Forumite Members › General Topics › Tech › Other Tech › New Laptop Advice Please
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Boris.
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July 12, 2018 at 8:29 pm #23052
My mother’s laptop has decided to pack in again, so she’s after a new one*. Her current laptop is an HP Pavilion G6 I think. She’s not after anything special, but I’d rather get her something a bit beefier so it will last longer (Pentium rather than Atom for example). She’s got 6GB RAM now, and a relatively small amount of hard drive space used, so doesn’t need anything daft. I may see if the 256GB SSD is still available from MyMemory.
She doesn’t do anything major on it, just browsing and some Facebook games. The most important thing she does is booking holidays and looking at photos of her grandkids.
Are there any deals that you guys know of, or is there anything I should avoid? She hasn’t given me a budget, but £350 would be a good starting point, unless there’s a sudden jump in spec for a bit more.
Cheers dears 🙂
*I’ve fixed the current laptop a few times, and it’s battered from being stepped on by grandkids who are learning to walk. It can probably be repaired, but it’s not going to last much longer as is, and she probably won’t treat it as well as a new laptop.
July 12, 2018 at 9:07 pm #23054Save on laptops is always a good starting point. (and usally end point too). There is some stuff in your price range in their clearance stock. But I’d still go to the normal laptop section afterwards, pick your screen size and ram and sort by price, scroll down to your max budget. Then work backwards say for 350 down to 275, and compare what they have.
https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/clearance-laptops
Also look at how easy ram and ssd is on any given model to upgrade yourself, as you may some cash on getting a better cpu and entry level hdd and lowest ram option, then spending the saved cash on doubling Thr memory and an ssd.
From the sound of your mums usage, probably a 120gb would do, but given 240s are not much more, if the budget allows, why not.
July 12, 2018 at 11:27 pm #23062Thanks Steve, I always forget about them 🙂
I’ve been digging through their site for the last hour or two and realising how out of date I am :/ I really need to get myself up to speed again 😀
July 12, 2018 at 11:42 pm #23063I’m the same with cpus now. Once I’d knew them all in order. Now no idea.
July 13, 2018 at 1:34 am #23065Just bought a refurb from Rapid IT for the sister in law who is an office manager & she is well impressed.
Intel Core i3 | 4GB 250GB | Windows 10 | Free Delivery | £110
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Regards
wasbitRig 1: Optiplex 3050 SFF
Rig 2: Asus ROG G20CB (rebuilt wreck)
Rig 3: HP Elitebook 8440PDear Starfleet, hate you, hate the Federation, taking Voyager. - Janeway
July 13, 2018 at 7:47 am #23066Unfortunately as you get older failing eyesight becomes an increasingly important factor. Spectacles alone do not address the problem, dim light and lack of contrast are by far the most important factors. Linux unfortunately is nowhere near as good as Windows 10 in addressing things like font magnification and Clear Type.
When selecting a laptop for an older person I would look first at Window size and resolution (normally a higher resolution has better font clarity), I would also go for one that offers a high contrast screen.(Samsung is usually very good).
Weight can also be an issue to consider, as are factors such as ease of use for the touch pad, mouse clicks and keyboard.
Although I gave a push for Windows 10 you may need to add on-screen icons a la Stardock etc. as the step from Windows 7 to 10 is quite large.
July 14, 2018 at 12:50 am #23092There is also a Toshiba Satellite C660, Intel Core i3 | 4GB 320GB | WiFi Webcam Windows 10 for £99
or Intel Core i5s start at £169--
Regards
wasbitRig 1: Optiplex 3050 SFF
Rig 2: Asus ROG G20CB (rebuilt wreck)
Rig 3: HP Elitebook 8440PDear Starfleet, hate you, hate the Federation, taking Voyager. - Janeway
July 14, 2018 at 11:31 am #23101Have to agree with the refurbished idea, I have bought several over the last 3 / 4 years including my own Thinkpad.
Personally I would stick to Lenovo Thinkpads or HP Elitebooks and I’ve used Micro Dream quite a lot.
