new laptop assistance

8gb RAM is probably a bit over the top for what you want to do. 4gb should be fine. You will most likely want a 1tb hard drive if you are going to be storing lots of photos.

Is the 8gb not to do with how quickly the pages Open? I.e. Faster Internet?

For me you can never have enough ram and would listen to your son. 8gb ram is better than 6gb which is better than 4gb. The more ram (memory) you have the quicker the laptop will be for multi tasking. Minimum 1tb storage also. We have had quite a few laptops which have mainly been Acer and found them to perform well as a budget laptop. My Dad uses HP which has been good but I prefer Acer. Just bought a Lenovo desktop tower which seems ok. Here are a few choices all of which will be fine for your needs. I like the last one as it has an i5 processor but think you may find it out of stock in your home town and it's not available for delivery.

When picking a laptop make sure it has 8gb ram, 1tb hard drive and intel i3 or i5 processor. I can't comment on AMD processors as my pc's and laptops have always been intel.

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omon23dan

8gb RAM is probably a bit over the top for what you want to do. 4gb … 8gb RAM is probably a bit over the top for what you want to do. 4gb should be fine. You will most likely want a 1tb hard drive if you are going to be storing lots of photos.Read lessRead more

1TB for a lot of photos? Ha. More than a lot I would say. If your photos are 1MB each that would be a million pictures.

Thanks Smartguy1 the salesman in currys was giving me the advice that the AMD processor was better than the Intel. (Understand my confusion) I've had an Acer, compac and Hp laptop found them mostly to be the same tbh.

Smartguy1

For me you can never have enough ram and would listen to your son. 8gb … For me you can never have enough ram and would listen to your son. 8gb ram is better than 6gb which is better than 4gb. The more ram (memory) you have the quicker the laptop will be for multi tasking. Minimum 1tb storage also. We have had quite a few laptops which have mainly been Acer and found them to perform well as a budget laptop. My Dad uses HP which has been good but I prefer Acer. Just bought a Lenovo desktop tower which seems ok. Here are a few choices all of which will be fine for your needs. I like the last one as it has an i5 processor but think you may find it out of stock in your home town and it's not available for delivery. When picking a laptop make sure it has 8gb ram, 1tb hard drive and intel i3 or i5 processor. I can't comment on AMD processors as my pc's and laptops have always been intel.http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/lenovo-g50-15-6-laptop-black-10107130-pdt.html#cat-0http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/acer-e5-571-15-6-laptop-purple-10029120-pdt.htmlhttp://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/hp-15-g092sa-15-6-laptop-black-10011511-pdt.html#cat-0http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/asus-f555la-15-6-laptop-black-silver-10101111-pdt.html#cat-0http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-15-p157sa-15-6-laptop-purple-10075551-pdt.htmlRead lessRead more

Only if you have lot of things running. I would almost doubt that more than 4GB would be used in normal day to day running and 4GB of nearly full fast ram is much better than 8GB of slow half used ram. A good CPU and a SSD would make the computer much faster.

Telling someone that a laptop must have 8Gb and a 1TB hard drive is utter nonsense.

MIDURIX I have thousands of photos over the years, on memory sticks mostly. We have a lot of music too!!
What does ssd mean?
I have no patience waiting for things to open and usually have a few Web pages Open attached time. Son uses YouTube a lot too

MIDURIX it was my son who gave me the advice of 8gb and 1tb. I'm asking for advice as I don't know what half this stuff means!!

SassyB

MIDURIX I have thousands of photos over the years, on memory sticks … MIDURIX I have thousands of photos over the years, on memory sticks mostly. We have a lot of music too!!What does ssd mean? I have no patience waiting for things to open and usually have a few Web pages Open attached time. Son uses YouTube a lot tooRead lessRead more

Why don't you right click on your folder with all the photos in and click on properties and see how many GB it is, one GB is about 500-1000 pictures. So if you have 10,000 pictures a 10-20GB hard drive would be ok, so a 1TB drive which is 1000GB would be overkill. You really don't need to worry about photo or music storage in this day and age. A SSD is a solid state drive (type of hard drive) and to be honest you probably wouldn't find a laptop in your budget with one in, although they aren't too expensive to buy and fit yourself, they are like your memory stick as apposed to a normal hard drive which has moving parts.

A good prosessor (cpu) is going to make much much much more difference to how fast the computer is and it is the cpu which sticks your web pages into the memory in the first place.

If I go through the laptops Smartguy1 has mentioned I will give you some advice
The first one (lenevo) has a very poor cpu
The second one (acer) has an i3, but it is a bit poor
The third (hp) is more expensive and has a amd cpu compared to the 2nd one it is actually slower
The fourth one (asus) has a bit better cpu than the 2nd, but half the memory, but I really think 4GB would be fine
The fith one (hp) has a much much better cpu than the rest, but as said you might not be able to find it instore.

I had a gaming Dell laptop about a year ago which came with 6GB of memory (a 2GB stick and a 4GB stick), I took the 2GB stick out to replace with a 4GB one to bring it up to 8GB, but before I did I ran with 4GB and couldn't get any game to use anywhere near the 4GB and you would have to have so so so many programs running at once to use more than 4GB.

