HP Pavilion 17.3" A8 Quad-Core 1TB Laptop Price: $329.99 Shipping Options:: $5 Standard Shipping Estimates: Ships in 3-5 business days. (Thursday, Aug 06 to Tuesday, Aug 11) + transit Condition: Factory Reconditioned
When I see 17", I don’t really think about moving it to much around where finding a power outlet would be an issue. For a comparable i3 cpu and 6gb of RAM, this is a pretty good deal.
I’m a computer dumb dumb, but my niece is heading off to college soon and needs a computer. Would this be a decent laptop for her? And if not, any recommendations for a less expensive but decent/sturdy laptop for a college freshman? She has a history of being abusive to electronics so I don’t want to spend too much more than what this costs but don’t want her struggling with junk either.
Just talking from my own college experience - I would not want a 17" computer for college. Both our home laptops are 17" and it’s because they stay at home… Lugging it around campus all day - no way! I had a 15" and that was heavy enough with textbooks and a full schedule of carrying it around. Honestly, if they had had the 12" or 13" laptops back then, that is what I would have gotten. Unless she is going into something like graphic design/animation, she will mostly need it for taking notes, writing papers and online work. Go for a 15" or smaller laptop (it’ll cost you less too!)
I’m a college student - this is way too big. A 17’’ is a behemoth that is not very portable - they are heavy and too large to fit in smaller bags. I used to use a 15’’ and it’s still too big to me if you plan on taking your laptop with you on a daily basis (unless she’s going into computer science or graphics). I would say a 13 or 14’’ is best - I have a 13’’ now and it’s so much easier to take it with me, but the screen is still big enough for watching netflix or movies if she’s into that. I do like the smaller 11’’ computers for pure portability but I think it can be just a bit too small for various school needs.
As this Laptop sports only a Radeon R5 Graphics integrated graphics card, I would say anything graphic intensive would not be recommended. I am going to assume architecture requires extensive use of CAD programs and 3d modeling software. Also with only 6Gb of memory, this laptop will be very lacking in resources.
For the price this is a bang for the buck everyday work computer. It is a bit heavy, but when doing spreadsheets the A8 Quad-core should be able to handle things fine.
If you are looking for something performance or gaming oriented, this is not the laptop for you. Look into an ASUS G series, or at least an something with an i5 or i7 intel processor.
Regarding graphics cards anything equivalent to a Nvidia GTX 660M or higher should suit most gamer’s needs.
Anybody else buy this laptop and not have a Windows registration key? I didn’t see anything in the box, and there were no registration keys on the computer… Woot directed me to the HP support page which doesn’t seem to be working.