Buying a new Laptop and Hoping for both SSD and hard drive

rakosnik

Estimable
Jul 24, 2014
3
0
4,510
1. What is your budget?
Between $600 to around $1000 - I'd love to get one for less. I'd be willing to go a little over if it meant getting a much better laptop with all of the features I'm looking for.
LaptopMag.com listed the $600 tier as being kind of a crucial threshold for the quality I'm looking for.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
The bigger the screen the better.
Lighter weight is nice of course, but I'm not too worried about weight.

3. What screen resolution do you want?
At least 1080p (1920x1080), but again higher would be better

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
I'm just looking for a great computer. I don't care what you call it. I find all these different categories are actually making my search more difficult. Are you looking for a business or personal laptop? I don't know!

5. How much battery life do you need?
The more the better, but I always try to plugin my laptop whenever possible, so this is not what the first factor in my decision.

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
Not much. I'm sure I'll play Out of the Park Baseball, I don't think the most recent version requires any special graphics capabilities.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Some light photo editing.
I'll do some video editing.
I want at least a Skylake Core i5 processor

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
I want a decent size SSD (I'm thinking about 256 GB) to use as a boot drive, but I'd also like to get a second standard hard drive. If I need to install a drive, by taking out an optical drive I'll do that, but I'd prefer not to have to do so.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Nope

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
A long time. I tend to buy computers rarely and then use them until they die. Sometimes I repurpose a computer later in life for a different use.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
As I said I might need to take out the optical drive to install a second hard drive, so if I have to do without it I will, but if I could keep a bluray drive in one that would be great. Again this is low on my priority list.

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
Dell
HP
Lenovo
Acer
Asus
Samsung
Toshiba
I've had Dells before. Their website seems to be the one I can make sense of the most.
I don't know what to make of the scandals Lenovo has been having with their computers recently. Two years ago I would have put their Thinkpads at the top of my search, and my father used to work for IBM back when Thinkpad was sold to Lenovo. But with all the strange security issues going on with them I'm not sure if I should avoid them.

13. What country do you live in?
United States of America

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
As I said in #8 I think the first place to start my search is laptops with both SSDs and hard drives or laptops that can be converted to have both.

Any advice on a process to go through to shop for a new computer. As I said I can make sense of Dell's website, but some of the other manufactures websites seem to be intentionally confusing. There are also so many subbrands per manufacture. Dell for instance has Latitude, XPS, Inspiron, Alienware, Vostro, etc. But I honestly want to give fair consideration to all the major brands.

I've also heard that this is the best time of the year to buy a new laptop because manufactures are looking to get rid of inventory as new models come out. I'd love to take advantage of some great deal. Any advice on how to find such great deals? Is this really the best time of the year to buy a laptop?
 
Solution
Slightly above your budget but you can have a look:

http://www.amazon.com/17-3-inch-i7-6700HQ-Blu-Ray-Notebook-Computer/dp/B018UXWJ2U/ref=sr_1_6?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1460440745

There are different configs you can choose from but of course, the higher SSD you get the more expensive the laptop is. Also note its a big heavy but desktop replacements usually tend to be like that. I don't know any light laptops with space for a HDD and SSD.

You can also get a laptop like this and put in a mSATA SSD yourself:

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-VN7-592G-71ZL-15-6-inch-Notebook-Windows/dp/B015XBKY6U/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1460440959&sr=8-2&keywords=acer+aspire+v+nitro

Its lighter and a bit more powerful than the HP one. You will have to purchase a...

Anthem03

Estimable
Sep 9, 2014
13
0
4,590
Slightly above your budget but you can have a look:

http://www.amazon.com/17-3-inch-i7-6700HQ-Blu-Ray-Notebook-Computer/dp/B018UXWJ2U/ref=sr_1_6?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1460440745

There are different configs you can choose from but of course, the higher SSD you get the more expensive the laptop is. Also note its a big heavy but desktop replacements usually tend to be like that. I don't know any light laptops with space for a HDD and SSD.

You can also get a laptop like this and put in a mSATA SSD yourself:

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-VN7-592G-71ZL-15-6-inch-Notebook-Windows/dp/B015XBKY6U/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1460440959&sr=8-2&keywords=acer+aspire+v+nitro

Its lighter and a bit more powerful than the HP one. You will have to purchase a mSATA 256GB SSD separately but it should cost around $100 which is around the end part of your budget. Also both of these laptops are fantastic for video editing because they have i7 processors.

I'm sure others have better recommendations. AFAIK those are the ones that come to mind.


 
Solution

rakosnik

Estimable
Jul 24, 2014
3
0
4,510


Those are good recommendations to start. Are there other custom laptop builders I should consider such as Custom Upgrade King who sells the HP Envy you recommend?