they're not hitting the hard disk all the time (nanoseconds vs milliseconds), and concurrently, your hard disk can last longer. 
• On that, I'd use this as an RAM upgrade guide: Crucial's 16GB upgrade ($124 US, you'd have to check locally) 2 SIMMS of 8GB each:  
  • DDR3 PC3-12800
  • CL=11
  • Unbuffered
  • NON-ECC
  • DDR3-1600
  • 1.35V
  • 1024Meg x 64

(You may know all this but there plenty of Addicts here who may not, so I'm being pretty pedantic about explanations.)

If they want it to work as long as possible, I'd upgrade the RAM from the outset. The place you do this should do the upgrade because HP are little bitches about sealing up their lower-end laptops and making ram upgrades a bit difficult. You can see a video here on how to do it (I believe it's the same model HP) but it'll involve removing all the screws from the bottom, including 2 hidden screws under the rear rubber feet and the slide-in DVD player, then taking a spudger and popping open the snap-on bottom case. Don't use metal like a screwdriver - use something somewhat stiff and plasticky. Spudgers are pennies cheap. 

Then it's just a matter of popping-out the ram (be SURE to use an antistatic wristband!), snapping in the new ram, closing it back up and powering it on to check the ram is available. 

Wish I could help you out further, but this should make identifying and getting supported RAM out of the way. If you know anyone at all techie, they should look at the video and will probably be able to do it for you. 

PS: Just ran a simple search for ram in Thailand and InvadeIT.co.th has the specific Crucial 8GB module, as well as 4GB mods.

[The Sly Fox]

On 6/14/2017 at 4:33 PM, Woofiee said:

Usually you can just upgrade the memory module yourself - most Windows laptops have access through a bottom panel, and it's always cheaper to buy it  separately from a place that specialises in RAM, then from getting the upgraded model from the manufacturer. Upgrades like that ask for silly money. 

Okay - so looking at the specs of the HP laptop, HP says you've got 1 SIMM module on a standard model: 4 GB DDR4-2133 SDRAM.

Crucial Memory is a good place to start looking at what can be added: At least you'll know exactly what kind of ram you need and how much your computer can use. Drilling down, here are the memory specs for your model:

• It has 2 RAM slots, one of them is filled with a 4GB DDR4-2133 SDRAM SIMM module, but you still have 1 free. 
• You can use unmatched RAM, but it is fastest/works best with matched RAM so use 2 of the same kind of module (4GB or 8GB). 
• Yes - you can use 2 8GB modules, as your HP can address up to 16GB ram. RAM is important; the more ram you have, the more browser tabs or programs you can keep open at one time. Your apps can run faster since they're not hitting the hard disk all the time (nanoseconds vs milliseconds), and concurrently, your hard disk can last longer. 
• On that, I'd use this as an RAM upgrade guide: Crucial's 16GB upgrade ($124 US, you'd have to check locally) 2 SIMMS of 8GB each:  
  • DDR3 PC3-12800
  • CL=11
  • Unbuffered
  • NON-ECC
  • DDR3-1600
  • 1.35V
  • 1024Meg x 64

(You may know all this but there plenty of Addicts here who may not, so I'm being pretty pedantic about explanations.)

If they want it to work as long as possible, I'd upgrade the RAM from the outset. The place you do this should do the upgrade because HP are little bitches about sealing up their lower-end laptops and making ram upgrades a bit difficult. You can see a video here on how to do it (I believe it's the same model HP) but it'll involve removing all the screws from the bottom, including 2 hidden screws under the rear rubber feet and the slide-in DVD player, then taking a spudger and popping open the snap-on bottom case. Don't use metal like a screwdriver - use something somewhat stiff and plasticky. Spudgers are pennies cheap. 

Then it's just a matter of popping-out the ram (be SURE to use an antistatic wristband!), snapping in the new ram, closing it back up and powering it on to check the ram is available. 

Wish I could help you out further, but this should make identifying and getting supported RAM out of the way. If you know anyone at all techie, they should look at the video and will probably be able to do it for you. 

PS: Just ran a simple search for ram in Thailand and InvadeIT.co.th has the specific Crucial 8GB module, as well as 4GB mods.

Very interesting read. I'm planning on buying a new laptop soon. I'll be going to Australia towards the end of this year and can wait to buy there as I believe prices are better than Thailand, and the warranties are also better. Will want Windows, a 14" or 15" screen. 500 gig will be sufficient HDD for me as I back up to externals. I guess 8 gig RAM but if I could bang it up to 16 that would be great. Would like very good battery life, and light weight would be preferable as I do travel a lot. I'm not into games but do a fair amount of work with music files and images (usually jpg) as well as general internet surfing and checking websites & forums. Within reason cost doesn't matter much. I'm not necessarily looking for the cheapest. Just good middle range. Brand doesn't matter to me. Care to make some suggestions for me?

