Sensible laptop deal for general work/domestic use

[A993LAD]

Hi folks, I'm seeking some guidance on where to buy a decent laptop, what to get and how much to pay.

I must confess I'm a bit of a dunce on of these things having been employed for 30 years and had all of my computer requirements provided by an IT department who were at my beck and call should anything go wrong or need updating.

All of my laptops in recent years have been Dell.

Ideally I want to buy an off the shelf package with all of the MSN standard stuff preinstalled so I can plug and play if possible.

I mainly use the Internet plus Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Adobe.

Please help!

[Jinx]

Do you really need MS Word/Excel/Powerpoint or can you cope with learning LibreOffice? That will save you £59.99 a year in MS 365 Personal edition costs - though if you are wanting 1TB of cloud storage MS 365 isn't that bad a price.

[The_Doc]

Don't pay more than £500
Search through www.laptopsdirect.co.uk

Buy your Office software from www.theunitysoft.com Standalone software EG Microsoft Office Professional PLUS 2016 from £22.99 there currently - NO STUPID DIRECT DEBIT SUBSCRIPTION OR SOFTWARE RENTAL !!

Get the biggest Solid State Drive SSD you can afford, dont; buy one with a Hard Disk Drive HDD.

easies

[Mr Pointy]

To be of much help you need to provide a bit more information:

What's your budget?
What screen size do you want?
Do you need on-site support?
Do you have any existing monitors it needs to work with?
Do you need an Outook Exchange account?

[eeLee]

check your work for information about the MS HUP (Home Use Programme). You will likely get a O365 family subscription for £50 or so a year if they've into VL with MS in any way.

I would check the Dell outlet for something of value as well as looking at MacBook Air. The MacBooks tend to last well and not be too sluggish - my other half has a 2011 Pro and it still goes well (even though she replaced it with a late 2019 Pro early last year).

[Chozza]

A993LAD said:

I mainly use the Internet plus Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Adobe.

Please help!

When you say Adobe , do you mean just a PDF viewer or something else ?

( there is a lots of very expensive adobe software .. that hopefully you arent hoping to run! )

[AJB88]

Really going to need to know what your usage is etc.

[The_Jackal]

If by Adobe you mean PDFs, literally anything you buy will suit your demands.
Just spend as much as you can.
Also ask yourself if you REALLY need a laptop. You will get way more computing power with a PC, and a larger screen.

[A993LAD]

The_Doc said:

Don't pay more than £500
Search through www.laptopsdirect.co.uk

Buy your Office software from www.theunitysoft.com Standalone software EG Microsoft Office Professional PLUS 2016 from £22.99 there currently - NO STUPID DIRECT DEBIT SUBSCRIPTION OR SOFTWARE RENTAL !!

Get the biggest Solid State Drive SSD you can afford, dont; buy one with a Hard Disk Drive HDD.

easies

Thanks. Sounds like a plan.

Many laptops under £500 on laptops direct.

This one seems popular - any thoughts?

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/lenovo-v14-ada-cor...

So I just order the laptop first and then order the MS software from Unitysoft? Is it easy to set it up?

Is it worth ordering the setup service for £30 from laptops direct?

[eeLee]

A993LAD said:

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/lenovo-v14-ada-cor...

So I just order the laptop first and then order the MS software from Unitysoft? Is it easy to set it up?

Is it worth ordering the setup service for £30 from laptops direct?

The laptop is extreme budget computing, unspectacular but decent brand. Interestingly, the ad states 8Gb RAM but the URL suggests 4Gb. 8 is much better and should be considered your minimum.

The setup service is a joke. It comes with the drivers, you will be able to walk through setting it up (or get a kid to help) - you only need to read and click.

If you have family that have computers and devices and would like 1Tb of storage each plus the apps: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-subscription-Mu...

You can link up to 6 accounts in your family to this. It is a good deal and you can maybe get it cheaper if you see if your employer is in the HUP (Home Use Programme). It's an annual cost but one of the best value I've seen for a long time.

[Mr Pointy]

OP: have a look at the Dell Outlet, you'll find plenty of laptops with a better spec than the one you have linked to. It's not always easy to provide a link to the page but this was a search I just ran:

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

Look for an i5 or i7 processor (or AMD but I'm not too well up on those), at least 8GB of RAM & a 512GB SSD or M2 drive. I've filtered by 15.5" screens but you might be happy with a smaller one.

[Jinx]

A993LAD said:

Thanks. Sounds like a plan.

Many laptops under £500 on laptops direct.

This one seems popular - any thoughts?

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/lenovo-v14-ada-cor...

So I just order the laptop first and then order the MS software from Unitysoft? Is it easy to set it up?

Is it worth ordering the setup service for £30 from laptops direct?

Dell outlet machine is much better than the Lenovo one. Both are not the best CPU but the Ryzen 3450U is streets ahead of the Athlon 3150. Bigger SSD as well.

Benchmark comparisons

Edited by Jinx on Wednesday 9th June 11:35

[Ridealong]

Have you got an American Express card?

Log into your account save the Dell offer - Spend £750 cumulatively and get £100 statement credit.

OFFER TERMS
Offer valid until 31 July 2021.
Only one £100 statement credit per UK Card.
Offer only available to the first 100,000 Cardmembers who save the offer to their Card.
This promotion is intended for UK Cardmembers only.
Offer only available online at deals.dell.com/en-uk
Offer available on purchases made via telesales by calling 0800 085 4961.
Offer is only intended for the targeted recipient of this offer.
Offer only valid on orders delivered to the UK.
Offer only applies to spend made in Great British Pound (GBP) on the Card to which the offer is saved, including an American Express Card loaded into a mobile payment wallet.
Spend must be billed to your card by 31 July 2021 to be eligible for this offer. If Dell does not charge your Card during this period, e.g. because of a delay in dispatching your goods, you may not be eligible for the offer.
Offer does not apply to spend on other Cards you might hold and is not valid for transactions made using third party Payment Aggregators.
Credit should appear on your billing statement within 5 days from qualifying spend but may take up to 90 days from 31 July 2021.
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For full Offer Terms and more details about statement credits https://www.americanexpress.com/uk/network/amex-of...
By saving the offer to your Card, you agree to the Offer Terms.

[eps]

OP you haven't mentioned a budget, but this one https://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/SecondaryInven...

Seems to have a great balance of power and longevity.

Decent laptops on the Dell outlet website do go out of stock in a rapid fashion, but they do come back - you just have to be prepared to check every day and try and work out what time of day stock gets added.

Personally I'd be looking for an i5 or i7 class processor and 8GB RAM minimum and 512GB SSD minimum. Ideally get as late a gen processor as possible (gen 11 is current on there, gen 10 is probably okay as well)

[A993LAD]

eps said:

OP you haven't mentioned a budget, but this one https://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/SecondaryInven...

Seems to have a great balance of power and longevity.

Decent laptops on the Dell outlet website do go out of stock in a rapid fashion, but they do come back - you just have to be prepared to check every day and try and work out what time of day stock gets added.

Personally I'd be looking for an i5 or i7 class processor and 8GB RAM minimum and 512GB SSD minimum. Ideally get as late a gen processor as possible (gen 11 is current on there, gen 10 is probably okay as well)

Thanks

I was thinking max budget £500. And preferably as little setup required as possible.