Which laptop - £400 budget

[Bam89]

Hi chaps

Would appreciate some help on selecting a new laptop for home use.

I've always had laptops from work and have barely ever used the ancient one I've had at home, but having had to use it more since my contract ended early due to COVID, it's been getting on my nerves!

Budget of around £400, could stretch to £500 if needed. Main use is Internet browsing, YouTube, and spreadsheets to manage my side business - nothing intense but my current laptop struggles to calculate when there are more than a thousand rows of data!

Treat me like a thicko when it comes to talking about specs etc, as I understand it the more RAM the better for fast processing, and a SSD is good for fast booting up. Those both sound like my biggest quibbles with the current laptop, so would like that to be solved.

I know that refurbished laptops can be better value, but would much prefer new.

Would appreciate any and all help!

[alorotom]

can you not just add some additional RAM to your current? that may solve most issues you are having as those aren't processor intensive tasks.

[Bam89]

The old one is nearly 8 years old, sounds like an industrial fan most of the time, weighs a tonne and the battery barely lasts 20 mins when not plugged in.

I could probably upgrade bits, but I just fancy treating myself to a new one now

[Troubleatmill]

https://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/InventorySearc...

£510.
Never seen a "scratch and dent" look anything less than perfect.
Just comes in a plain brown box.

[300bhp/ton]

Could get yourself a nice Chromebook for a fraction of the price. Make the switch to Google Sheets and you probably won't look back, unless you are doing some pretty advanced stuff in Excel.

Google Sheets is completely free too.

[cirks]

Troubleatmill said:

Never seen a "scratch and dent" look anything less than perfect.
Just comes in a plain brown box.

Agreed - bought quite a few very recently and all perfect despite the ‘scratch and dent’ categorisation.

[The_Doc]

Hp Pavilion refurbished

Buy one with a 256Gb SSD and no more.
Just buy the one that's closest to your budget. If you need more storage space, which will only really be for lots of videos, then buy an external HDD

Laptopsdirect are very good

Buy without software, and buy standalone licences from theunitysoft.com
Eg MS Office 2016 for £25 or Office Pro 2019 for £40

Do not buy Office 365!

[maccas99]

Another vote for Dell Outlet but would stick to Certified Refurbished - comes like new!

Something like this ticks all the boxes: https://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/SecondaryInven...

[eps]

maccas99 said:

Another vote for Dell Outlet but would stick to Certified Refurbished - comes like new!

Something like this ticks all the boxes: https://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/SecondaryInven...

Yep, Dell Outlet or Apple Refurbs - official only, they are like new.

[JB89]

There is a Dell Inspiron 5505 on HUKD today which looks a great deal, slightly over budget at £509.15 but think you would struggle to get a similar spec for a similar price.

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/dell-156-inspiron...

[Troubleatmill]

maccas99 said:

Another vote for Dell Outlet but would stick to Certified Refurbished - comes like new!
.......

As is scratch and dent.

Apart from the brown box - everything is mint.

[okenemem]

JB89 said:

There is a Dell Inspiron 5505 on HUKD today which looks a great deal, slightly over budget at £509.15 but think you would struggle to get a similar spec for a similar price.

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/dell-156-inspiron...

looks good

[ahas]

okenemem said:

JB89 said:

There is a Dell Inspiron 5505 on HUKD today which looks a great deal, slightly over budget at £509.15 but think you would struggle to get a similar spec for a similar price.

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/dell-156-inspiron...

looks good

+1
Whenever I'm looking to buy something substantial like a laptop for example I always use hukd. Not only because you'll know if you're getting a good deal but reading through comments you'll get a good discussion on pros / cons and alternatives. If it's out of your budget just go on hukd and do a search for laptops and see what other recommendations are available.
There was a refurb HP doing the rounds for c£400 mark don't know full specs but was SSD 10 series i5 and 8gb ram I'm sure (but don't quote me!)

[Bam89]

Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated

I'm going for the Dell laptop posted on HUKD linked above.

Does anyone bother with extended warranties etc for laptops these days or are they pretty reliable?

[Mr Pointy]

Bam89 said:

Thanks for all the replies, much appreciated

I'm going for the Dell laptop posted on HUKD linked above.

Does anyone bother with extended warranties etc for laptops these days or are they pretty reliable?

If you don't travel much & the laptop isn't business critical I'd put the money aside & concentrate on my data backup plan so I could carry on from any other PC if the laptop went down. I used Office 365 & Dropbox & could be up & running in minutes on a new PC if needed. Put a bit of money aside every month & you'll soon build up a war chest for a backup PC (this one can be a refurbished one from ebay.)