Entry level laptop for University student

pilotg2 said:
Hi, I'm in the UK now and would like to buy a laptop for someone starting Uni in Cape Town.

Please can you recommend an entry level laptop between R4,000 to R5,000. Is Takealot a safe site?

Thank you in advance.
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I do not understand this at all? Why such a low budget? You will get a glorified calculator for that price and your kid will moan all day long about the slow speeds etc.

Buy a proper thing with a 3 year onsite warranty...and sleep better at night.
 
MightyQuin said:
I do not understand this at all? Why such a low budget? You will get a glorified calculator for that price and your kid will moan all day long about the slow speeds etc.

Buy a proper thing with a 3 year onsite warranty...and sleep better at night.
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DO NOT BUY A DELL! DELL NEEDS AN ONSITE WARRENTY BECAUSE THEY BREAK MOER TOE GARENTEED.

It depends on what it is going to be used for, for study something like my laptop is fine. My laptop can even run VS Code fine, it is completely adequate for an entry level work laptop. It never needed onsite support because it is an Asus not a Dell.
 
Benedict A55h0le said:
It`s not that bad on a 15" screen. A 15" at 1366x768 is better than a 24" at 1080p, and 24" at 1080p is standard.
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No way.
I don't care about pixel density, 768p just doesn't have the desktop real estate necessary for modern (windows 7 onwards) computing.
Even my wife, a very casual PC user who likes her text big for easy readability, changed her 13" 1080p laptop to 100% resolution scaling after only a short while.

There are just too many menus and side panels in modern apps to use 768p.
 
Benedict A55h0le said:
DO NOT BUY A DELL! DELL NEEDS AN ONSITE WARRENTY BECAUSE THEY BREAK MOER TOE GARENTEED.

It depends on what it is going to be used for, for study something like my laptop is fine. My laptop can even run VS Code fine, it is completely adequate for an entry level work laptop. It never needed onsite support because it is an Asus not a Dell.
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More typical nonsense from you...
 
MightyQuin said:
More typical nonsense from you...
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Not nonsense, I have seen how Dells break, in fact I have never seen any laptop break except for Dells. I stay away from Dell and never had a laptop break on me. Onsite support is a must only with Dell.
 
Barbarian Conan said:
No way.
I don't care about pixel density, 768p just doesn't have the desktop real estate necessary for modern (windows 7 onwards) computing.
Even my wife, a very casual PC user who likes her text big for easy readability, changed her 13" 1080p laptop to 100% resolution scaling after only a short while.

There are just too many menus and side panels in modern apps to use 768p.
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I can see no difference between 768 and 1080 in terms of real estate on 15". Yes it is a factor but I have not noticed it. I tend to use a larger screen anyways, 15" is completely too small for work. A larger screen is always needed for work or study so the dpi of the laptop is less important.
 
Benedict A55h0le said:
I can see no difference between 768 and 1080 in terms of real estate on 15". Yes it is a factor but I have not noticed it. I tend to use a larger screen anyways, 15" is completely too small for work. A larger screen is always needed for work or study so the dpi of the laptop is less important.
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The size of the display doesn't matter, resolution and scaling is all that matters.
Are you sure your 1080p 15" display scaling is set to 100%?
 
Barbarian Conan said:
The size of the display doesn't matter, resolution and scaling is all that matters.
Are you sure your 1080p 15" display scaling is set to 100%?
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Yes it is. If I look now I do see the difference, but I would say that it should not matter that much since at least a 24" screen is needed for work. Maybe a students laptop needs to be used in class then the display does matter more. If it is for at home most of the time I would say don`t worry about 786 or 1080, get a 24" screen at least. I will add a 1080p 24" screen for R2000 extra to the laptop I am selling.
 
Dan C said:
What exactly broke ?
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Last 1 I saw was that it did not boot up after a Dell bios update. Dell came out to the office to fix it. My Dell also broke with a bios update and they called in onsite support, but I managed to fix it myself somehow. Other cases I saw I can`t remember the causes. I researched it and found that Dells are known to need their onsite support.
 
Benedict A55h0le said:
Last 1 I saw was that it did not boot up after a Dell bios update. Dell came out to the office to fix it. My Dell also broke with a bios update and they called in onsite support, but I managed to fix it myself somehow. Other cases I saw I can`t remember the causes. I researched it and found that Dells are known to need their onsite support.
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That can happen to anyone. Know of the same happening to a Lenovo and then you have to send it in and get it back scratched. No thanks. Dell FTW!
 
backstreetboy said:
That can happen to anyone. Know of the same happening to a Lenovo and then you have to send it in and get it back scratched. No thanks. Dell FTW!
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I have never seen any laptop break except for Dells, I researched it and found it not to be only me, Dells are known to break.
 
