Budget Laptop


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I'm interested in a budget laptop, and have my eye on the HP Stream 13. But, I was wondering if I should just buy an older macbook and max out the RAM and upgrade the HDD to SSD. What would you recommend? I have an iMac, 2xiPad's and have android phones. I also enjoy both OSX and Windows 8.

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Budget... What are you using it for? Price range?

I guess nothing more than $300. It'll be used to browse, email, download, and use Java for work.

Is that better than the HP Stream?
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Stream is amd cpu

Asus is intel

 

Stream better graphics but intel faster.

At this price-point it's more personal preference.

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Stream is amd cpu

Asus is intel

 

Stream better graphics but intel faster.

At this price-point it's more personal preference.

 

Being able to use the ASUS as a tablet would be awesome. But, I'm looking at the specs for the Stream 13 and it says Intel Celeron.

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Yeh the Stream is a bit more powerful and a larger 13" screen, but the Asus has the ability to be a tablet.
 
So again depends on your use case and what's more important to you.
 
Are you going to mostly be using it as a laptop (which which case the larger screen and better specs of the HP Stream are best) or do you need to be ultra mobile and have a tablet, but ones that docks up with a proper keyboard.
 
Or you can get a touch enabled one for the same price as the transformer at $279 http://store.hp.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/us/en/pdp/Laptops/hp-stream-notebook---13-c002dx-%28energy-star%29
 
Or pushing your budget to the top end you could look at the HP 15 $299 http://store.hp.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/us/en/pdp/Laptops/hp-15-f011nr-notebook-pc-%28energy-star%29
This gets you and even better CPU, twice the RAM, a 500GB HDD, (which is a blessing and a curse, the Streams and Asus have only 32GB, but its SSD, this is 500GB but normal HDD....so is speed or capacity more important (stream also has 1TB of onedrive for a year.
 
and an even larger 15" screen.
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Being able to use the ASUS as a tablet would be awesome. But, I'm looking at the specs for the Stream 13 and it says Intel Celeron.

The new Celerons are actually pretty decent processors, but the Atoms are as well.  You'll get better battery life from the T100 because of the dock, but it's a smaller screen as well.

 

In this price range, it's really just your preference.  They'll perform about the same, more or less.

 

Do you want bigger screen or more battery?

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Yeh the Stream is a bit more powerful and a larger 13" screen, but the Asus has the ability to be a tablet.
 
So again depends on your use case and what's more important to you.
 
Are you going to mostly be using it as a laptop (which which case the larger screen and better specs of the HP Stream are best) or do you need to be ultra mobile and have a tablet, but ones that docks up with a proper keyboard.
 
Or you can get a touch enabled one for the same price as the transformer at $279 http://store.hp.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/us/en/pdp/Laptops/hp-stream-notebook---13-c002dx-%28energy-star%29

 

 

I think I'll use it more as a laptop, as I get annoyed while I'm using my iPad and needing to type. Plus, the iPad will be with me as well. I seen the touch enabled one, might go snag that.

 

The new Celerons are actually pretty decent processors, but the Atoms are as well.  You'll get better battery life from the T100 because of the dock, but it's a smaller screen as well.

 

In this price range, it's really just your preference.  They'll perform about the same, more or less.

 

Do you want bigger screen or more battery?

 

Honestly doesn't matter to me. If they made the HP Stream 11 a touch, I'd probably get that just to save some money.

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I think I'll use it more as a laptop, as I get annoyed while I'm using my iPad and needing to type. Plus, the iPad will be with me as well. I seen the touch enabled one, might go snag that.

 

 

Honestly doesn't matter to me. If they made the HP Stream 11 a touch, I'd probably get that just to save some money.

Yeh with a ipad it doesn't really make sense to get the Asus, I've edited my original post, added in a top of your budget "full laptop" Stream is still kinda a compromise style machine, really cheap but lacking in any proper storage (32GB eMMC), you can add an SD card, but no real SSD or HDD.

They're designed and new style laptops where you use the cloud (hence the 1TB of one drive storage for free).

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I got a MSI nb several years ago for about $300. It came with a 2-core Celeron, 3GB ddr, 250GB hdd. wifi-N, 13xx * 768, HDMI out, 3 yr warranty.  I've been quite happy with it.  I use it for software development. It came with W7 HP, but I put Server 08R2 on it, and it runs just fine.

