Originally Posted By: Donald
Originally Posted By: 3800Series
I can't offer an alternative but I'm not to impressed with it. Granted it will possibly be yours and my opinion means nothing when it comes to others choices. It is rather old tho didn't look at the date it was released but that screen resolution caught my attention.
Been several years since 1080p has become the minimum standard. Also considering it's age and the fact that it's refurbished it could very well need a new battery soon they don't last forever and can be expensive. The thermal paste is probably dried out by this point. It may have some cooling problems due to that.
CPU isn't great either it looks like a Ivy Bridge but Intel has been known for some stupid naming on their mobile line. My guess is the thing is probably as powerful as a modern day i3 which is a dual core CPU with 4 threads. It could be stronger but really without looking at it I can't say for certain.
Intel's mobile line (laptops not cellphones) are very under powered compared to the desktop alternative. It has 4 cores tho with 8 threads and while that seems decent given the fact it's mobile and a handful of generations old the performance will be diminished compared to a modern day Skylake/Kabylake or a Ryzen alternative.
Most programs (and I'm speaking about a good 80%) do not care at all how many cores your PC has. They favor a newer architecture with a higher IPC. So while it will have more cores then a modern day i3 the i3 will have significantly stronger cores capable of doing far more per core.
Core count only really matters when you are using a significant amount of the CPU's processing power at once. Every other time a higher core performance trump core count (when you take architectural differences in IPC).
Most programs use 1-2 cores so in those programs your core count means absolutely nothing in terms of performance. This is where the i3 will shine as it's 2 cores (and 4 threads) will be significantly stronger and capable of doing far more on a core to core bases in the same period of time.
I'm having a hard time explaining this (I don't know how well you are with computers so don't take it as a insult) just know a few people who have a hard time loading a browser so this would make no sense to them.
Essentially if that laptops CPU had a core performance of 100% a modern day i3 would have one near 170%
I really don't know to much about laptop's tho I've I owned very few and while I lack experience in that regard I do I have a lot of experience in building PCs and repairing them.
My advice would be to look for something with a newer CPU.
I have been around the system side of mainframe computers since 1976 where we went from a single processor to a multiprocessor to maybe 64 today that are carved up into several images. Also I am very knowledgeable about multi-threading of programs (or not). So I understand the benefit of fewer faster cores.
I have an HP 8470p, (has e-sata too, usb 3) it is in that family(Ivy Bridge). They are great machines. They run OSX better than some macbooks, and 5 screens with a docking station(yours has nvdia, I think 4). Depends what you need it for. I paid $120 for mine, I put in another $150 in upgrades, I have an SSD, 16GB. I use it for software dev, run vms, etc. I have intel graphics to make it more OSX friendly, I can run 3 screens. THat screen must be stunning, I have a 14" 1600X900, which is actually larger and more pixels than a brand new macbook air!