Laptop build

[marwoo578]

Hi all would appreciate if someone could comment on the build below
Basically plan on buying 3 of these suckers in the next month or so so want to make sure will be ok for the uses intended

Have one daughter off to uni so she will be doing all the basic surfing stuff,coursework plus playing games such as Sims and watching TV etc
Other daughter off to college where she is doing media studies so may be doing video editing as well as usual surfing - she does play games too but nothing real heavy
3rd one is for the wife - general surfing etc and maybe used to watch movies etc on a large screen TV. I know its probably overkill for her use but meh cant be assed to spec up 3 diff laptops

Chassis & Display
Optimus II: 15.6" Matte 95% Gamut LED Widescreen (1920x1080) (£79)

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-2450M (2.50GHz) 3MB

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)

Graphics Card
nVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M - 2GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11

Memory - Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLUE WD7500BPVT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 8MB CACHE (5400 rpm)

DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
SONY BC-5550H 4x BLURAY COMBO DRIVE & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE (£59)

Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)

Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)

Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack

Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N130 802.11N (150Mbps) + BLUETOOTH

USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD

Battery
Upgrade to 62.16WH 6 Cell Lithium-ION Battery (£39)

Power Lead & Adaptor
2 x UK Power Lead & 120W Adaptor (For Nvidia GT 555M) (£19)

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
Microsoft® Office Home & Student 2010 (Incl Disc & 1 License for 3 devices) (£89)

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Laptop Cooling Stands
Zalman ZM-NC1000 Ultra-Quiet Laptop Cooler, upto 15.6 inch (£29)

Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD

Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE

Webcam
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM

Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£69)

Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days

 

[mantadog]

Will perform fine for 2 out of the 3. It may be a little slow with the video editing, however it depends what kind of level we are talking about. If it's going to be full 1080p hour long clips then it could well get time consuming waiting for everything to happen.

If it's 5 minutes clips then it will be no problems.

I would probably advise you do get 3 different spec's to be honest, that way you can save a bit of money on the 2 lesser specs and spend it on the one that will need the power for video editing.
frustrating
As things stand now the spec will be able to do everything you want, it just might end up frustrating your daughter is she has to edit long clips.

 

[marwoo578]

Cheers mantadog
TBH she hasnt a clue if she will need to use her own machine or the ones at college so am covering all bases here.

What specifically would you up on that spec for the video editing side ?

 

[Finn]

Personally for video editing I'd probably up the CPU to a quad core and definately up the harddrive to a 7200rpm black.

Depending on if she is going to be copying large video files across wifi you may want to consider going to the 300mbps wifi card too.

 

[marwoo578]

Hmmmmm good shout

Something like the i7 2760QM and the Scorpio black ?
Not sure on the copying large files over wireless - at home will be hardwired - but will up the wifi card anyway just to be safe

 

[marwoo578]

Revised spec esp for the video editing


Chassis & Display
Optimus II: 15.6" Matte 95% Gamut LED Widescreen (1920x1080) (£79)

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2670QM (2.20GHz) 6MB

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)

Graphics Card
nVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M - 2GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11

Memory - Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)

DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
SONY BC-5550H 4x BLURAY COMBO DRIVE & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE (£59)

Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)

Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)

Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack

Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ADVANCED-N 6230 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH

USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD

Battery
Upgrade to 62.16WH 6 Cell Lithium-ION Battery (£39)

Power Lead & Adaptor
2 x UK Power Lead & 120W Adaptor (For Nvidia GT 555M) (£19)

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
Microsoft® Office Home & Student 2010 (Incl Disc & 1 License for 3 devices) (£89)

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Laptop Cooling Stands
Zalman ZM-NC1000 Ultra-Quiet Laptop Cooler, upto 15.6 inch (£29)

Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD

Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE

Webcam
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM

Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£69)

Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days

 

[mantadog]

Yes the above spec will be much better for video editing, the quadcore will really improve the overall performance of the system when editing. Anything higher than the i7-2670QM processor isn't needed as the performance gain after that is not worth it.

The HDD upgrade will also help with a little, though not anything like a smuch as the CPU upgrade.

The wireless upgrade might just about come in handy somewhere, but i wouldn't bother with that upgrade myself.

So yeah overall 2 x your first spec and 1 x your 2nd spec will be ideal.

 

[marwoo578]

Thanx for all the help.
Soon as the sale of my flat goes thru will be all over this

Will post up a spec for my desktop too when decide on final config