$379 on Amazon, so seems a good price.
I have bought nothing but refurbished HP Pavilion laptops in the last 10 years, each one has been a real workhorse. The only thing that disappoints me about this one is that it has Windows 8 on it.
I’m primarily a Mac user, but I also own PCs because I run a small IT services company and about 70% of my clients run Windows, so I need to run Windows software and also always have current Windows knowledge and skills. If I’m not buying Apple machines, I choose HP. They are about the best overall on quality/reliability, price/features, and design.
HP has the complete set of Windows 7 drivers/software for this model on their website, so you could downgrade to Windows 7 if you wanted to. I haven’t decided whether or not I want to buy this computer, but if I do, I’ll be downgrading it to Windows 7. I just did this to a friend’s Pavilion TouchSmart 15-n013dx and the whole process was very smooth.
Here is the link to Windows 7 drivers for this specific laptop: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?os=4063&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&sw_lang=&product=7124129#N145
Does anyone know how this compares in relation to an Intel i3 for performance?
Will it support Mindcraft? I purchased another laptop on here only to find out the O.S. does not support it for my son.
Is this a “used/off-lease” laptop or just one that was returned, fixed, etc?
What OS does your son have? Minecraft is supported on all major operating systems. Unless he has a chromebook he should be able to run it at least a little bit.
In any case, yes. This computer will run minecraft okay, although he might find it a little bit slow.
Hey Woot Community!
A while back I saw a deal for a “random laptop” for $150 on here. How frequently have people seen that on here or elsewhere perhaps?
My girlfriend’s computer just kicked the bucket. She doesn’t need much. She is a teacher so she just needs something to write lesson plans on and email students with.
i3 will have better performance than the Pentium in most, if not all, graphics. If you could compare them side by side i3 would be appear a little snappier in general computing tasks; however, in this tier, there’s not a whole lot of reason to decide between the two-- go on price.
i5 does end up being a better deal in any case.
Is the memory upgrade-able? What is the max?
These are consumer laptops so they wouldn’t have been on lease. Plus they are factory reconditioned and warrantied by HP.
What we have is all that was on the HP site.
The vendors are at CES so we’re kinda stuck with the HP info.
Update: Found this. Says one user-accessible slot but doesn’t give the max memory.
Update 2: Vendor answered! not upgradeable.
The Internet Explorer that you launch form the start screen will not run it, but if you launch it from the desktop it will.
If you compare this to a current I3 processor (Haswell), the I3 blows it away. The passmark for an I3-4100M is 3662 while the G3D mark for the HD 4600 on the I3 is 728. Todays pentium has a passmark of 1852 and 390 for the G3D mark. So basically a current mobile I3 Haswell like the example I gave, is about twice as powerful in both logical processing an graphics than today’s pentium. But, like anything, I3s have a vast range in performance- so you need to compare it to a specific processor, not just the family.
Here is a link to the N3510…so close
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+N3510+%40+1.99GHz&id=2107
Since it says Manufacture Refurbished - it is not an “off Lease” type laptop. Typically either retailers return stock they don’t want or a customer returned the laptop to the retailer. Usually there are no problems with the laptop - or there was a problem and HP fixed it before they resell them as refurbished.
Usually these are in like new condition. (From my past experience)
The reality is you won’t notice much difference at all as your Hard drive is the slowest component in the machine and the greatest bottleneck. Today - modern processors are rarely a bottleneck in performance unless you are doing computational intensive applications which would include: Gaming, Video Rendering, Digital Audio Workstations, etc.
With this machine or an i3 - you will be waiting on the HDD. If you really want to improve the performance - replace it with a Solid State Drive, which are becoming very affordable.
The biggest advantage of the intel architected i series processors is their single core performance. Contrary to what most people think - most of the applications we use today still only utilize a single core. The OS does, however, utilize multiple threads and so do many games and video rendering applications.
Most people are going to use this machine for basic functions, like browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, etc., so IMO this processor is fine.
You would get a lot more bang from your buck replacing the HDD with a Solid State Drive than you would notice going to a better processor.
I’m still using a 7 year old Lenovo with a dual core Pentium processor and I have no problems with performance at all for these basic applications.
I just purchaed a new Toshiba laptop with a dual core Pentium I3 processors for my wife. Do I see a huge difference in performance in her new machine and mine? (As we do the same basic applictions) Answer - NO.
If you need a machine to do compute intensive applications - this is not your machine. Look for an I5 or I7 with am SSD.
I have a work I7 laptop with a standard HDD and it runs like a tired dog. Why so slow? Because it is always waiting for data from the Hard Drive.