Will have a look around and see if I can find something.

Thank you MIDURIX that explains it clearly. I did look at the first one in store on Tuesday night. I'm not particularly fussed on fashionable colours would prefer a decent laptop, could stretch a bit on the budget if there is a good deal out there. Seen one on john Lewis think.it was a Toshiba was around the 380 mark but was only one left online so I prob missed out on that deal (2 yr warranty at John Lewis. Having to do my Internet browsing on my crappy phone just now

There is this one here
or
here
both have stock at three places near me.

Basically even though the model numbers of the cpus are higher than the fifth laptop quoted above they are both not quite as good (weird), due to them both being ultra low voltage, whereas the HP above is just low voltage. Ultra low voltage should be quieter and use less power.

The cheaper one I listed above is actually a touch screen one too.
I would try to get the one Smartguy1 recommends here first (just checked and my nearest 3 all have it), then see if you can get one of the ones form argos.
(edited)

thisis a very nice laptop though, the HP we have both recommended went cold on this site whereas the Lenovo has gone very hot. Gorgeous screen etc

I'll check if they have that one (Hp) in any of the stores close to me. Thanks for your help once again, much appreciated

or this one. Bit of a smaller laptop, but like the one above has a full HD screen and this one has a SSD which make a lot of difference, stretching your budget though.

The last one I looked at in store, I'll wait for my son to come in and see if he gets his unidays discount at currys/pc world. Better in my pocket than theirs! Lol

MIDURIX

1TB for a lot of photos? Ha. More than a lot I would say. If your photos … 1TB for a lot of photos? Ha. More than a lot I would say. If your photos are 1MB each that would be a million pictures.Read lessRead more

Well, what if your hard drive runs out of space? What if they take loads of pictures? You could get a new hard drive but by the sounds of it the OP probably has no idea to do that, and you would have to re install the OS too.There's nothing wrong with having extra space, and they might as well have that extra space if they can afford it. Also, Cameras are being able to take higher quality photos everyday, with some Cameras being able to take photos up 41 megapixel(and higher)! I'm not saying you HAVE to get a 1tb hard drive, I would just recommend it. I've easily used up my 256gb Hard Drive on my laptop, and that's without storing any photos or music. But bearing in mind I am probably a lot more of a heavy user than the OP.

omon23dan

Well, what if your hard drive runs out of space? What if they take loads … Well, what if your hard drive runs out of space? What if they take loads of pictures? You could get a new hard drive but by the sounds of it the OP probably has no idea to do that, and you would have to re install the OS too.There's nothing wrong with having extra space, and they might as well have that extra space if they can afford it. Also, Cameras are being able to take higher quality photos everyday, with some Cameras being able to take photos up 41 megapixel(and higher)! I'm not saying you HAVE to get a 1tb hard drive, I would just recommend it. I've easily used up my 256gb Hard Drive on my laptop, and that's without storing any photos or music. But bearing in mind I am probably a lot more of a heavy user than the OP.Read lessRead more

Photos will not fill up a hard drive unless you have tens of thousands of them, that's my point. You says you have filled you hard drive but then don't say why, well that's not very helpful. I think the reasons you could fill a hard drive are downloading video or installing big games, the OP has not said they are doing this so I haven't recommended a big had. If you take the point of view that you might as well get a big 1TB hard drive and you might as well get 8GB of ram, I don't think the OP would ever use them and would actually use a faster CPU.

I think you would be better off with an Intel core i3 processor, 6 or GB or ram, Most laptops now come with 1tb anyway so it's plenty but why not make your laptop future proof and going with 1tb, you might need it.

I personally would go for one with a SSD. These days you don't need a massive HDD because you have the cloud. hotukdeals.com/fre…541

Maybe out of reach but nice microsoft.com/sur…o-3

MIDURIX

Photos will not fill up a hard drive unless you have tens of thousands of … Photos will not fill up a hard drive unless you have tens of thousands of them, that's my point. You says you have filled you hard drive but then don't say why, well that's not very helpful. I think the reasons you could fill a hard drive are downloading video or installing big games, the OP has not said they are doing this so I haven't recommended a big had. If you take the point of view that you might as well get a big 1TB hard drive and you might as well get 8GB of ram, I don't think the OP would ever use them and would actually use a faster CPU.Read lessRead more

Personally I don't see why you should go for less when you can go for more; most laptops nowadays have a 1tb hard drive anyway. I never said go for 8gb RAM, I said 4gb would be better(for what the OP was going to do). I'll also repeat what I said earlier, I'm not saying you HAVE to have a 1tb HDD. The less capacity you have of a hard drive the less faster the CPU may be in a laptop as a laptop with a low capacity hard drive would most likely be designed for a lower-price range. I know photos won't fill a hard drive unless you have tens of thousands of them, but you might as well have the extra space just in case you do take thousands of photos or want to do something else with the computer. Also (another point I am reinstating), Cameras are being able to take higher-quality pictures everyday, and because of that file sizes can be bigger. Now, I do doubt the OP has this mega-ultra high specced camera, but that isn't my point. I do see where you are coming from, but it is the OP's choice in the end on what Laptop he gets, and he can choose who's advice to take.

Good luck to the OP.