[Garzan]

18 hours ago, The Sly Fox said:

Very interesting read. I'm planning on buying a new laptop soon. I'll be going to Australia towards the end of this year and can wait to buy there as I believe prices are better than Thailand, and the warranties are also better. Will want Windows, a 14" or 15" screen. 500 gig will be sufficient HDD for me as I back up to externals. I guess 8 gig RAM but if I could bang it up to 16 that would be great. Would like very good battery life, and light weight would be preferable as I do travel a lot. I'm not into games but do a fair amount of work with music files and images (usually jpg) as well as general internet surfing and checking websites & forums. Within reason cost doesn't matter much. I'm not necessarily looking for the cheapest. Just good middle range. Brand doesn't matter to me. Care to make some suggestions for me?

I got a Dell 7568 2 in 1 laptop that I'm quite happy with. I'll agree, Thailand isn't wonderful for tech prices, laptops, cameras, phones, whatever. For the warranty though, country of purchase doesn't really matter. Dell's warranty in Thailand is the same as the US, or Australia. :-) At this point, if you wanted to do the same, you'd probably need to get a refurbished one. I'm not sure a new 7568 i5 is available. 

The coolest thing for me about the 7568 laptop is that even though it doesn't usually advertise as being able to use an active pen, it does in fact have the ability to use an active pen. That means if you want to use a stylus instead of a mouse, or your finger for image edits, you can. And you don't need to pay lots extra for a specifically advertised graphics tablet. I discovered that on YouTube, and tested it with my own laptop, and it does indeed work. I also went ahead and pulled out the HDD it came with and installed an SSD. It was quick before, but it's amazingly fast now. All I needed was a small screwdriver and a couple of minutes and I was done (and about half a day to reload and update software.) Easy-peasy. It also gave me the push to go from single language W10 Home, to a full version of W10 Pro, since I was reinstalling to a clean drive anyway.

[The Sly Fox]

2 hours ago, Garzan said:

I got a Dell 7568 2 in 1 laptop that I'm quite happy with. I'll agree, Thailand isn't wonderful for tech prices, laptops, cameras, phones, whatever. For the warranty though, country of purchase doesn't really matter. Dell's warranty in Thailand is the same as the US, or Australia. :-) At this point, if you wanted to do the same, you'd probably need to get a refurbished one. I'm not sure a new 7568 i5 is available. 

The coolest thing for me about the 7568 laptop is that even though it doesn't usually advertise as being able to use an active pen, it does in fact have the ability to use an active pen. That means if you want to use a stylus instead of a mouse, or your finger for image edits, you can. And you don't need to pay lots extra for a specifically advertised graphics tablet. I discovered that on YouTube, and tested it with my own laptop, and it does indeed work. I also went ahead and pulled out the HDD it came with and installed an SSD. It was quick before, but it's amazingly fast now. All I needed was a small screwdriver and a couple of minutes and I was done (and about half a day to reload and update software.) Easy-peasy. It also gave me the push to go from single language W10 Home, to a full version of W10 Pro, since I was reinstalling to a clean drive anyway.

Thing with warranties, I know with cameras, if you buy in Thailand many come with just a Thailand warranty, so that could be tricky for me when I go spend a couple months in Australia. Also Thai techs are F'n useless, over the years I've had several different things repaired in BKK under warranty and repairs were bullshit, work OK for a week or two then problem returns. 

However, thanks for your reply. I'll be looking out for a model with SSD as according to this thread they are far superior. I also think before I go to Oz I'll buy a copy of Win 10 pro here and after I buy a laptop format and reinstall...get all that bloatware and trailware and useless crap off.

[Garzan]

Warranty service here can be problematical. I've had to get a couple of Western Digital hard drives serviced, and the Synnex local outlet in Udon is less than optimal (pretty much useless). Anymore, with the stuff I order from InvadeIT, if I have a problem with it, I ship it back to InvadeIT and let them take it to the Synnex local outlet in Hua Hin. That has actually worked out quite well.

I haven't tried camera stuff yet. I've got a broken Nikon flash, but really, I think I could buy a new bigger, more capable Yongnuo flash for less money than it would cost me to fix my ten year old Nikon flash. :-)

Good luck with your laptop purchase. And if you don't find one with an SSD already in it, they aren't hard to install. You could always put the old HDD in an external enclosure and use it for a backup drive.  