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I got a MSI nb several years ago for about $300. It came with a 2-core Celeron, 3GB ddr, 250GB hdd. wifi-N, 13xx * 768, HDMI out, 3 yr warranty. I've been quite happy with it. I use it for software development. It came with W7 HP, but I put Server 08R2 on it, and it runs just fine.

So get one like yours or are you trying to say a cheap laptop will make me happy? I can get the HP Stream 13 touch for $250 shipped.

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The Celeron in the HP Stream is a BayTrail Celeron. That is, it's a dual core atom with a much increased clock rate.

 

You'd be much better off with the Stream 15 with it's full blown Pentium and 4GB of RAM. Performance will be about 60% higher based on the BayTrail celeron (as opposed to 20-40% on the Haswell Celeron). This comes from the inclusion of 4 cores (single core performance is identical between the two).

 

Graphical performance on the Pentium is a ton better also as it uses a HD graphics chipset similar to the Core i* processors.

 

Tl;dr - Spend a tad bit extra and get something you won't want to toss out the window in a week.

 

I got a MSI nb several years ago for about $300. It came with a 2-core Celeron, 3GB ddr, 250GB hdd. wifi-N, 13xx * 768, HDMI out, 3 yr warranty.  I've been quite happy with it.  I use it for software development. It came with W7 HP, but I put Server 08R2 on it, and it runs just fine.

It would have been a full blooded Celeron unlike the one in the Stream.

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The Celeron in the HP Stream is a BayTrail Celeron. That is, it's a dual core atom with a much increased clock rate.

 

You'd be much better off with the Stream 15 with it's full blown Pentium and 4GB of RAM. Performance will be about 60% higher based on the BayTrail celeron (as opposed to 20-40% on the Haswell Celeron). This comes from the inclusion of 4 cores (single core performance is identical between the two).

 

Graphical performance on the Pentium is a ton better also as it uses a HD graphics chipset similar to the Core i* processors.

 

Tl;dr - Spend a tad bit extra and get something you won't want to toss out the window in a week.

 

It would have been a full blooded Celeron unlike the one in the Stream.

HP don't do a Stream 15... 11, 13 and 14, plus 7 and 8" tablets.

 

If you taking about the one I linked earlier it's not a Stream, its just the HP 15.

 

But yes the Pentium is much better performance wise, the issue is the HDD, its going to be a lot slower than the eMMC in the Stream's, which kinda negates the CPU performance some what...ideal option is to get the 15 and just get a cheap SSD, Nothing to crazy as the rest of the laptop wouldn't make use of the SSD's performance. So maybe a cheap SSD 128GB for $59 or 256GB for $89 from newegg.

 

Then you'd have a really solid laptop.

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HP don't do a Stream 15... 11, 13 and 14, plus 7 and 8" tablets.

 

If you taking about the one I linked earlier it's not a Stream, its just the HP 15.

 

But yes the Pentium is much better performance wise, the issue is the HDD, its going to be a lot slower than the eMMC in the Stream's, which kinda negates the CPU performance some what...ideal option is to get the 15 and just get a cheap SSD, Nothing to crazy as the rest of the laptop wouldn't make use of the SSD's performance. So maybe a cheap SSD 128GB for $59 or 256GB for $89 from newegg.

 

Then you'd have a really solid laptop.

I can get the HP 15 for $320 with my discount. What do you mean the rest of the laptop wouldn't make use of the SSD performance?

 

---

 

I also have a Dell Venue Pro 8 tablet that stopped charging due to the wrong micro USB port they put in. Debating to get that replaced for $40 and then just use that as my computer.

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I wouldn't get a macbook and upgrade the RAM and HDD... The macbook will be 5 years old, out of warranty, the battery life will be 3 hours max, and you'll end up paying more for it than you would if you got brand new Stream 13.

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I can get the HP 15 for $320 with my discount. What do you mean the rest of the laptop wouldn't make use of the SSD performance?

 

---

 

I also have a Dell Venue Pro 8 tablet that stopped charging due to the wrong micro USB port they put in. Debating to get that replaced for $40 and then just use that as my computer.

As in there's no point getting a Samsung 850 Pro or a top end SSD like that, its like putting a Ferrari engine in a VW Polo (engine is fantastic, but you can't go that fast because the tires don't have enough grip for the power), i.e. other components will start to become the limiting factors, RAM/CPU, so your SSD has all the performance but can't use half if it cause the rest of the laptop is too slow. Getting a lower end SSD would be a better match up and save you money.

