Advice Need On A Budget Laptop.

[mongers]

Hi, I need some advice on buying a budget laptop; I need it for the usual web activities, plus a little bit of simple video editing and playing some games of a couple of years ago, like Napoleon total War and Civ5.

Other than my little netbook, which if fine for most day to day stuff, the only other 'modern' computer I have is an 5 year old dell that had some dual core athlon in so anything will be a big improvement on that.
Plus it's about time I 'upgraded' to window7 before 8 comes in. 

One laptop has an AMD A8-3530MX with 8Gb 750Gb  the other a Intel i3- 2350m 6Gb 750Gb. so which it best ?

Any other suggestions welcome, but another important consideration is I can't stand glossy or semi-reflective screens, I'd much rather go with the reduced 'multi-media' performance and have a matt screen with no reflections. 

[Grey Fox]

I'm out of the AMD line so no idea there.

However, if you want to game, do not get an I3, get an I5.

[Vricklund]

What about graphics cards? Any of the above have a dedicated card?

The A8-3530MX (Llano family) not a bad budget processor. It's a pure quadcore processor with over clocking abilities (1.9GHz->2.3/2.4/2.5? GHz) and a built in graphics card. It's now going to be replaced by the new Trinity line - not a pure quadcore but higher clocked, better over clocking abilities and with a better built in GPU, also it's supposed to beat the intel processors in battery life. That being said the A8-3550MX isn't a bad deal, especially if it's coupled with a decent dedicated graphics card.

Don't know that much about the i3-line, it never interested me. I'd rather look at an older, more top of the line, Core 2 Duo if you're looking to save money.

[mongers]

What about graphics cards? Any of the above have a dedicated card?

The A8-3530MX (Llano family) not a bad budget processor. It's a pure quadcore processor with over clocking abilities (1.9GHz->2.3/2.4/2.5? GHz) and a built in graphics card. It's now going to be replaced by the new Trinity line - not a pure quadcore but higher clocked, better over clocking abilities and with a better built in GPU, also it's supposed to beat the intel processors in battery life. That being said the A8-3550MX isn't a bad deal, especially if it's coupled with a decent dedicated graphics card.

Don't know that much about the i3-line, it never interested me. I'd rather look at an older, more top of the line, Core 2 Duo if you're looking to save money.

V, thanks for that, useful info.

I'll go and have a look at some benchmarking sites, see what that is up to.

Found this:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4444/amd-llano-notebook-review-a-series-fusion-apu-a8-3500m/11
it suggests it might useably run a modest Civ5 game:

[mongers]

Well it, the Amd powered one, turned up earlier today; just had a bit of a play with it, never used windows7 but it appears to have a lot of XP options under the bonnet.

Downloaded the Civilization demo and it seem to run fine, though I'm not sold on the game yet, maybe even not enough to buy the retail game or the steam version !. 

[Grey Fox]

Civ V is a steamworks game, all versions are the steam version.

[mongers]

Civ V is a steamworks game, all versions are the steam version.

Thanks for that, yeah I meant in the sense of which 'version' is the better value; over here steam prices don't seem that competitive, on steam it's about $32 whereas the physical item is $20.   

[Syt]

It happens occasionally, I had that with Saints Row 3. In those cases I buy the physical version, and simply register the game on Steam by putting the code number in. Steam will then downloads/installs the game. Similar with Amazon.com bargains.

[viper37]

Hi, I need some advice on buying a budget laptop; I need it for the usual web activities, plus a little bit of simple video editing and playing some games of a couple of years ago, like Napoleon total War and Civ5.

Other than my little netbook, which if fine for most day to day stuff, the only other 'modern' computer I have is an 5 year old dell that had some dual core athlon in so anything will be a big improvement on that.
Plus it's about time I 'upgraded' to window7 before 8 comes in. 

One laptop has an AMD A8-3530MX with 8Gb 750Gb  the other a Intel i3- 2350m 6Gb 750Gb. so which it best ?

