For home use, a little Word, a little Exel, internet & Youtube watching. Min 15" screen, around £300.
I'm not very tech minded so just want something for basic use.
I’ve bought a few refurb Surface laptops off eBay this month. Don’t know how long they’ll last but so far best £300 I’ve spent on a laptop…
Watching, as I'm interested too.
Especially any links, since I'm inordinately lazy...
I have a small Dell bought refurb with a Core i7 but its playing up now, mainly on images but internet drops out all the time too.
I've just listed a load of stuff on ebay but all the pictures are poor - see below
Have a look at Dells refurbished laptops we have had a few and they have always been good.
Wouldn't suggest any laptop is 100% reliable but as pretty as a MS surface is, I've heard too may reports of hardware issues to even touch one with 'yours' . Get a dell and be done with it... hmmm looking they don't have anything user £400 on the outlet site.
ok, something like this looks pretty reasonable: HP EliteBook 830 G5 FHD 13.3" i5-8350U 16GB RAM 512GB SSD Win 11 Pro (VG) | The Edinburgh Remakery
(I have not used the place and am not affiliated, but they were suggested previously)
I'm not checking this kinda stuff too regularly but thought that seemed ok, but if you wanted new, try something like this:
Buy HP 15s-fq5585sa 15.6" Laptop - Intel® Core™ i3, 128 GB SSD, Silver | Currys
For home use, a little Word, a little Exel, internet & Youtube watching. Min 15″ screen, around £300.
I gave away my ~12 year old laptop that I paid £300 for in 2012 that did all that and more, so the good news is you can't really go wrong. OTOH inflation means that £300 is becoming REALLY cheap for a laptop. Whilst the specs are all decent enough these days, costs get cut in other ways like the keyboards are horrible, the plastic chassis flex, etc. If you don't care about specs or connectivity, then you'd be better off going into Currys and having a look even if you buy elsewhere. Maybe spend slightly more on one with a decent solid keyboard rather than keys that will pop off or break. Dell, Lenovo, etc are usually pretty good and don't make the cheapest laptops. Asus, Acer, etc make a range so have a look at what currys will sell for £300 and compare the build quality to the equivalent £500 Dell or Lenovo then go buy a refurbished Dell or Lenovo. But to illustrate that, the cheapest laptop on the Dell outlet is >£300 and only has a 14" screen. So you will need to stretch the budget slightly.
Also in the market for something to do just this...
I got a basic Dell Inspiron 15 for £299 and it's been brilliant.
Edit: looks like the cheapest at the moment is £349
I’m not checking this kinda stuff too regularly but thought that seemed ok, but if you wanted new, try something like this:
Buy HP 15s-fq5585sa 15.6″ Laptop – Intel® Core™ i3, 128 GB SSD, Silver | Currys
For an extra £20 I'd get this, same spec but 256gb storage... 128 is too small IMO.
I got a refurbished 15" Dell Latitude 5520 from a local charity shop. Intel Core i5. 256Gb SSD. £250. Sticker on the back says manufactured 2021. So not that old. Seems to have seen little use. All the usb sockets etc really tight. No signs of wear on the keyboard. Plus as I bought locally if it failed in a few weeks I could take it back.
Seems the shop gets a batch of 15 or so donated from a company every 18 months. Gets them professionally refurbished then sells them in the shop. There were only 2 left of this batch. The other had a couple of keys showing wear. The guy said they had never had any returned.
Based on this I would go for a refurb next time.
Unless you need Windows go and try a chromebook, £300 will get you a belter.
I bought a refurbished Thinkpad from Newandusedlaptops4u on eBay last year and it was a bargain. Came with a brand new extended capacity battery and was in perfect condition. If I needed another I'd go straight back there.
/tier1online.com/collections/refurbished-laptop-deals-under-300/products/hp-elitebook-830-g7-i5-10310u-1-70ghz-13-3-fhd-8gb-256gb-grade-c
Tier1 do really good refurb business machines, I've had these HP models with work and they have been rocksolid
This exact question crops up on like a fortnightly basis.
The fact of the matter is, you would have to try really hard to find a modern laptop which couldn't meet those requirements. Go to CEX or Cash Converters and find one with a nice keyboard.