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Being able to use the ASUS as a tablet would be awesome. But, I'm looking at the specs for the Stream 13 and it says Intel Celeron.

What's with all the haterade drinking on post-LGA775 Celerons (and Pentiums, for that matter)?

 

Starting with LGA775, both Celeron and Pentium lines shifted to the same architecture as the more mainstream CPUs (in other words, a "gelded" version of the then mainstream architecture).  The first beneficiaries were the Celeron Dual-Core (Celeron DC) and Pentium Dual-Core (Pentium DC) in LGA775 - both were modified Core 2 Duo designs.  The ONLY differences were in terms of processing power of the CPU cores - the number of CPU cores themselves were unchanged from the derived design.  The initial versions were based on the Conroe design, with the successor based on the Wolfdale design.  The same iteration has, in fact, continued with each mainstream architecture change - current Celeron and Pentium designs are based on LGA1150 (Haswell and Devil's Canyon) - in the case of desktop non-OEM designs, you can upgrade-in-place from Celeron or Pentium to a same-socket mainstream CPU merely by swap (as was the case with Celeron DC or Pentium DC - I personally upgraded from Celeron DC (E3400/modified Wolfdale) to Core 2 Quad (Q6600/mainstream Kentsfield) without changing any other parts).

 

If all you need is a dual-core CPU (and, unless you run a large number of applications that use more than two cores, that is precisely the situation you are in), which makes more sense - i3 at $100USD, or PentiumG at $50USD (or even CeleronG at $40USD) if it makes zero difference to the OS or application at stock?  THE mainstream example I will illustrate today is the Pentium G325x - not just the Pentium Anniversary Edition G3258, but the OEM-specific mainstream G3250.  This is a dual-core CPU in the LGA1150 design ("gelded" Core i3).  It doesn't support either HTT or Turbo; however, it does support Extended Processor Tables (therefore, it supports Hyper-V) in addition to Intel64 and SpeedStep/EIST.  Basically, unless you absolutely require the two missing features (HTT and/or Turbo) you save at least $50USD right off the top, while losing nothing else.  Why buy more CPU than you need?

 

Further, look up the specs of the Celeron in the Stream 13 - it is quite capable of running Windows Server.  The BayTrail Atom is a modified Haswell/Devil's Canyon design - in other words, a cross between older Atom and Haswell;  Haswell-type computing power and Atom power-sippage.  We keep forgetting that Atom and mainstream Intel CPUs are fully code-cross-compatible - what runs on one will run on the other.  Atom's entire reason for being is power-sippage PLUS x86 - such as laptops, notebooks, tablet designs, slate designs, and some AIOs - especially where energy use is a big concern.  Lastly, unlike ARM, it can run ordinary x86/x64 Windows - such as 8.1, for example.

 

My current upgrade is the second in the poor-economy "why-buy-more-than-you-need" school - remember, G3258 is a PentiumG.  Still, the motherboard itself (MSI PC Mate Z97) also supports any other LGA1150 CPU as a straight swap - if I need a beefier CPU, I can swap it in, changing nothing else.

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I have a Lenovo Flex10 I throw in my bag for carting around, Mainly because I wanted something smaller than my 2011 MBA 13" but also it's cheap enough that if I did manage to destroy it I wouldn't feel quite so bad about it.

 

It's an N2807 cpu so pretty gutless but enough for reading my emails, browsing the web and talking on skype, which is pretty much what I bought it for.

I did pull it apart the other day and replace the HDD with a 120Gb Kingston V300 SSD (Cheapest SSD available at the time, I'm sure some people are still put off Kingston by the bait and switch stuff they're accused of, but in such a low end machine it makes sod all difference anyway.) Changing to SSD made a huge difference to the performance.  Machine is no longer frustratingly slow to use.

 

One of the things people need to be aware of with some of these machines with 32GB Storage is that's an eMMC device and not the same as an SSD (Usually the write speed is slower)

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I also have a Dell Venue Pro 8 tablet that stopped charging due to the wrong micro USB port they put in. Debating to get that replaced for $40 and then just use that as my computer.

 

Lol explain "Wrong micro USB port (they) put in".

 

I highly doubt Dell put in a "Wrong" port. And did you get it fixed under warranty?

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Lol explain "Wrong micro USB port (they) put in".

I highly doubt Dell put in a "Wrong" port. And did you get it fixed under warranty?

They put a micro A-B port with a micro A charger. So many people including me have jammed the charger in thing it was the correct way and ruining the inside.

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