Benedict A55h0le said:
I have never seen any laptop break except for Dells, I researched it and found it not to be only me, Dells are known to break.
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A BIOS update failure is not a "break". Please stop using anecdotal evidence from "your office" to make sweeping statements about Dell and it's failures.

We sell 100's into the corporate space and I have had maybe 5 incidents of the years where we needed onsite support.

NONE for software failure...for which onsite support does not even come out.
 
MightyQuin said:
A BIOS update failure is not a "break". Please stop using anecdotal evidence from "your office" to make sweeping statements about Dell and it's failures.

We sell 100's into the corporate space and I have had maybe 5 incidents of the years where we needed onsite support.

NONE for software failure...for which onsite support does not even come out.
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I don`t remember details, I just remember cases of laptops breaking at work. It was always Dells breaking. I researched it, and including here on myBB, it seems like its not only me that witnessed this. My Dell never broke but it was just performing really bad. I will never recommend a Dell.
 
MightyQuin said:
A BIOS update failure is not a "break". Please stop using anecdotal evidence from "your office" to make sweeping statements about Dell and it's failures.

We sell 100's into the corporate space and I have had maybe 5 incidents of the years where we needed onsite support.

NONE for software failure...for which onsite support does not even come out.
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We've had LOTS of driver issues with the Skylake Precision 5510s back in the day. BSODs due to hard drives just detaching in windows, or us plugging or unplugging the USB-C dock and I can't remember what else. Many of us went back to our previous laptops while they sorted the issues out, which took months.
I even heard rumours that Discovery sent hundreds of them back to Dell.

When it was sorted the laptops were great though. I used mine for 4 or 5 years and only had to replace the battery, which was probably due to me letting it die way too often. During all that time it was fast and I never even reinstalled windows.

My previous Dell Lattitude with 1st gen i5 performed great until I gave it to my domestic worker's daughter a while ago. (With an SSD and 1080p display, because no-one deserves to use a <1080p display and mechanical HDD).
Our current XPS15s and my wife's XPS13 are both amazing.
 
Barbarian Conan said:
We've had LOTS of driver issues with the Skylake Precision 5510s back in the day. BSODs due to hard drives just detaching in windows, or us plugging or unplugging the USB-C dock and I can't remember what else. Many of us went back to our previous laptops while they sorted the issues out, which took months.
I even heard rumours that Discovery sent hundreds of them back to Dell.

When it was sorted the laptops were great though. I used mine for 4 or 5 years and only had to replace the battery, which was probably due to me letting it die way too often. During all that time it was fast and I never even reinstalled windows.

My previous Dell Lattitude with 1st gen i5 performed great until I gave it to my domestic worker's daughter a while ago. (With an SSD and 1080p display, because no-one deserves to use a <1080p display and mechanical HDD).
Our current XPS15s and my wife's XPS13 are both amazing.
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I’m still using my 5510 every now and then when I go on-site.
Awesome machine. Lovely 4K screen. 1x battery replacement required however, was covered under warranty. Obviously it is a premium machine

Dual boot windows 10 and Ubuntu 21.04
 
pilotg2 said:
Hi, I'm in the UK now and would like to buy a laptop for someone starting Uni in Cape Town.

Please can you recommend an entry level laptop between R4,000 to R5,000. Is Takealot a safe site?

Thank you in advance.
Click to expand...
Takealot is fine. I would try to get something with 8GB RAM, an SSD and a FHD screen at least. This is currently R6200 (a bit over your budget) : ASUS M515 AMD RYZEN 3 8GB 256GB SSD 15.6" FHD Notebook Blue
https://www.takealot.com/asus-m515-amd-ryzen-3-8gb-256gb-ssd-15-6-fhd-notebook-blue/PLID90245149 I can't vouch for the build quality of this one though
 
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Benedict A55h0le said:
I have never seen any laptop break except for Dells, I researched it and found it not to be only me, Dells are known to break.
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My 10 year old Dell Inspiron 17R SE 7720 is still going strong after fairly intensive use and still in use to this day.

If you truly believe, as implied, no other laptop "breaks" besides Dell - there is no point having a discussion.
 
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