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Laptop deal

51 65 July 14, 2023 at 05:53 AM Get Best Buy coupons Coupons
I am wondering if this is a good deal on this laptop for $799

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-e...Id=6535818

HP - ENVY 2-in-1 15.6" Full HD Touch-Screen Laptop - Intel Evo Platform - Core i7 - 16GB Memory - 512GB SSD - Natural Silver

I'm looking for a laptop primarily to use for school and work. I didn't know if the graphics card is an issue. Here is more information about what I'm looking for

Budget: 750-1200 with some wiggle room, definitely not more than 1500

◽️ Screen size: 15 inch' ish (open to 14-16)
◽️ Touch screen: Yes, must have (doesn't need to be convertible to a tablet)
.◽️ Does battery life matter ?: Not really. Primarily use it at home
◽️ What tasks will laptop be used for regular computing tasks, word processing, zoom classes, web, also in grad school, some light gaming. I often have multiple programs open at the same time, e.g.: 3 word docs, 2 excel spreadsheet power BI, web browser with many tabs open
◽️ Weight: Not important. I use a tablet when I'm mobile
◽️ I generally keep laptops for several years. I currently have a Lenovo flex 5-1570, corei7-855ou CPU, 1.8/2.0 GHZ with 16gb ram that is about 4 years old. It has served me well but has a cracked case and has started to struggle/freeze

Thanks!
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hermitscr
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zeroflight
07-18-2023 at 12:54 PM.
07-18-2023 at 12:54 PM.
To be honest, for what you intend to use it for, anything more than $1000 will probably be overkill. You can get some pretty dang good non-specialized laptops for that budget. But that also means you'll be semi future proofing if you can avoid damage.
I've always been partial to Dell and Acer, with fallback to Lenovo - never been a big fan of most of the others, deal almost exclusively with Dell at work, and have had good luck with Acer for everything in between. (Edit: personally I'd avoid Alienware - I've seen too many failures with that product line)

So with that in mind, here's a quick note followed by some links for Dell. I'm sure some other folks can add some links for other brands. Now these aren't OMG deals since in my opinion you're better off going with what you want/need than trying to make a deal fit, but they are a very good price for what you're getting.

Note about Graphics: Not sure about other manufacturers, but with most of the current Dells that don't have a dedicated graphics card, they use Intel Iris (I think a few randos still use UHD but don't touch those). I can tell you from experience (have it on my work laptop right now), Iris handles way more than you think it would; way more than a desktop integrated card and is surprisingly capable. I'm currently playing Hogwarts Legacy on it (albeit at medium/low graphics) and recently played Dying Light 2. So it can handle most modern games, just not necessarily at amazing quality. I don't play CoD or anything like that so couldn't tell you it does with those kind of MP games. If you're interested in something a bit better, you'll need a dedicated GPU but about anything modern will do fine. Just remember that better graphics = less battery life, a brick of a power adapter, & needing better heat dissipation, which not all have.

1) $900 Dell Inspiron 14 with RTX 3050 GPU: It's only 14, but it's got some hefty performance because of that GPU. https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/d...n7420fqlrs

2) $650 Dell Inspiron 15 with Iris graphics: Don't let the price fool you, it's still a really good laptop. https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/d...n3520ftuzs

And other note... I'm sure you've got it all covered, but make sure to get an external drive of some kind to keep backups on, or make use of OneDrive if you don't have it. Some schools give students an Office account to use while enrolled while some just give purchasing discounts. If you're in the former group, I don't recommend using their copy for cloud storage as they still have control over it and you can, though rarely, lose everything. If your budget allows, I'd also buy whatever RAM you need to get your laptop to 32gb. 16 will run you fine for most things you'll throw at it, but 32 will ensure it.
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