New laptop around £250 wanted

This topic has 11 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 4 months ago by Ed P.

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October 21, 2019 at 4:23 pm #37626
André
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@inversions
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A friend is looking to replace her ancient laptop with a new one. For doing all the usual basic stuff plus plugging it into her TV via HDMI. Wants Windows not Linux or Chrome. No need for touchscreen.

Around £250-270 max price.

I’ve been reading about Jumper, some okay/good reviews and some that really put me off the brand. Noticed some obvs fake reviews for them on Amazon and some sellers I wouldn’t touch.

Suggestions please!
October 21, 2019 at 6:06 pm #37630
Bob Williams
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@bullstuff2
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I know Dave rates this company for good refurbished stuff:

https://tinyurl.com/y59k5qnd

And there are quite a few there that fit those requirements, although if using it with a TV via HDMI, she may want full HD (1920x 1280) and an IPS screen to get the best out of that, and that is outside the Max price you quote. What size screen would best suit her needs?

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October 21, 2019 at 8:54 pm #37643
Ed P
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+1 for refurbished and bang for the buck. Laptops suffer a huge depreciation in the first year and in these days of company failures are frequently sold off by the receivers. They also feature quite a lot in Police sales. However I would not suggest taking the risk of buying from such a place for someone else. Refurbished is a safer bet, and normally come with a one year guarantee. Cex is also worth a look as it gives a longer two year guarantee.
October 22, 2019 at 12:12 am #37648
Dave Rice
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@ricedg
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Amazon are also doing a “renewed program” of which MicroDream are part. I forget who the last one came from but it’s all backed by Amazon.

MicroDream currently have a T430 Core i5-3210M 8GB 120GB SSD for £220.

or the next generation on T440 i5-4300U 8GB 240GB SSD with 1600 x 900 screen for £280.

£300 gets you the current Forum Favourite HP EliteBook 840 G1 14-inch Ultrabook Laptop PC (Intel Core i5 4th Gen, 8GB Memory, 180GB SSD
October 22, 2019 at 10:53 am #37654
Boris
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@boris
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Dave Rice wrote:

MicroDream currently have a T430 Core i5-3210M 8GB 120GB SSD for £220.

+1 for MicroDream. On my advice a friend has just bought one of these T430s from them (but with a 320 spinner for £180ish).

When it came I found it hard to believe it had any previous use at all – it was immaculate !

Never trust an atom - they make up everything !
October 22, 2019 at 11:10 am #37656
André
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@inversions
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Hey, lots of thanks everyone. Those Microdream ones look great value!

One note of interest to me: My last laptop won’t ‘let me’ change the HDD for an SSD. I can install W7 or Linux (tried various flavours of Ubuntu and Mint) but can’t get everything to work correctly. Admittedly I haven’t tried W10 on it in a fresh install as it was a long time ago I gave up but would I have similar issues with those machines?

My old lappy was cheap and not that cheerful so I might be in the market for one myself and I have a 256Gb SSD laying around.
October 22, 2019 at 11:50 am #37660
Ed P
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@edps
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I cannot talk for Microdream but sometimes (both new & refurb) laptops come with a bunch of carp that no-one would want. A Microsoft fresh install would be my recommendation. However please note that this purges ALL included software, so take a look to see if there is anything you want to keep before doing this nuclear option.

I’m not sure I understand your comment about your laptop barfing at swapping out the hdd for a ssd. I assume it is a uefi issue, if so take a look at this Easus article to see if it helps.

As a matter of interest if it is not Windows or Linux that stops you changing the boot drive, but instead it is uefi then you should note that all newer laptops come with both it and gpt as the basic installation which you will not easily change without using something like the Easus method.
October 22, 2019 at 2:47 pm #37663
Ed P
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@edps
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Thinking about it this Easus link may be more appropriate. Whichever you do, it is important with EUFI/GPT setups to make a USB Boot disk. If you do not, things can get quite difficult.
October 22, 2019 at 2:58 pm #37664
Dave Rice
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@ricedg
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MicroDream come pretty clean. There’s an ESET 400 day licence, which if you don’t have an AV is more than acceptable, a trial of Office and Adobe PDF reader. All easy to get rid of without nuking the HDD.

As far as the SSD is concerned you really want the SATA set to AHCI, they may well be IDE if the laptop is quite old.
October 22, 2019 at 10:26 pm #37678
André
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@inversions
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@edps Yes it was UEFI on my lappy that caused all the problems. I googled and googled for solutions and couldn’t find anything that worked. Maybe I’ll take a look at that link! Don’t have time atm. With W7 I couldn’t get the graphics driver to work and with Linux, some flavours just gave a blank screen after install and those that didn’t I couldn’t get the WiFi to work. Spent don’t know how long trying suggestions I found.

Don’t remember finding anything about Easus.
October 22, 2019 at 10:30 pm #37679
André
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@inversions
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I’ve checked that link. Fairly sure I asked on a forum (which one I can’t say) about cloning the original drive and was told the UEFI would still play up and reject it. Long time ago now thou
October 23, 2019 at 3:24 pm #37712
Ed P
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@edps
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My earlier response was based (I thought) on you upgrading an old Windows installation to Win10 onto a new SSD and keeping software. If instead you are looking at a clean Win10 install onto a newish laptop then this link may be more helpful as it discusses some physical gotchas on very new laptops.

This link is also useful as it reminds you that Win10 can have a will of its own in choosing which disk/partitions it uses!

However if the laptop has an existing uefi/gpt setup then to save tears please ensure that you first make a usb boot stick. Tbh I do not know a way of fiddling with a secure boot laptop without use of such a stick short of complete removal of the existing drive, but maybe Dave does.

[edit] I’m trying to remember the background but I think at one time Dave talked about using Rufus to make a Windows bootable uefi/gpt install stick.
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