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Laptop/Chromebook Advice


Craigyh74

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Hey chaps I need some quick advice. I'm buying a new laptop to mainly be used for my uni work but I also want to use it to edit my GoPro footage on

The Gopro site suggests: 

CPU - Intel core 2 duo (recommended Intel quad core i7 or better) 

so the laptop I am looking at is a Lenovo with the following below - is this suitable for GoPro editing?  The dual/quad core stuff throws me abit...

- Intel® Core™ i7-5500U Processor
- Dual-core
- 2.4 GHz / 3.0 GHz with Turbo Boost
- 4 MB cache

Edited by Tayls
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Have you considered the many online video editing services? Then you just need a browser.

The spec you list doesn't meet the recommended spec you list so I'd say it's a poor choice.

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I'm kinda keen to use the GoPro studio though. 

Whats the differences between Quad Core, Dual Core and Core 2 Duo? 

Is there a laptop you would recommend for this, avoiding Mac if possible

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Core 2 Duo is the processor line Intel made before Core i3,i5,i7 Its been 4 years since the last one.

intel Dual Core is a former cheap line they used

The Core i3,5,7 is the current high end ones. The 3 and 5 are dual core models. The i7 can be either 2 or 4 core.

Edit: I see the newest (6th generation) i5 can be quad core as well

Edited by Tegis
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quad core = 4 cores

dual core = 2 cores

core 2 duo = Intel's confusing marketing term for 2 cores

I can't recommend a particular laptop, but your spec recommends quad core. (Memory is probably as important as CPU.) I can't imagine buying a laptop for one piece of software. Check the online offerings first. Then you can get a chromebook you can put your AV subscription (and the upfront savings) towards a paid editing service if the free ones aren't adequate.

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In that case, their recommendations mean **** all as it basically says the program will start with an ancient processor but they wan't you to run it with the bleeding edge high end

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Anything will work. If you get the recommended spec it will probably work for a few years of upgrades. Buying the minimum would be crazy as your laptop would soon be unable to run the latest software.

If you are buying a laptop to run a single piece of software you've got to go for the recommend spec as an absolute minimum.

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So where does i7 dual core sit in the rankings of Intel processors. Is it shite, is, I guess, what I am getting at in some ways...

Nope, thats basically the second best option you can buy. They where released this year the 5500U

Edited by Tegis
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  • 4 months later...

Thinking of buying a chromebook as my laptop is close to giving up the ghost.

As 90% of my usage is purely internet browsing then a chromebook is sufficient for my needs I think. As long as I can use Spotify on it?

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57 minutes ago, Xela said:

Thinking of buying a chromebook as my laptop is close to giving up the ghost.

As 90% of my usage is purely internet browsing then a chromebook is sufficient for my needs I think. As long as I can use Spotify on it?

Apart from the app Simon listed, spotify works in the web-browser as well

https://play.spotify.com/

 

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4 hours ago, Xela said:

Thinking of buying a chromebook as my laptop is close to giving up the ghost.

As 90% of my usage is purely internet browsing then a chromebook is sufficient for my needs I think. As long as I can use Spotify on it?

Do it.

I've never looked back since I got mine.

If 90% of your usage is browsing then it's a no brainer imo. Even for the other 10% there's probably a way to get the chromebook to do it. You can apparently get them to run Linux so I imagine there's a solution to all your other uses if you were desperate.

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6 hours ago, Xela said:

Thinking of buying a chromebook as my laptop is close to giving up the ghost.

As 90% of my usage is purely internet browsing then a chromebook is sufficient for my needs I think. As long as I can use Spotify on it?

I have this Chromebook ACER CB3-111 11.6" Chromebook - White it's 9 months old I don't need it any more as got given an old work pc. Have been meaning to put it on ebay for ages but not not got round to it yet. It's still selling here for £230, would take £90 for it if you want it?

If you're interested let me know

Edited by commander
punctuation and grammar
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  • 2 months later...

Was feeling a little flush a while back, so purchased a new ThinkPad.

  • T560 model
  • 15" 3K screen
  • 3 cell front battery & 6 cell removable rear battery (which also puts the keyboard at a nice typing angle)
  • Core i7-6600U (4 cores, 8 threads)
  • 256GB NVMe SSD (the SSD is basically directly attached to PCIe; I'm getting sustained 900 Mbyte/sec reads)
  • 32GB RAM

Installing Linux (Mageia for me) was surprisingly easy. The only real issue was the installer not recognizing /dev/nvme0 as a device which Linux could be installed to, which necessitated an install to USB stick, boot to USB stick, go to single-user mode, partition and mount SSD, copy files from stick to SSD, chroot, and install grub to the UEFI partition (this is my first UEFI system, and it's nowhere near as bad as I feared) dance. Beyond that, everything just worked. I run X at 1920x1080 because for now the 24" monitor at work that I hook up to this maxes out at that resolution and I don't see the point in having a laptop screen display more than the external monitor. The keyboard is fantastic (and the pointing stick is, as expected, superb; it's also amazingly nice to have middle click on a laptop again). Battery life has been amazing (despite Linux apparently not doing power management properly for this chipset). Everyone else on the team is a MacBook user, but I've caught some envious looks (I passed up an offer of a company-paid $2500 MacBook (not long after we separated from the laptop and printer guys, we were suddenly able to buy nicer laptops...) to buy this on my own... I can deduct it on my taxes and avoid having IT enforcing policy on me).  It came to $2,000 or so.

Heartily endorsed.  The Intel GPU isn't spectacular (but Intel GPUs are the best-supported in Linux), but anyone like me who needs something between something ultraportable and a mobile workstation can't do much better than this.

Edited by leviramsey
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