The Elitebooks look fantastic with their mag alloy chassis, even my picky 19 yo daughter likes hers, and with an i5 and SSD they fly. £299 gets you a Grade A 8470p 14.1″ i5 8GB 240GB SSD DVD USB 3.0 WiFi W10 Pro 64 http://tinyurl.com/yag5svpx
Or they have the sameish spec (-DVD) but in the 840 Ultrabook chassis for the same money http://tinyurl.com/yc34fkgd
Save on laptops deal of the week looks good – £399 Lenovo IdeaPad 520s i5-7200U (2.5 – 3.1Ghz), 14″ Full HD IPS Screen
W10 Home 64, 8GB DDR4 RAM, 128GB M.2 SSD, USB3 | HDMI | Bluetooth http://tinyurl.com/yc82bwrn£326 Lenovo V110, i3-6006U 2Ghz, 15.6″ HD Screen, W10 Home 64, 4GB DDR4 RAM, 128GB SSD, DVD Rewriter http://tinyurl.com/yaospr5s I have bought several V110s, the build quality is good and they can be upgraded without too much hassle.
July 14, 2018 at 5:02 pm #23110I also like the think pad referbs. I’m a hugh fan of thier older keyboards and I’m a fan of saving cash.
For a work station / Web browser, they make great sense. Even if they are 3 or 4 years old, for sub £150 you can afford to replace it yearly if you had too, and still not feel hard done by.
If my 8 year old asks for a lappy for Xmas. I probably will go down that route, as they are tough and at sub 150 not the end of the world if she breaks it.
July 15, 2018 at 12:24 am #23143Sorry I’m a bit slow replying. Alice has got my throat infection now, so we’re having a few sleepless nights 🙁
I’m placing a curse on Chromebooks and the various copycats ?
My mother’s been looking for laptops too, and even though her current laptop is a refurb, she’s decided that she wants new, but for about £150! She’s seen the cloudbooks on Argos and now thinks that they’re a typical price for laptops…
Our Cash Generators had a Vaio in this week for £200 that was an i7 with 8GB RAM and a 1TB hard drive. I’ve got a spare SSD she could have had too, but now she thinks that’s too much.
Luckily she’s changing to Talk Talk this week, and should be getting fibre. As long as everything goes ok, a Chromebook might work, but in the meantime I’ve got to try to explain the difference and why the cheap laptops won’t work on her less than 1MB broadband ?
July 15, 2018 at 11:34 am #23155TBH a Chromebook will probably do all she wants, until she takes it on the holiday she’s booked!
July 23, 2018 at 12:00 am #23387Sorry I haven’t come back to this thread sooner. It looks like my mother’s laptop problem might just be a dodgy charger with an intermittent fault. I remembered that I’ve got a charger with variable voltage and swappable pins, so I tried it on her laptop and it worked. For the time being she wants to try a new charger instead of a laptop, even though she’s been complaining about her laptop for ages ??
On the bright side, I convinced Ellen that I need a new laptop, so I had a look at Wasbit’s link and found a Dell Latitude E5530 for £99. I’ve already swapped my existing laptop’s hard drive for an SSD, so can swap that with the drive in the Dell, and I bought an i5 a while back, before I found out that my laptop cant be upgraded. Threads online suggest that the Dell will take it, but if not, it’s still ten times better than my current laptop.
Thanks for all the help guys 🙂 I’ll let you know how my laptop and my mother’s charger get on.
July 23, 2018 at 9:59 am #23392I believe that that model can take an i7-3520M, so an i5 should be fine ?
Never trust an atom - they make up everything !
July 23, 2018 at 10:17 am #23393I picked up my current laptop from the bay (local collection) for £35, about 2 months back.
2 yr old mint Win 7 Pro ASUSPRO PU551L (PU551LA-XO032G), i5-4200U, 8GB PC12800, 500GB spinner
With Win 10 installed, plus a SanDisk SDSSDA240G, it flies.
You can definitely get bargains if you look hard enough.
Never trust an atom - they make up everything !
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