Laptop purchase?
 

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[Closed] Laptop purchase?

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Given the current situation where would be a good place to purchase a new laptop for those of us of advanced years with little tech savvy?


 
Posted : 17/04/2020 10:04 pm
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What will you be using it for and how much are you looking at spending?


 
Posted : 17/04/2020 10:09 pm
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Cheers cloud nine...

Mainly internet, family contacting by whatever internet app, basic photography editing.
Mrs would like some better/modern Excel/spreadsheet/statistic/graph/graphics package. Mrs does some stuff for NHS.
Budget? Up to £1k to get something decent. Our old Dell is approaching 20yrs old, needs a main battery, an internal battery, is no longer supported etc but still does what we ask of it poor auld thing.
Being retired I plan to take and fiddle with more photos/images.
MrsT has a couple of groups she is involved with that require reports that include lots of images that include graphs etc
Are these “new” ssd worth looking at v a remote hard drive?


 
Posted : 17/04/2020 10:53 pm
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Not many retail places open if you want hands on before you buy, with Currys and John Lewis shops shut. Bigger Tesco usually have a handful of tablets and lower end laptops on display, and Costco are still fully open and have some higher end kit in stock, Dells, HP, Apple usually as well as a handful of others.


 
Posted : 18/04/2020 8:24 pm
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Have a look at https://www.tier1online.com/ refurbed business laptops galore, from basically brand new (a grade) to a bit tatty but working fine (c grade).

You can get excellent bang for your buck, and upgrade to SSDs, more ram, etc.

I got a B grade Elitebook a couple of years ago for about 1/4 of retail. Upgraded to SSD + more ram myself.
Runs music recording software and Adobe stuff with no problems.


 
Posted : 18/04/2020 10:00 pm
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Bought a t470 Lenovo laptop off eBay from a seller called ts75c. Intel i5 6300, ssd drive, Windows 10pro, 8gb mem. 14"screen. It came extremely quickly and is spotless. £390. I bought another 16gb mem as I run a number of VMs and will probably get an external SSD at some point, but very very pleased with it.
You don't have to spend much for what you need


 
Posted : 18/04/2020 11:10 pm
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Ebuyer also. Id say £500 is all you’d need given your requirements.


 
Posted : 19/04/2020 3:20 am
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I would say given the requirements £350 would do it. It would want to spend £1000 then fine but than isn't necessary for internet stuff, basic photo editing etc,.

My main requirement was a big screen as had to quickly buy a laptop for working at home full time and my old one was too small. Got a 17" screen Lenovo 340 for £350 direct from Lenovo with free next day delivery (£50+ cheaper than any online retailer) so worth looking at their site


 
Posted : 19/04/2020 7:02 am
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Having bought one recently for our kids, in order that they could do their home-schooling stuff, I'm really impressed with the Asus Chromebook. £240 and it pretty much does everything we need it to: video calling, basic photo editing, plus has all the Google Suite apps, and a Google Drive for 15GB of cloud storage for everyone.

Really simple to use, and for the money, pretty impressive. You could spend quite a bit more for faster 'this', slicker 'that' in Chromebook form, but for what we spent, I'm very happy. I use it all the time myself, as it sits in the corner of the kitchen most of the time, so when the kids aren't using it, I tend to grab it.


 
Posted : 19/04/2020 8:04 am

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