[Spellforce]

For a light use, tell your friend to choose a laptop with SSD (it will boost much faster) and for extra storage (photos, videos etc...) tell him to use the cloud (dropbox for photos, onedrive for videos for instance... both are limited but free).

Then for that range of price (with SSD) he has to choose by himself the model (the powers's difference will be slim): keyboard's feeling, weight, screen (size, resolution, contrast), color, shape etc...

Jib and InvadeIT are the best reseller (for me) in Pattaya.

[Woofiee]

On 2017-6-20 at 10:35 AM, The Sly Fox said:

Very interesting read. I'm planning on buying a new laptop soon. I'll be going to Australia towards the end of this year and can wait to buy there as I believe prices are better than Thailand, and the warranties are also better. Will want Windows, a 14" or 15" screen. 500 gig will be sufficient HDD for me as I back up to externals. I guess 8 gig RAM but if I could bang it up to 16 that would be great. Would like very good battery life, and light weight would be preferable as I do travel a lot. I'm not into games but do a fair amount of work with music files and images (usually jpg) as well as general internet surfing and checking websites & forums. Within reason cost doesn't matter much. I'm not necessarily looking for the cheapest. Just good middle range. Brand doesn't matter to me. Care to make some suggestions for me?

Actually, I'm a Mac guy, so I don't think my suggestions would go far (I'm a web and app developer and I've long left the Windows camp behind) but let me suggest something, as I might be misreading something in between the lines. 

It's far more advantageous to spend your money on RAM than on the HD, and here's why: imagine your computer is just your desk...your workplace. The place where stuff gets done. RAM corresponds to the actual desktop you use; the more RAM you have, the more (and larger) documents you can keep open at once on your desk. Lots of RAM, big, open desk without having to shuffle files. Small RAM, your basic Ikea plant stand with your work piled up. HDs, though, correspond to the filing cabinet where you can store lots of files but do don't have to constantly have them open.  

It makes little sense now that cloud storage is so cheap, to have large hard disk in your laptop. A 250Gb SSD is more than enough; It's better to spend that money on more RAM so the system isn't always using the disk drive as memory, and slowing the system down. Unless it's a SSD, old-fashioned mechanical hard disks take milliseconds for every action; ram takes nanoseconds. You have to spin a disk and move an arm to get or put a bit/byte of memory - RAM is active all the time, and if you can pair it with a solid state drive (SSD - no moving parts) you'll work faster and more smoothly, and save battery power. 

Ultimately, use a cloud service for uploading data, or buy a cloud-enabled external HD for a couple-hundred bucks and make your own cloud service at home, wherever home is. Don't drag your filing cabinet with you - if only for safety's sake, crashing your drive or having someone pinch it means you lose everything. 

Another fallacy - you don't need to be a gamer to have more RAM. Normally, for gaming you need a fast video system with a GPU, not just RAM. RAM is for everybody (and actually, a decent GPU is good too - windowing systems rely on the same techniques as a good game of Doom. In fact, most of the speed gains in computers in the past 3-4 years has been because higher-end GPUs are now being used to make the entire system faster. 

As far as machines go, here's a generic suggestion: 

• Whatever size screen floats your boat - I use a 13"
• Make sure it can run multiple operating systems - Chromebooks are cheap but fucking useless. 
• Minimum 16GB internal RAM. If you're doing heavy duty work, like video production or design, then more. Usually cheaper to add it yourself, so whatever you buy, make sure you can upgrade the ram easily. (Cheaper HPs suck in this regard). 
• 250GB** internal SSD, at least. Leave the spinning disks behind.
• Either:
  1) Spend some money on a cloud service and upload your personal files to it. You want no questions on content and a good record of accounts not being exposed.
  -- I personally thats' think it's a matter of time, so I prefer... --
  2) Get a WesternDigital MyCloud external disk** - 2TB for $140-150 - and leave it at home on your network as your own private cloud server. Skip the odd-sized HDs (3TB/5TB) as they have a history of shorter lifetimes. If you can pop for one that has a mirror, do so, that way if one disk dies the other has a live copy of everything, and it's cheaper than multiple external drives.

** means "buy as big as you can afford". This applies to things you don't want to replace - RAM, SSDs, External Clouds. 

I'm a big fan of personal cloud drives, especially when content might be, ahem, private. Dropbox is anything but private (you know Condoleeze Rice is on the Board of Directors?) and Google downscales images uploaded to it, plus they also scan for content (they're dropping that from mail, but not from Google Drive.. hmm). Check out that WD link and watch the video. 

