16-06-2014, 10:35 AM
I recently bought an HP Pavilion Laptop with 4GB memory, Windows 8 and an Intel i5 processor for less than £400 - I think it was cheap because it had no touch screen (which I don't much care about anyway).
It is very fast and runs chessbase and engines no problem. I think it probably worth going up to an i5 rather than a i3 for the extra processing power. As someone said, going up to 8GB memory would be even better but would probably take it outside your budget.
Windows 8 takes a lot of getting used to but the free upgrade to windows 8.1 helps - and there are other 'tweaks' you can do to remove some of the unnecessary stuff HP gives you and customise the way it looks and works to whatever suits you. Best get a 'techy' friend who knows about these things to help you set it up. We have several other machines running older versions of Windows and while they have a more familar feel to them, they are clearly less efficient in their use of resources.
It is very fast and runs chessbase and engines no problem. I think it probably worth going up to an i5 rather than a i3 for the extra processing power. As someone said, going up to 8GB memory would be even better but would probably take it outside your budget.
Windows 8 takes a lot of getting used to but the free upgrade to windows 8.1 helps - and there are other 'tweaks' you can do to remove some of the unnecessary stuff HP gives you and customise the way it looks and works to whatever suits you. Best get a 'techy' friend who knows about these things to help you set it up. We have several other machines running older versions of Windows and while they have a more familar feel to them, they are clearly less efficient in their use of resources.