Advice choosing laptops for a novice.

RHW

New Member
Hello,
Need a bit of advice. Looking to upgrade the laptop. Is there anything wrong with buying a 2 year old model laptop? I want to future proof, so looking at a 15 inch with 8gb RAM and preferably only an SSD. Don't care so much for design. Uses will be web browsing, movies/Netflix, banking and occasional power point editing. I have a couple of choices for my budget. Both are pretty much the same price.

The first is a DELL G3 15 3579. This seems to be a mid 2018 year model. Originally it had an Intel i5 chip but this one has
Intel i7-8750H 8th gen chip
8gb RAM
256 M.2 SATA SSD
Windows 10 Pro
NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1050Ti4gb graphic.
Not currently sold in the Dell store but this seems to be a decent laptop.

The second option is an HP Pavilion (won't give the model number because it is sold here in Korea and the specs are in written in Korean.
It has an Intel i5-826SU 8th gen chip
256gb NVME M.2 SSD
8gb RAM
NVIDIA GEFORCE MX 250 GDDR5 2gb GRAPHIC
Windows Home
Released in the last couple of month.

There is a third HP to choose, that has an i7 chip and similar specs to the above HP but it is a 2018 model.

Going by research, limited knowledge and specs it seems like the DELL is the best option, should be powerful and last a few years (future proof) but because it is older I am not sure. Should I buy the latest technology of the HP even though it has slightly less specs.
Sorry for the long question. Not sure of computers so I would appreciate any advice.
Thank you.
 

ssal

Active Member
It depends on what you use the computer for. There is no such thing as future proof. But you can certainly be assured one that would meet your current needs.

There is nothing wrong buying a second hand computer. They are a bargain and still can do what you want.

On newer models, you would not be saving much, particularly when current models might be on sale.
 
Last edited:
The second one would be my first choice for NVME m.2 drive, this will make loading apps/booting windows and moving files slightly faster
If your data is sensitive and you want it secured in case of theft, the first one may be better option thanks to bitlocker being available on windows 10 pro
 

OmniDyne

Active Member
The second one would be my first choice for NVME m.2 drive, this will make loading apps/booting windows and moving files slightly faster

Not necessarily. It depends on what SSD it is; there are definitely SATA SSDs that are faster than competing M.2 PCIe models. Based on the original posters workloads, the M.2 PCIe SSD would likely provide no noticeable benefit. The first laptop is significantly superior in every other way and would likely provide a significantly better experience, especially considering the processor alone.
 

ssal

Active Member
Not necessarily. It depends on what SSD it is; there are definitely SATA SSDs that are faster than competing M.2 PCIe models. Based on the original posters workloads, the M.2 PCIe SSD would likely provide no noticeable benefit. The first laptop is significantly superior in every other way and would likely provide a significantly better experience, especially considering the processor alone.
I thought that M.2 SSD is 4 to 5 times faster than SATA, in general.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
I thought that M.2 SSD is 4 to 5 times faster than SATA, in general.
The NVME drives are but not the standard M2's.

Hopefully this link works for you, check the write speed out.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare?CompareItemList=20-250-133,20-250-090

If not, click on each of these

https://www.newegg.com/western-digital-blue-sn550-nvme-250gb/p/N82E16820250133?Item=N82E16820250133
https://www.newegg.com/western-digital-blue-250gb/p/N82E16820250090?Item=N82E16820250090
 

OmniDyne

Active Member
I thought that M.2 SSD is 4 to 5 times faster than SATA, in general.

M.2 is just the form factor. There are two major types of M.2 SSDs: SATA and PCIe NVMe. PCIe SSDs are theoretically capable of significantly higher performance, but it completely depends on what you're doing. As far as Windows, unless you're a power user you'd be hard pressed to notice a difference between the two SSDs, especially in a laptop.
 

ssal

Active Member
M.2 is just the form factor. There are two major types of M.2 SSDs: SATA and PCIe NVMe. PCIe SSDs are theoretically capable of significantly higher performance, but it completely depends on what you're doing. As far as Windows, unless you're a power user you'd be hard pressed to notice a difference between the two SSDs, especially in a laptop.
I am very confused with the terminology. PCie; M.2; NvMe. Too many alphabets that means nothing to a layman like me.

I have this in my build. I need the high read/write speed for H.264 video editing and playback.
 
Top