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Pemalite on 30 May 2018
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JEMC said:

Ok, guys, I need your help.

My father wants to get a CHEAP (important) laptop. The main use of said laptop will be to connect it to a TV and watch some stream videos and occasionally take it to other rooms to do some web browsing, etc.

Now, the thing is that I know next to nothing about laptop hardware and don't know what's better or more capable of doing the streaming thing without problems. So far, we have two candidates, choosen by price and the fact that have 8GB of RAM (most in that price range have 4 or even 2GB!), and both from HP:

  • HP 15-BS517NS features an Intel Celeron N3060, 8GB DDR3L-1600, 1TB HDD and Win10
  • HP 15-BW040NS has an AMD A6-9220, 8GB DDR4-1866, the same 1TB HDD and Win10

Which one is "better"?

They both have their Pro's and Cons.

I actually sent back my Dell Inspiron 2 in 1 with the AMD A6-9220e and got a full refund, so I have some experience with the Stony Ridge chips.
Performance wise, it left much to be desired, but was also running 900mhz slower on the base clock than the plain 9220.

The big issue though is if you are hoping to do any light gaming, that single channel DDR4-1866 is going to be a massive hindrance.

In short... The A6-9220 should beat the Celeron thanks to it's much higher clockrates, it's video decode is also far far far far superior to Intels solution.
Sadly... And as hard as I tried, couldn't overclock my 9220e, even after trying to find the PLL.

Just make sure the laptop is an A6-9220 and not the A6-9220e.

The Celeron on the other hand should be able to get longer battery life.

JEMC said:

Also, coming back home I've gone to a second hand store I know (I've bought there several things through the years and the only problem I got was a scratched Xbox360 for which I got a refund) and I've seen two laptops that could also be good options:

  • The first one is an ASUS X556U that has an Intel i7-6500U, 8GB DDR3L-1600, 1TB HDD and Win10 )and costs the same as the AMD powered one)
  • The other isn't really a laptop but a 2 in 1 from Fujitsu, the Q736 that has an Intel i5-6xxx series (don't know if the 6200U or 6300U), 8GB DDR3L-1600 and a 128GB SSD, plus Win10 Pro.

I should note that the Fujitsu one is surprising because I've seen it new for more than 1,000€, but the price at the store is 280€, and that makes me wonder if there's something wrong with it or if it's so cheap because the ones on the store don't know its real value.

So, what do you think? The used ones are better, but are they worth it or it's better to go with one of the new ones even if they're worse?


The Core ix 6xxx series is probably being discounted so heavily because they are a few years old.
I would personally opt for a 2 in 1.

But... It really depends on what you want. The i7/i5 would probably get less battery life than the Celeron/A6, but it's CPU performance would obliterate the other devices.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--