[Closed] £2-300 for a laptop?

Chromebook sounds like a possible solution.

<£300 might be pushing it for a propper windows laptop with a big screen. But realistically unless you're one of those people who insists on never closing a chrome tab untill the computer runs out of RAM then anything with a 17" screen will be fine.

Mines an 8 year old dual core i3 and does all that. It even edits video with carefull choice of software.

Chromebook might be an option, but not all software will run on it.

So spec wise what should I be looking at?
Ram
Processor

Will be using office 365 btw

https://laptopandpcwarehouse.com/
Got a very decent one from these guys and good communication.

Either a chrome book or an refurb ex business spec laptop are your best bets,

Do you want a permanent internet or not?
I'd have thought stuff like invoicing cache of shimano docs etc you can just chuck it in the van.

Also consider if you want 17" or just plug it into the telly ay home.
I can't see the point of paying for 365 either (for you) ... you can just use Libreoffice for free.

I'm typing this from a refurb laptop at mums .. but I could be typing it from the van from the £25 200W inverter for power if needed and I could plug it into mum's telly and when I get home I plug it into the telly in the office/bedroom.

So spec wise what should I be looking at?
Ram
Processor

As above ... mine is way over specced for your use but I do run simulations and models but other than that anything i3 on and at the budget end perhaps you need to instead look at look at battery life/portability for work and storage, video editing/video output for home ...????
Also worth looking @ cost of a spare power supply and price of a replacement battery...

I think that Chromebooks only run the Android versions of the Office365 programs.  This will work find for some stuff but in other cases might cause you problems so you will want to check the differences if you go down the Chromebook route.  See here:

What’s the Difference Between Microsoft Office’s Desktop, Web, and Mobile Apps? (howtogeek.com)

300 is a bit low for something if it is a core part of your business as it will be a bit sluggish but as said above, an old machine with ssd and enough ram still works quite well so it might be possible

As others said, I really don't like chrome, it's fine, but you've got limited "apps" as opposed to being able to run pretty much any software you can think of on windows.

£300 is pushing it, especially as I wouldn't want anything other than a 17" (or bigger) screen for doing work on (this also means you get an almost full size keyboard and numpad). <£400 on a 17" laptop you're pretty much paying for a case, screen, keyboard and then the change leftover is spent on the processor, ram, onboard graphics etc. £500 means they've probably spent maybe 5x more on the important bits (Ryzen or i3 CPU rather than Athlon or Celron). As that's over budget I'd take the suggestion above and look at refurbished business laptops. You'd probably find plenty with 7/8th generation i5 processors, 8gb of ram and an SSD within budget.

I think that Chromebooks only run the Android versions of the Office365 programs.

Why (would anyone who doesn't require metadata in the document saying it was produced by) want to run 365 anyway??

The only reason I run it is for contractual reasons when clients insist on a very specific bunch of metadata or delivery method in which case it is simply used for SaveAs or publishing into their SP/Teams.

If I just wanted to do some invoices, write the odd letter etc. I'd most certainly not be using it at all.

Dell Outlet would be worth a look.

Why (would anyone who doesn’t require metadata in the document saying it was produced by) want to run 365 anyway??

Grey market licences make it a lot more appealing privately. Although for a business £5/month (by the time you've recouped VAT and not declared your personal use of it on your p11d) for the full suite is pretty cheap too.

It's also pretty universal, no one (that I know of) makes a steam tables plugin for google sheets / open office / libre. If you just want to do tables and sums, averages etc then they're fine. For anything more complicated excel pays for itself before I've had a chance to boil the kettle in the morning.

Some good prices on the site @caher mentioned, backed up with a warranty too.
Quite liking the look of the i5 Dell Latitude at £350 for myself. Just landed a new contracting job so need to get a laptop.

Some good prices on the site

I ordered a Lenovo T5 but it was tested by them and proved faulty so they sent me an massively upgraded replacement which led to me ditching one of desktops as the laptop is so much better.

One thing to watch on used and refurbed laptops, sometimes they have a lot of stuff disabled in the BIOS, for some reason.

I got an ex-corporate refurb Lenovo and couldn't get the Bluetooth to work. Didn't show up in the device manager, tried updating software/drivers etc. Nothing.

Then found a page of BIOS settings, which had the Bluetooth, camera, mic and a couple of other things disabled.

Very strange.

Do you actually need to do much on the move?
I ask because I kind of wish I hadn't got my last laptop, I wish I'd got a tower+ monitor instead. Bloody thing never moves, I use a nicer external KB & mouse anyway and it developed a screen problem so now I've got an external monitor.
Just a thought.

@gobuuchul

As it was an ex-corporate laptop they were probably disabled for privacy/compliance reasons. Ie not able to connect other devices (phones, anything that could store data) take pictures whether on purpose or not, or listen to stuff.

They probably originally also had software running in the original install of w10 to block usb stuff for the same reasons.

When they off loaded the laptop, as well as wiping the operating system (possibly removing the hard drive), they would have removed the original bios password that prevented them being changed.

+1 Dell outlet

I'd not be too worried about processor, and its usually cheap & easy to upgrade RAM, likewise hard drive, you can use a USB

My son needed a laptop fir homeschooling, teams, zoom, office 365

Got a refurbished Dell for £100, upgraded RAM and its been ace

How are chromebooks for promoting these days? I don’t use mine anymore but it was a PITA to ever print on.

Do you actually need to do much on the move?
I ask because I kind of wish I hadn’t got my last laptop, I wish I’d got a tower+ monitor instead. Bloody thing never moves, I use a nicer external KB & mouse anyway and it developed a screen problem so now I’ve got an external monitor.
Just a thought.

One or the other anyway. If he wants to use it in the van then that's a different matter.
As mentioned earlier though, easy connection to existing TV beats a 17" laptop monitor in my book.
Decent keyboard and mouse at home ..

If its just being used at home then a desktop is more maintainable, if something breaks its easily replaceable or upgradable in the future.

Why are you all looking for 17" screens? OP said "biggish" screen, so a 15" model is probably fine.

I'd just get whatever Windows 10 laptop is on offer at Amazon for 300GBP, just make sure it has an SSD (it probably will). For "invoicing, orders, web browsing, calendar, printing" it'll be fine.

Just coming back to this, definitely don't need it in the van.
I've been ok you until now using a phone and tablet, just read a bit more screen talk estate to have 2-3 open windows/tags at once instead of flicking between things.
Also some supplier websites don't render well on mobile devices.

I’ve been ok you until now using a phone and tablet, just read a bit more screen talk estate to have 2-3 open windows/tags at once instead of flicking between things.

On a laptop with a proper keyboard I'd just get used to alt+tab/ctrl+tab/[ctrl+1/ctrl+2/etc] (for the browser) etc. Far more useful than a 15-17" screen, which will never be quite big enough to show various windows at once.