Since this based purely on the poster's opinion, with exactly zero sources to back it up, I'd recommend the OP, @Mr.J to look up some YouTube performance comparisons before finalizing and not take this at face value.
Budget 41-50k Laptop for Computer Science Student
- Thread starter Mr.J
- Start date
Mr.J
Skilled
I don't want it for me, that's the thing. This is for a computer science student (doing a favour for someone in family).
Ok, fair enough. How much are you willing to spend?
For 50k, the Vivobook Ryzen 5 with an extra 8GB is a good balance of performance and features.
And yes, Ryzen 5 5500U is better than the i5 1235U. In case I get anymore sense less comments, here's a comparison.
R5-
i5 1235U-
Thse are from videos that actually have the laptop in hand and do not post fake and made up numbers.
As you can see, multi core is much better than the i5. Granted, yes, it does falter in single core performance. But that's only noticeable in tasks that really depend on higher clocks and single core core performance, like gaming or video editing.
For programming or coding, multi core matters much more. I'm a sort of basic programmer myself, and my laptop lags a little when it has to compile large amounts of code or even hangs when I run into a stupid infinite loop.
So for 50k, I don't think Intel has a good value proposition, especially considering the battery life and OLED display. The display will make them never want to go back to a normal IPS display, since OLED is basically the king of panels (until QD OLED becomes more mainstream)
Or for 55k, there's the Ryzen 7 5700U.
And here are the links from which I got those benchmarks - (expect actual performance to be + or - 5%)
retrophiliac
Disciple
Moved
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@Mr.J, just a heads up - at least one of the Asus models you posted shows a display gamut coverage of 45% NTSC, which usually corresponds to around 60% sRGB - this can often (but not always) result in the screen looking dull, especially for multimedia. For context, budget phones have had 100% sRGB screens for more than half a decade now. I was personally looking for a laptop almost exactly like what you're looking for a couple of months ago, and came across a lot of the options being discussed in this thread, and finally ended up going with the Honor MagicBook 14 (45k with the 5500U and 16 gigs of RAM) because of the display and full metal build. It's served me pretty well so far, apart from a couple of weird bugs that keep cropping up.
Unfortunately, I don't think I can recommend the Honor right now, because I don't see the 16 gig model in stock, and the 8 gig has gone up in price to match it. Its RAM is soldered, so you can't even get the 8 gig and upgrade it, which I think is kind of a dealbreaker because IMO a coding machine should have 16 gigs of memory, especially if it's your main system. The only other options I was considering were the Xiaomi lineup (which is in the 55-65k range) and the Asus K15 OLED; you've already mentioned you don't want the OLED, and the Xiaomi stuff uses i5 11th gen chips, which seem better for single threaded perf, but have less cores, which IMO is more important for coding workloads (virtualization, compile times, etc).
... I'm only now realizing after typing all of this that I have no useful suggestions except an unsolicited warning about display quality. I should probably have thought this through.
Unfortunately, I don't think I can recommend the Honor right now, because I don't see the 16 gig model in stock, and the 8 gig has gone up in price to match it. Its RAM is soldered, so you can't even get the 8 gig and upgrade it, which I think is kind of a dealbreaker because IMO a coding machine should have 16 gigs of memory, especially if it's your main system. The only other options I was considering were the Xiaomi lineup (which is in the 55-65k range) and the Asus K15 OLED; you've already mentioned you don't want the OLED, and the Xiaomi stuff uses i5 11th gen chips, which seem better for single threaded perf, but have less cores, which IMO is more important for coding workloads (virtualization, compile times, etc).
... I'm only now realizing after typing all of this that I have no useful suggestions except an unsolicited warning about display quality. I should probably have thought this through.
Tracer_Bullet
Disciple
A lot of these you probably already know, generally people here seem to know more than me. But anyway -@DestGod @Tracer_Bullet @gourav
How are these for alternative? Only reason I'm not picking up suggested laptops is because they all have OLED screen which is not a feature I'm looking for.
I'm mainly looking for good CPU, SSD storage, and RAM first.
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1) Its probably important to have good build quality and reasonable cooling on a laptop. I have no idea on this for any model.
2) Usually i try to look for popular+latest models with lots of reviews and scan through reviews for possible issues and then try to find what meets my needs without paying for extra stuff that i don't need. Getting extra for free is fine.
