I'm like the Goldilocks of laptop shopping

August 14, 2015 11:45 PM

Some ominous clicking from my current laptop's hard drive, along with a separating bezel that I've taped together for the moment, have convinced me that I should take advantage of back-to-school sales and get a new laptop before this one craps out. I'm looking for advice with the somewhat picky wishlist I've got going for a 15.6" laptop that comes in at less that $800, and is ideally closer to $600. I refuse to get a Dell or a Mac, but would love opinions on other brands, and will definitely purchase online.

I spend my day with lots of browser tabs open, music or a video going, and reading lots of pdfs and ebooks while writing lots of documents. Features that are important to me:
-Good display for reading
-Good keyboard for typing--I hate the number pad on the side!
-DVDRW drive
-15.6" size
-Windows OS

Things that are less important to me
-Battery life and weight--this will be plugged in on a desk/table most of the time
-Touchscreen--would prefer not
-2-in-1--prefer not

I currently have a Lenovo ideapad (pre Superfish, luckily) and love the keyboard, but don't love the mechanical issues cropping up. I know that Thinkpads are popular here, and I had a good sturdy one in the past, but even refurbed T/W/Zs look out of my price range. Anyone have any word on their Thinkpad E series? I had a Toshiba ages ago and wasn't impressed with it, in addition to my aversion to Dells and Macs.

I'd also love opinons about the SSD--that seems to be a big factor in price point. I know that SSDs are like the bestest thing ever, but I don't really need blazing speed for much of my computing (I do zero gaming). Can I go without?

posted by TwoStride to Technology (11 answers total)

Best answer: I'm pretty happy with my HP ProBook which ticks all of your boxes except for that it does have a number pad. And yes, you can do just fine without an SSD.
posted by Zarkonnen at 12:21 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

If the alternative is a 5400rpm hard drive, you want an SSD. It's so much better it's not even funny, and especially NOT for gaming. Everything just happens now instead of waiting a second.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:27 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ssds make minimal difference for gaming. Its all about the responsiveness.
posted by Sebmojo at 3:44 AM on August 15, 2015

Best answer: I have a Thinkpad Edge and love the keyboard and non-glare screen. Pretty sure most 15.6" laptops have numberpads, though, which I also don't like. (It makes me slump to the right.) My Thinkpad Edge is 13 inches, which is smaller than I had before and thus doesn't have a DVD drive, but I use an external one the few times I need to. Not sure they make the Edge series like this anymore, though.

I ticked all the boxes at my usual (German, unfortunately) laptop search site (still looking for that perfect portable non-glare netbook): no number pad, non-glare display, 15.6" and Windows, and found Packard Bell Easy Note laptops as an option if you don't them being almost five pounds and having no DVD drive, and it's only around 300€. There's also the HP 655, E1-1200 and Samsung P510 Pro C575 Penda, but the RAM is pretty bad. They both have DVD drives, though.
HP G1 laptops might tick all your boxes and manage to stay around 600$. I can't speak to how good they are, but since it doesn't seem like you game a lot or do heavy graphics, check them out?
posted by LoonyLovegood at 5:30 AM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have a Toshiba, now several years old. It's been OK, nothing special. My biggest gripe is reflectivity of the screen. It's very annoying in a room with a bright window, much worse than what I'd been used to with Dells. Something to check as best you can.
posted by SemiSalt at 7:17 AM on August 15, 2015

If you want a Thinkpad, there are definitely used ones available on ebay within your budget. If you feel comfortable doing basic maintenance on laptops (swapping hard drives or keyboards and the like-reasonably easy with Thinkpads) and the seller has some kind of return policy, I don't think there's much risk in buying this way.
posted by needs more cowbell at 9:43 AM on August 15, 2015

Best answer: There's even less risk for eBay buying if you get a Thinkpad that is still under warranty. Given the lack of any significant increase in CPU speed over the past few years and that you will be mostly remaining plugged into the wall, you could get a 2.5 year old Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge model that the original owner bought the 3 year warranty for. Haswell is great for battery life, but in terms of speed it's not much of an improvement over the Sandy Bridge CPUs.

Also check the Lenovo outlet store. They have refurbs and off lease units for fairly reasonable prices. IBM Global Financing is also a good source for such things. eBay tends to be a bit cheaper, though.
posted by wierdo at 11:54 AM on August 15, 2015 [2 favorites]

Oh, I forgot to mention: Do get an SSD. Do not buy a laptop that comes with it. Buy your own from Newegg or Amazon and install it yourself. The difference is amazing.

If you need the extra space of a spinning rust disk, either get an Ultrabay adapter and swap between the DVD and hard drive as needed or get an external USB drive. SSDs make an enormous difference to the speed and responsiveness of older computers. If nothing else, having the computer boot in 5 seconds or so is worth the $80-$120 it costs to get a reasonably sized Intel or Crucial SSD.

I have an X120e which has the world's crappiest CPU (it's a totally worthless AMD APU, actually) and the SSD makes it tolerably fast. I still want to chuck the thing, but at least I can get work done on it now.
posted by wierdo at 12:02 PM on August 15, 2015

Nthing the suggestion to get an SSD. Consider how many times you boot your computer, and then consider the total time saved from bringing down boot time from 30+ seconds to around 5 seconds. Another advantage of fast booting is that it makes a multiple-OS setup much more attractive. Intels tend to be the most reliable.

Also, I would like to say as someone who has learned from painful experience that if you think your hard drive is making clicking noises, take action as soon as possible to backup your important files, if you haven't already. When my hard drive started clicking, I knew I needed to get an external hard drive for backup, but I thought I could get by with the free shipping from Amazon instead of the two-day shipping. Three days later, it died for good.

Of course, if you are a responsible person unlike I was and have been backing up your data already, you can disregard this.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 4:24 PM on August 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Someone above suggested you buy a laptop without an SSD, and then buy an SSD and install it yourself.

I disagree with that suggestion.
Buy the thing you want the first time so that you don't support the added environmental impact of mining for rare earth minerals and other doesn't-exactly-grow-on-trees elements, forging and tuning these items into a working device, shipping it across the world inside of a working laptop, only to be removed immediately out of the box to be thrown into a landfill and replaced with an SSD.

If you want a laptop with an SSD, buy a laptop with an SSD. Don't buy a laptop without an SSD, throw away a working hard drive, and then buy an SSD. That's insane.
posted by oceanjesse at 9:40 AM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

It would indeed be rather silly to throw away a perfectly good hard drive. It is not silly to avoid paying the 100% markup many manufacturers charge on SSDs or even larger hard disks.

You can buy an external enclosure to use the hard drive that came with the laptop as a portable for less than $20. Or you can buy an Ultrabay adapter if you have a Thinkpad that has one or more Ultrabays. Or you can sell or give away the unused drive.
posted by wierdo at 7:57 PM on August 17, 2015