Any other suggestions welcome, but another important consideration is I can't stand glossy or semi-reflective screens, I'd much rather go with the reduced 'multi-media' performance and have a matt screen with no reflections. 

The AMD one is the better machine.  A more recent processor, with 8 cores, and 8gb ram.

[mongers]

Hi, I need some advice on buying a budget laptop; I need it for the usual web activities, plus a little bit of simple video editing and playing some games of a couple of years ago, like Napoleon total War and Civ5.

Other than my little netbook, which if fine for most day to day stuff, the only other 'modern' computer I have is an 5 year old dell that had some dual core athlon in so anything will be a big improvement on that.
Plus it's about time I 'upgraded' to window7 before 8 comes in. 

One laptop has an AMD A8-3530MX with 8Gb 750Gb  the other a Intel i3- 2350m 6Gb 750Gb. so which it best ?

Any other suggestions welcome, but another important consideration is I can't stand glossy or semi-reflective screens, I'd much rather go with the reduced 'multi-media' performance and have a matt screen with no reflections. 

The AMD one is the better machine.  A more recent processor, with 8 cores, and 8gb ram.

Yeah, that's the one I went with, it turned up the day before yesterday.

Downloaded some steam demos, and it seems to play the Civ5 Gods and Kings pretty well, that is in dx11 mode which seems prettier than d9; I shall have to get the full game to see how it properly copes.

[Vricklund]

Hi, I need some advice on buying a budget laptop; I need it for the usual web activities, plus a little bit of simple video editing and playing some games of a couple of years ago, like Napoleon total War and Civ5...

The AMD one is the better machine.  A more recent processor, with 8 cores, and 8gb ram.

"Only" four cores, no multithreading.

Yeah, that's the one I went with, it turned up the day before yesterday.

Downloaded some steam demos, and it seems to play the Civ5 Gods and Kings pretty well, that is in dx11 mode which seems prettier than d9; I shall have to get the full game to see how it properly copes.

What manufacturer? I've had my eye on a cheap laptop myself but it seems it's always HP with AMD-processors around here and I've heard alot of crap about HP and laptops - overheating and outdated drivers mostly.

[Arvoreen]

I've gotten my kids HP laptops twice now, most recently last Christmas....never had any problems with overheating or old drivers...their older laptops batteries didn't last quite as long as I wished, but until they were dropped repeatedly, they all worked fine

Of course, I got them Intel based laptops both times...maybe there are issues with the AMD ones?

[mongers]

What manufacturer? I've had my eye on a cheap laptop myself but it seems it's always HP with AMD-processors around here and I've heard alot of crap about HP and laptops - overheating and outdated drivers mostly.

A Samsung, a slightly faster version of this:
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/laptops-portable-pcs/laptops-and-netbooks/samsung-series-3-1045877/review#articleContent

[Vricklund]

I've gotten my kids HP laptops twice now, most recently last Christmas....never had any problems with overheating or old drivers...their older laptops batteries didn't last quite as long as I wished, but until they were dropped repeatedly, they all worked fine

Of course, I got them Intel based laptops both times...maybe there are issues with the AMD ones?

Fine, I caved and bought the HP.

A8-3530MX with 8GB of RAM and a 1GB AMD 7690M graphics card for 5000 kronor, that's roughly 120 big macs. I'm getting my hands on it tomorrow or friday at the latest.

[mongers]

I've gotten my kids HP laptops twice now, most recently last Christmas....never had any problems with overheating or old drivers...their older laptops batteries didn't last quite as long as I wished, but until they were dropped repeatedly, they all worked fine

Of course, I got them Intel based laptops both times...maybe there are issues with the AMD ones?

Fine, I caved and bought the HP.

A8-3530MX with 8GB of RAM and a 1GB AMD 7690M graphics card for 5000 kronor, that's roughly 120 big macs. I'm getting my hands on it tomorrow or friday at the latest.

Big Macs are a bit expensive in Sweden ?