Cheap Windows laptop

[justin]

how much faster/slower would a $200 laptop like this be compared to a Core 2 Duo model w/ 2008-2010 tech?

http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/inspiron-11-3162-laptop/fndoh101sb

[acidbasement]

n=1 for me, but in my experience a shitty laptop is going to be shitty no matter how new.

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[justin]

well the former laptop is shitty too. maybe not as shitty. it was a cheap "thinkpad" around $500-600 i think when i got it included with a laser engraver in 2011. 

i will say it has successfully survived being completely coated in powder coating and aluminum dust

Edited April 25, 2017 by justin

[grawk]

As long as you're not gaming, a $200 current laptop is fine.  My kids have 2 of them.

 

[justin]

light 3D CAD. which i currently do in vmware fusion on mac. which can sometimes be shitty.

[Jon L]

That laptop has 2 GB(!) only of RAM and eMMC as hard drive, which is better than spinning HD but not nearly as fast as good solid state drive.  

Unless there's some real good reason, I am all for spending the $200 on that Core 2 Duo 2008-2010 model in the form of more RAM and decent solid state drive, which is cheap these days.  In fact, that's what I did to my Core 2 Duo laptop, and it's still going strong and fast, running Photoshop, etc no problem.  Granted, it's not as fast as my i7 processor laptop with more RAM/solid state drive, but that's expected..

[justin]

oh, i do want to drive an external 2560?x1600 monitor. should have mentioned that. i figure everything these days can do that, but i should check

[grawk]

yah, I wouldn't expect a $200 laptop to do that

 

[mypasswordis]

A Celeron with 2gb memory? Are we back in 2005? I bought my thinkpad for $300 2 years ago, it has an i5, 8gb RAM, and a 160GB SSD. Also I have had very bad experiences with Dells in the past, not sure if they upped their quality in the last 5 years. 

[Dusty Chalk]

Seems like a lateral move.  And yeah, I wouldn't assume nuthin' about being able to drive a 2560x1600 monitor.  What monitor?  When I got my first powerful monitor about 10 years ago, I did have to get a special video card to drive it (Dual DVI or sumpin').  

EDIT:  It actually says right on the page:

Quote

HDMI connection: Connect your laptop to an external monitor or big-screen TV to view content in stunning FHD / 1080p resolution.

But it does say it has an HDMI connection -- which, if older, single-link, can only do 1920x1200, which is still more than they're saying -- the 1.4 spec should be a lot more than that, plenty to handle 2560x1600 -- just not how current it is.  So look for "hdmi 1.4".  Or the equivalent DVI connection.  Assuming your monitor has both.  If not, whichever one your monitor has.

But boy howdy, it shore is blue.

[purk]

I would get something in a $350 range with an i3 processor and 4GB of ram at the minimum.  I own one of those newer Celeron and it is slow.