EDIT: I answered before reading all the other threads, so yeah - what they say on SSDs here too.

[Garzan]

I'm decidedly not an iAnything sort of guy, so I really can't speak to the Mac memory model, but the minimal amount of web searching I've done indicates that Mac's actually use the extra memory you may throw at them. Sadly, Windows in general isn't that smart. We're talking a basic inexpensive laptop here, so the one big area I would have to disagree with you on is the 16GB ram one. Personally, my biased Windows 10 user (and longtime Linux user) opinion is that at this point in time, buying more than 8GB ram on a Windows 10 machine is generally throwing money in the bin. Sure, you get bragging rights; my ram is bigger than your ram, you hoser! but from a practical Windows 10 standpoint, that extra 8GB of ram is probably not going to get used for anything other than a minimal amount of heat generation. If the ram is cheap enough, sure, perhaps on some future Windows update it might get used, but by that time, the cost of ram ought to be significantly less expensive, and buying the extra when it might get used (to me) makes a lot more sense.

Personally, I've been buying 500GB SSD drives for my laptop and desktops, but I'll also freely admit that's been overkill. I also agree with moving anything other than any projects you're currently actively working on up to either a local, or online cloud storage system. Most of my 500GB system drives don't get more than 40% full, so I'm throwing money in the bin not buying 250GB drives instead. (my laptop, desktop, and htpc are all Windows 10 i5 systems.) 

[Woofiee]

No worries - I'm not up on Windows whatever at all - been in a Unix/Linux world for decades now - and physical RAM makes all the difference. If there's no need for 8GB at this point, no worries - but I do recommend getting a machine that can address more if need be, and doesn't require a trip to the shop to add it in. You can always buy more later, if you need it (again - depends on activities. If you're doing web pages and email, that's a different footprint than editing a few streams of 4K video. And yes, if you buy a new mobile phone in the next few years, you will be editing 4K video). 

On VM, under *nix-based systems, vm done at disk really slows the system down once you've used 70-80% of the disk. Less contiguous swap space, and so you're fragmenting to grab any available sector on the disk. 

A personal cloud disk, one you can safely use from your laptop, phone, tablet or tv stick, worldwide - that's a no brainer. 

[Garzan]

9 hours ago, Woofiee said:

[...]
A personal cloud disk, one you can safely use from your laptop, phone, tablet or tv stick, worldwide - that's a no brainer. 

This is going off a little bit of a techie tangent, but perhaps not too far on what is arguably a monger board. (never hear that word before signing on to PA). My own personal local "cloud drive" is a Synology DS415Play 11TB NAS. It's mountable with Linux, Windows, and Apple and I'm sure it's not unique, but it has an extension service called "Cloud Station". Cloud Station server lets you set up your local box to use Synology's free dynamic DNS so you can get to your local NAS from anywhere in the world. From a monger standpoint, it lets you move your special photos to your own cloud, and not need to trust Condi Rice, or your country's Customs Service with that external drive when you're coming back home.

A Western Digital Passport USB external drive is simple and easy, but if you're really looking for keeping files from prying eyes, nothing really beats a server that you control the physical access to (that is not in your subject to search personal luggage). 555

[The Sly Fox]

Went shopping for a new laptop yesterday. Checked out Powerbuy, Banana, and a few other shops at Tuk Com before talking with JIB. Was very impressed with JIB, fair prices, clued up guys, fast techs to do upgrades.

So ended up with a Lenovo Ideapad 310.
i3 - 6100U CPU @ 2.30GHz
Ram 8 gig (came with 4 + we added 4)
HDD 1T - got them to make into 3 partitions.
nvidia geforce graphics card
Win 10 Pro (not licenced copy) + MS Office 2016 + Photoshop and a bunch of other installed software.
14" screen. Was shown some 15.6" screens but find them a tad too big. 14" works best for me.
DVD/CD. Many models I was shown in other stores no longer have DVD/CD. I don't use them much myself these days but it's nice to have it anyway.

Included in the deal was a very good quality Lenovo carry bag + a free 3-year subscription to McAfee Internet Security. 
Plus JIB threw in extension speakers, mouse/pad, earphones, cleaning kit, keyboard protector.

Total cost (including added ram & installing Win 10) = 15,220 Bt. 

Good deal I thought. It's a very nice looking model, slim and compact and not heavy. I was using a 2 gig ram laptop until yesterday, so I'm finding 8 gig lightning fasts for the work I do.

