The schools are providing more work online now, but all we’ve got is a small (9.6″ I think) portable chromebook that’s about 3 years old. It sort of does the job but it’s not ideal for the kids to do their work on so need to get something more suitable. Would like a built in hard drive if possible so I can put photos etc on it. A good battery life between charges would be nice too.

Budget is the problem I suppose. At a push around £400 but less ideally, hoping to be able to spread the payments to make it affordable. Willing to pay a bit more for something that would make it better in the long term. Any suggestions on what I should be looking for?

Thanks

All laptops have a hard drive in them. Do you want a laptop or a Chromebook?

Fair point. I’m guessing a laptop not a chrome book then.

Just bought a Dell from their outlet website, says it is scratched and dented…… can’t see anything. Recommended and far cheaper than normal site.

My lad went all through a levels on a chrome book. 32gb usb drive now about a tenner. I think he mainly used his student (free) Office 360 account, internet and email. You may be able to plug an external hard drive into your router for photos, and everyone can share it.

I would look for machines like this, with an i3 processor. All the major vendors will have generically similar models. Be careful about the processor. That’s a 10th generation CPU. You may find discount machines with much older processors. Something one generation behind will probably be fine. Something five generations behind is probably not a great idea.

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops/inspiron-15-3000/spd/inspiron-15-3501-laptop/cn30109

That machine is set up with Windows “S Mode”, which limits you to apps from the App Store for security reasons. You can reset that to regular Windows 10. I don’t think you have to pay for an upgraded licence for that, but I’ve never done it so not completely certain about that.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4456067/windows-10-switch-out-of-s-mode

4GB RAM is the minimum you would want, upgrading to 8GB would be good if you can stretch that far. That’s not a machine you would want to be hauling around a lot, but for home/office stuff, the 15″ screen will be good. Or a 17″ with 8GB RAM

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops/inspiron-17-3000/spd/inspiron-17-3793-laptop/cn37912

That machine is set up with Windows “S Mode”, which limits you to apps from the App Store for security reasons. You can reset that to regular Windows 10. I don’t think you have to pay for an upgraded licence for that, but I’ve never done it so not completely certain about that.

Changed out of S-Mode for our recently purchased Laptop. It’s a one way move, once you have switched it off, you can’t go back, choose wisely!

Have you considered a refurb?
You may get more value for money.

Also If I was buying a laptop I’d make sure that I get the fastest CPU I can afford as you can’t change that, followed by at least 4GB, ideally 8GB of RAM and then an SSD drive for the OS, the switch from an old 5400rpm HDD to an SSD was an eye opener.

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/nav/pt/laptops/ramgr/8gb-and-above/popularfea/ssd-drive/procgrp/core-i5-and-better/mc/laptops-and-netbooks?sortOrder=1

I’ve has a couple of friends buy from these guys and they have been happy.

Also I’ve been using a Lenovo T450s for work for the last 4 years with no issues.

Lastly I’d also consider getting a cheap keyboard and mouse if you have the deskspace as food/beverages/kids (including 40+ year old me) don’t always mix well.

Bought our eldest a shiny new HP over summer which she is rather protective of, I can’t remember the exact spec but I insisted we bumped it up to 16GB memory just because.

I think we’ll be buying the standard old dell/HP refurb for the rest of us to share as a family pc soon (we have got an office with a desk to accommodate a desktop setup), probably a lower spec just because it’s an almost disposable device and spending more than £100 odd feels like a waste if it’s potentially going to be chopped in within a year or two…

Have you considered a refurb?
You may get more value for money.

Those refurbed machines have fairly old CPUs and low resolution displays. This one, for example, has a 3rd generation i5. That’s ancient. Not value for money, really.

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/refurbished-fujitsu-lifebook-s752-core-i5-8gb-120gb-14-inch-windows-10-prof-t1-s752i58gb120gbw10p/version.asp

We bought from the Dell outlet site Dell Outlet UK. Went for one that was listed as ‘scratched and dented’ I literally cannot find a mark on it.

We got a Windows 10 machine with an Intel Core i3 gen 10 processor and a 128GB Solid State Drive (SSD). A SSD will be quicker than a HDD Hard Drive, but for a budget will typically be a smaller capacity if that is a concern if you’re storing lots of music/photos. Could always get an external hard drive to expand capacity though.

When looking I also found another Dell outlet site – Dell Refurbished I didn’t buy from these but from what I could tell they appear to sell former business laptops, and the spec is often higher.

Alternatively Currys have this on offer it’s £100 over your budget but has a 10th gen CPU, 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM.

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-3-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i5-256-gb-ssd-black-10208095-pdt.html

Again this depends on what you actually want to do with the laptop, for general browsing and using word/office it will be fine, if you want to game on the laptop then you’ll need to spend more money and generally gaming on a laptop isn’t the way to go.

I’m using a MacBook Pro from 2013 and it still runs fine now, but then again I’m not rendering videos or gaming on it.

Someone on here (thank you!) recommended me a refurb from Tier 1. I spent less than £400this summer and got something that is pretty hi spec: https://www.tier1online.com/

Lots of cheaper options too if you can live with scratches and things. And when there was an issue with a driver (just an update thing that I’m too dense to fix) their customer support was super fast and they sorted it immediately via remote link up.

I would be wary of making the decision too much on budget rather than spec and what you want the machine to do. Think of it in the longer term and the priorities, as mentioned above, are minimum of 8GB RAM and absolutely an SSD hard disk. Those 2 alone will probably impact the performance more than going with i5 or i7 processor. Also, don’t forget cloud storage as an option for your pictures. Likely to be more reliable and accessible from anywhere / anything. For that sort of budget you will be doing well to get anything bigger than a 240GB SSD drive.

Bought my son a secondhand i3 basic laptop. Was horribly slow. Upgraded the drive to SSD (about 60 quid?) and it transformed it (wakes from sleep in about 10seconds, instead of 5mins). SSD makes a massive difference unless you need specific hardware requirements (as long as you have at least 8gb ram).

For the budget, I would be going for something in this range.

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/nav/pt/laptops/ramgr/8gb-and-above/ssdgroup/240gb-and-above/mc/48361?rangeattribute=1~300~400