In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Novatech sell Windows 8.1: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/software/operatin...

but they don't give it as a option on their laptops, ok it is possible to buy the laptop without the Os and then add Windows 8.1 on after.

How come there's new laptops floating around with Celeron and Pentium processors, I thought these processors were obsolete?

Both are current Intel processors.

In reply to a post by Banger:

How come there's new laptops floating around with Celeron and Pentium processors, I thought these processors were obsolete?

Updated versions, the Celeron is a different beast these days, still rubbish, but a different beast.
I am shocked that Intel still uses the name

The 1.2GHz Celeron in my old laptop runs Windows 7 quite happily with 2GB of memory. It even worked with the original 512MB of memory although it was sluggish. Surprisingly, the bottleneck is the hard drive. I would install an SSD but the battery's borked (and obsolete) and the screen's a bit ropy. Still, a modern laptop with a less power-hungry processor would be nice.

Edited by micksharpe (Wed 27-Jan-16 02:29:02)

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Display went dead, both internal and external. Google search showed that this meant a replacement motherboard was needed. I cut my losses and asked for my money back. As I say, a one-off but just my experience of the two brands.

If I ever buy another laptop I will go for one of the Microsoft Surface range. Expensive but they have a good reputation and are lovely little machines.

Not just a lovely little machine...a fantastic little machine. I've got an i7 Pro4 and its wonderful but, as you said not cheap.

In reply to a post by micksharpe:

The 1.2GHz Celeron in my old laptop runs Windows 7 quite happily with 2GB of memory. It even worked with the original 512MB of memory although it was sluggish. Surprisingly, the bottleneck is the hard drive. I would install an SSD but the battery's borked (and obsolete) and the screen's a bit ropy. Still, a modern laptop with a less power-hungry processor would be nice.

The celeron had a bad reputation of being under powered and would struggle with basic stuff. Even the Atom was better.

I can't wait to see what the new Zen architecture from AMD will be like, from what I have read, it looks like it will be good and hopefully will knock Intel down a bit.
It is about time AMD sorted things out, the FX chips while cheap and still pretty good is based on 5 year old technology, the chipsets of their boards have not been changed for years, I can still buy the board I got 4 years ago, ok it is version 2, but the only difference is that it have USB 3 internal connections.
Granted some boards have got extras on, but that is because the manufactures have used extra chips to do that.

AMD APU is pretty good, I was chatting to someone who have the top end one and was running battlefield 4 on it with almost the full quality at a good frame rate, which is good as Battlefield 4 is pretty heavy on video cards. So for a APU to run it is good, something that Intel chips can't do.

So hopefully AMD will pull something out of the bag this year.

I won't buy a Intel based machine, but i was tempted by a Apple Mac before i updated this one.

Laptops I have very little interest in to be honest, my old Asus does what I want,, which is not much as I have not used it for months, in fact I am not sure where it is, I think it is in the cupboard under the stairs. i have never been fond of laptops, screens are too small, keyboards are normally naf and unless you pay a fortune for them they are low powered.