[fredhara1]

On 6/21/2017 at 3:58 PM, Spellforce said:

For a light use, tell your friend to choose a laptop with SSD (it will boost much faster) and for extra storage (photos, videos etc...) tell him to use the cloud (dropbox for photos, onedrive for videos for instance... both are limited but free).

Then for that range of price (with SSD) he has to choose by himself the model (the powers's difference will be slim): keyboard's feeling, weight, screen (size, resolution, contrast), color, shape etc...

Jib and InvadeIT are the best reseller (for me) in Pattaya.

SSD isn't for light use!

Anyway, my $300 laptop is for light use and I watch porn on it all the time. I'm thinking that's what light use means when he says "light"

[Biennial]

7 minutes ago, fredhara1 said:

SSD isn't for light use!

Anyway, my $300 laptop is for light use and I watch porn on it all the time. I'm thinking that's what light use means when he says "light"

You should have upgraded to the spill-proof keyboard. LOL!

[fredhara1]

2 minutes ago, Biennial said:

You should have upgraded to the spill-proof keyboard. LOL!

Man, I've been spilling on it lately, and want to upgrade soon but I'm so poor I have cockroaches for roommates

[Garzan]

3 minutes ago, fredhara1 said:

Man, I've been spilling on it lately, and want to upgrade soon but I'm so poor I have cockroaches for roommates

TMI

 

[The Sly Fox]

1 hour ago, fredhara1 said:

SSD isn't for light use!

Anyway, my $300 laptop is for light use and I watch porn on it all the time. I'm thinking that's what light use means when he says "light"

Yes i talked with JIB yesterday about upgrading to a SSD, would have made a huge increase in cost, so I dropped the idea fast. My budget was 15,000 Bt, nobody getting any SSD for that budget. But I'm certainly light use. Just general web surfing, checking emails, working with jpegs & MP3 files, social media/YouTube and so on. 

[zenzen11]

SSD's are soooooo worth the money. I replaced my rarely used DVD drive with a Terabyte SSD and the speed is Amazing... I will never by a regular hard drive again

Sent from my SM-T715Y using Tapatalk

[Garzan]

1 hour ago, The Sly Fox said:

Yes i talked with JIB yesterday about upgrading to a SSD, would have made a huge increase in cost, so I dropped the idea fast. My budget was 15,000 Bt, nobody getting any SSD for that budget. But I'm certainly light use. Just general web surfing, checking emails, working with jpegs & MP3 files, social media/YouTube and so on. 

The price for just a drive isn't all that bad, around $100USD for one big enough for your light use, and you can always move the old HDD to an external enclosure for your long term storage/cloud/backup drive. The are pretty simple to swap out, and there is probably a step by step YouTube video already online. 

They aren't as wonderful if you've never had one, but once you have had one as a primary computer drive, you really don't want to go back to spinning platters for a boot drive. 555

The only issue I can see for you is that your Windows copy is a pirate copy I have no idea how easy or difficult the licensing is to spoof. A regular licensed copy pretty much takes care of itself as soon as you log in with your Microsoft account. 

On the budget side, it isn't something you'd need to do until you were ready. And the price of memory is falling, so the longer you wait, the bigger drive you can get for the same money. (Which reminds me, I should start budgeting for a bigger M2 drive for my desktop.)

[The Sly Fox]

20 hours ago, Garzan said:

The price for just a drive isn't all that bad, around $100USD for one big enough for your light use, and you can always move the old HDD to an external enclosure for your long term storage/cloud/backup drive. The are pretty simple to swap out, and there is probably a step by step YouTube video already online. 

They aren't as wonderful if you've never had one, but once you have had one as a primary computer drive, you really don't want to go back to spinning platters for a boot drive. 555

The only issue I can see for you is that your Windows copy is a pirate copy I have no idea how easy or difficult the licensing is to spoof. A regular licensed copy pretty much takes care of itself as soon as you log in with your Microsoft account. 

On the budget side, it isn't something you'd need to do until you were ready. And the price of memory is falling, so the longer you wait, the bigger drive you can get for the same money. (Which reminds me, I should start budgeting for a bigger M2 drive for my desktop.)

I been using a pirate copy of Win 7 for the past 5 years, no probs, updates turned off and it ran well. I expect the same from Win 10, but if I do run into unexpected probs then I'll revert to Win 7. 

Actually I'm a bit undecided about Win 10 anyway, not sure if I prefer it or would rather revert to Win 7. I'll keep using it for another week and if I still don't care for it, I'll format and put Win 7 64 bit back on. 

I've made a system image backup of the current installation so if I do go back to Win 7, and hit some snags with drivers or anything, then I can put it right back to how it was the day I bought it.