[Closed] Laptop processor question

In my opinion for your basic workload you wouldn't notice too much of a difference.
The processors will still work, and do a decent job but will just lack in power.

Think if it like a Shimano Deore groupset, the 2017 version is basically the 2013 (ish) XTR system with a few upgrades. So it will still shift as it should and work like any other system system but it will miss some of the newer technology needed for super smooth shifting.

We are now on 8th gen mobile/laptop i3 processors, and i wouldn't go less than 4th gen.

Only an opinion though!

Short answer is, it depends. Sometimes theres there's very little improvement from one generation to the next, but the improvements do stack up over multiple generations...

[url= https://www.cpubenchmark.net/laptop.html ]have a look here [/url]

Aye use that could benchmark site. A score of 4500 is more than enough. Less will probably do you. Tbh I wouldn't worry about generation would just go by that score. Look at older i5s and i7s too.

In all cases though I wouldn't trade off a better processor against having an SSD these days. Things just work faster (as long as the SSD is not complely full) and battery life is better

Not exactly the question you asked but I'm just adding it in case you end up having to make that trade-off

Yeh leffeboy makes a good point too.

Consider for your usage (general office, Internet) you need to look at the overall cpu /ram /hard drive combo, a machine with an SSD drive with a weaker processor will be better than a faster processor with a traditional hard disk drive.

Thanks for the info and a useful chart Matty fez. I am looking at an SSD too as some places like gigarefurb let you add one for not too much £.

Hard drives have long been a bottleneck, especially on laptops which traditionally have slower spinning drives than thier desk top brethren.
They are fine for media storage, but they have much lower read /write speeds than SSD, so booting up the machine and opening applications, where data needs to be read off the drive quickly can leave the processor twiddling its thumbs waiting for instructions, hence the user has to wait for the application to load for longer.

SSD drives aliviate that issue significantly.

You could think of a hard disk as a record player, the data is stored on a spinning disk, and is read by an arm that moves across the disk, the faster the disk can spin and the faster the arm can move across it, the faster you can load the data. But there's a physical/mechanical limit to how quickly this can happen.

SSD's simply read the data from a memory chip.

The other issue with a second hand laptop is the battery life. If this is important to you, factor in the cost of a replacement battery, as a 4 year old battery will run for a lot less time than a new one.

One of my second hand laptops wouldn't even run for 60 seconds on battery...

thats if you can even get a replacement battery. Are you aware that unless you can power up your laptop (on battery), you soon won't be able to fly with it? (just an aside, not useful to the OP)

I would suggest the OP go and see how much a SSD drive (128Gb min 256Gb preferably - don't worry about getting the fastest possible, just a basic work horse) is on amazon, and factor that into your buying consideration. Buy the fastest/newest i3/i5 (I'd suggest an i5 over an i3 myself) you can and add the SSD in afterwards yourself*, as it'll probably be more of a bargain. Loading windows 10 is a doddle nowadays, not the ball ache it used to be, and installing the SSD/HDD can be done in less than 2 minutes.

* Even buy one next month if you can't afford it now, and use the HDD in a cheap external enclosure, for a basic data back up

I've bought a couple of refurb laptops over the last months, one of the daughter who is a 6th form student and one for me. One a Dell Latitude from Gigarefurb and a HP from Tier one, so I'll give you a bit of my experience.

Both were A grade with i5 processors, (latest versions they had in) 128gb SSD, Windows 10 and just over £200.

The HP arrived with a dead battery, wouldn't even boot up on the power supply which surprised me but Tier one sent a new replacement by next day delivery without question, which I was impressed with. It was in excellent condition and is a great little machine. It has a little problem with the trackpad not working after resuming from sleep which I can't solve. Internet research suggests this is a common thing, and it boots from powered off so fast it's really not an issue.

The Gigarefurb one has a brilliant screen and keyboard, but the outside of the case is pretty scuffed, like it's been carried round in a bag with loads of loose stuff for a few years. Battery life is excellent and the performance also rapid. It's got quite a sharp edge to the bottom of the keyboard thought, which is annoying me mildly as I type this by digging into the bottom of my palms!!

I think 128GB will be plenty honestly, if I ever need to do massive music or movie storage I have some external HDD's which I can use. Neither needed any extra drivers or software installing for all the peripherals and because they are ex-business machines they performance is far and away better than a basic new one, which would still cost more.

Tthew, looking at doing pretty much the same as yourself so good to hear your experience.

Even if you can't get a used laptop with an SSD, it's worth factoring in the cost of replacing it with one. It makes a huge difference. Around £70 for a 256gb SDD.

128 will be fine if it's just basic office/web stuff. Photos soon eat space.

The SSD speeds up everything, starting, opening docs etc, far more than a faster CPU.

PS there are free software programmes that will clone the original drive. Plug new SSD into the usb with an adapter/enclosure, then run the software to copy over. Open base of laptop, and swap out. Done.

An enclosure is about £15, then you can use the old drive as a removable drive.

MiniTool Partition Wizard is good for cloning the drive. It's free and I've done it on 4 SSD upgrades.