I’m really sorry but this one’s gonna be a long one😅
I’m a South African matric student who wants to do comp Sci next year and I’ve been trying to get the perfect laptop for it, my budget is 20 thousand rand which is under 1200 dollars, but the problem with the south African market is that, laptops are more expensive, alot more expensive and rare too. Like the dell 14 premium, I think it costs 2000 in yalls country, for me it costs 63 000 (16 gig ram😭), more than 3500 dollars. SA laptop market is cooked basically😬
Cutting to the chase I found 3 affordable options, the MSI prestige 13 ai+ (CU7 258V 32 GB RAM) an Asus zenbook 14 (CU5 225H 16 GB RAM) And wootbook y14, ips display but a high res and refresh rate one with 100% Srgb colours, that one has upgradeable ram and comes with the ryzen AI 7 350. Assuming I want to do comp Sci with this laptop and use it for work eventually, and I also intend on playing games here and there and rendering gdash macros which do you guys suggest I choose?
Do not buy MSI laptops, I have the MSI katana and I’m regretting since. The asus zenbook 14 is good, the Ryzen 7 350 is good as well, not recommended for gaming but definitely capable to do programing. Another option could be to just import a laptop from another country.
P.S- idk if South Africa has tariffs or ridiculous import taxes.
Okay cool, then, if I go for the zenbook I’m stuck with 16 gigs of ram, and the wootbook yea the 860M is 9/10 bad except in the omnibook 7 aero (somehow performs as good as some 140V laptops??)
Is 16 gigs enough for programming and games? I’m not playing anything crazy btw I just wanna emulate some oldie but goldie games like the ratchet and clank games and the infamous franchise. Also, I can’t import, my parents said they’ll buy the laptop soon as results come out (so that they don’t waste money on me if I fail, kinda crazy but their words not mine😕)
If you’re playing older games, compiling smaller applications exclusively, and not doing that much multi-tasking, then 16 GB could be fine for now.
If you plan on gaming modern AAA games, doing more strenous programming, or just want the laptop to last more than a few years, then 16 GB of RAM (especially if it’s soldered) does put you in a pickle…