3) Use case is not clear. Its hard to say what today's CS guys need. In my time, we only took notebooks to college
. Will they use this on campus or home ? What will they use it for ? Don''t they have on campus computers/labs for practicals ? If college requires a laptop, don't they have recommendations ? This might give idea on what you absolutely need. Battery life / target cpu performance, gpu?, display. Form factor ? Maybe also better to atleast get some input from the student ? What about seniors ?4) I code a lot. My own preference is very strongly towards desktop rather than laptop. I code on desktop and deploy on laptop only to get battery backup. In general, laptops have given me more trouble, are harder to fix ( sometimes not practically possible), are harder to clean ( dust can clog fans which degrades performance) and have much worse ergonomics. Desktop performance is also much stronger for the price and its easy to replace/upgrade components. My cheapo 3300x with 4c8t is faster than 8c16t 5700U for my application. So if use case is home use only, then probably desktop is a much better option imo.
5) Just basic comment on the options and writing down components. Might be good idea to verify these against what manufacturer says for model name ( sometimes still not clear). Also i am not really updated with what else is available, so someone else might have better informed view.
Asus - Seems ok, but ram is only 8gb and not clear if we can upgrade. 8gb might not be enough and not worth risking. Battery 42wh. Basic display with antiglare. 1235U. 53k
Lenovo - Unclear if ram is 8gb or 16gb. 1235U. 58k. Says 32gb max memory, but hard to say if accurate as it also says nvidia. No display info other than FHD. Did not find battery info.
Acer - 1235U. 16gb. Shitty TFT display. Resolution not clear - what is 1080p1280 X 720. Battery 45 wh. 59k
HP - 16gb. 5500U. Display FHD IPS, but low color as usual. battery 41wh. Backlit KB as bonus. 51k
None of these look that good vs the oled ones, you basically get much better oled panel for free, as long as burn in related issues can be managed. If i had to choose, probably HP will do fine and is cheaper, Single thread will be decently slower but should not really matter that much. igpus are anyway quite shit to game on so probably not a factor.
And yet, neither do they show the benchmark running, nor do they include the CPU model in the result screenshot.
This video, which actually shows footage of the benchmark running in fullscreen, i5 1235u scores 1517 points, much higher than the 970 shown in the other video, and more on line with its actual performance.
Your skepticism level is so high, but somehow you trust the numbers from a person who deliberately leaves out the processor model from the results screenshot while calling all others, some of which actually show the benchmark running on the laptop, fake. Nice!
Tracer_Bullet
Disciple
In general, laptop numbers anyway are bit suspect because we can have differences due to how much power is provided and cooling. With time, cooling gets compromised due to dust/bad cpu paste and performance can degrade even more until you service it.
Notebookcheck seemed ok to me to compare as a layman, we don't seem to get reviews as easily as we do for desktop components
www.notebookcheck.net
5500U and 5700U are both zen2 while 5600U and 5700U are zen3, so single core performance is even worse. But anyway, 1235U might be slower than even 5500U in MT while ST is much better. Neither matters that much in day to day work, SSD is a much bigger upgrade. But atleast 5500U does seem ok vs 1235U once you factor in multithreaded performance for coding work + cheaper price. Again, it depends on what actually will be done on the laptop. I would say get the better overall package vs obsessing over cpu performance in this case.
I have been using 5700U based lenovo laptop for about 14 months now and its working without issue, thermals are fine too. One nice thing in lenovo (probably others too) is that i can set max battery charge limit and this seems to reduce battery degradation a lot.
Notebookcheck seemed ok to me to compare as a layman, we don't seem to get reviews as easily as we do for desktop components
Intel Core i5-1235U Processor - Benchmarks and Specs
Benchmarks, information, and specifications for the Intel Core i5-1235U
www.notebookcheck.net
5500U and 5700U are both zen2 while 5600U and 5700U are zen3, so single core performance is even worse. But anyway, 1235U might be slower than even 5500U in MT while ST is much better. Neither matters that much in day to day work, SSD is a much bigger upgrade. But atleast 5500U does seem ok vs 1235U once you factor in multithreaded performance for coding work + cheaper price. Again, it depends on what actually will be done on the laptop. I would say get the better overall package vs obsessing over cpu performance in this case.
I have been using 5700U based lenovo laptop for about 14 months now and its working without issue, thermals are fine too. One nice thing in lenovo (probably others too) is that i can set max battery charge limit and this seems to reduce battery degradation a lot.