Sorry for another ‘what laptop’ thread…..

I am looking at getting a laptop, just used my phone since last one gave up. Cant decide between new or used.

The laptop will only really be used for web surfing/light word,excel,powerpoint work, netflix (and maybe a bit of fortnite for the young one, but not essential). I have looked at a used one on sites like tier1/giga refurb etc and can get something like a dell latitude or lenovo x230  with 4gb ram, 128gb ssd and processer such as i5-4310u for around the £300 mark (with option to increase ram etc for a bit more)

Or do i go new, lots of offers around just now and can get something such as an acer aspire again with 4gb ram, 128gb ssd but an i3-6006u for same money.

I have looked a cpu bench marks and the older i5 scores a bit higher but not a lot more, so is a more powerful but older laptop better than a newer less powerful unit for what need?

Wwstw buy, new or used.

Watches with interest – need to find a couple of cheap laptops for the kids’ school work (and to stop them stealing ours)

I’d wait for the Christmas sales.

What sbob said.  THere will be bargains in the next 10 weeks. Then I’d re-compare but probably go referbed.

I’d go new for their intended use – just get whatever HP model is on offer.

And I’d go minimum 8GB RAM though.

I just bought a Lenovo Ideapad 330s from Currys at the weekend, for exactly the same use as you describe andy4d.

Seems fine so far, though it is my first experience of Windows 10 and it took me a little  while to work out how to set up user accounts that aren’t linked to Microsoft accounts.

Also picked up a new printer at the same time:

HP OfficeJet Pro 7720.  Prints A4 and A3.  Hell of a bargain at £20!  Cost £80 but has a £60 cashback deal from HP as well as a special offer to extend the manufacturers warranty to 3 years for free.  Will get stung on ink but thought for £20 I couldn’t go wrong.

Would i really need 8gb for what will be doing? If so i would probably go 2nd hand as most new laptops in the price range i was looking at were only 4gb, and most 8gb were a fair bit more…..or how easy/expensive is it to increase it yourself to 8gb?

DELL Inspiron 15.6″ Laptop – Black £379

This one if you are not bothered about anything else …

Intel® Core™ i3-7130U Processor
– Dual-core
– 1.5 GHz / 2.7 GHz (Turbo Boost)
– 3 MB cache

RAM 8 GB DDR3 (16 GB maximum installable RAM)

Would i really need 8gb for what will be doing?

For what you’ll be doing, a Saturday Night Special from Cash Converters would probably be sufficient.

how easy/expensive is it to increase it yourself to 8gb?

It depends.

a) Cost depends on how many memory slots and what configuration the RAM is already – two slots and one 4GB stick, you just need another stick.  Otherwise you’ll need to replace whatever’s there which bumps up the price.  It’s not stupidly expensive though.

b) Difficulty wise there’s no standard design for laptop cases.  On the Lenovo I have for work, swapping the memory needs one screw removing to open a dedicated hatch and it can be done in about 30 seconds.  On my personal Dell it’s half a dozen to remove a panel which makes up most of the base of the laptop.  The last one I did for a friend (which was Asus or Acer I think, I don’t remember now) involved a full teardown, something like 40 screws and a shitload of annoying plastic clips, it took me an hour or so.

My last 2nd hand laptop(s) were  Lenovo Thinkpad X1 ‘carbon’-

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-2nd-gen-i5-4300U-8GB-256SSD-14-QHD-touch-T489/232977062512

or

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cheap-Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-Core-i7-4600U-256GB-SSD-Ultrabook-Win-10-Laptop/222681737713?hash=item33d8dda9f1:g:HBoAAOSw2idbNi4A:rk:51:pf:0

For about 300gbp 2K screen; 8gig; 4th gen processor 256 SSD – I even got one with over a years instant ‘swap out’  warranty.

Much nicer than a ‘cheaper’ model – but so many to choose from on ebay – takes a while to find the ‘right one’.

Prior to that ‘this one’ my Lenovo battery ‘died’ 1 week after the 3 year warranty ran out – even though it was second hand – Lenovo shipped a new one out to my door in less than 48hrs (sat-mon morning) – I was impressed.

Stuey those thinkpads look good value. Cheers.

I’m quite the fan of Thinkpads.  When the universe ends all that will be left is cockroaches, Nokia 3310s and Thinkpads.  We have them as our work fleet for a reason.