Best Laptop for Under £400 (or there abouts)

[Kingdom35]

Hi All

Im not a massive Tech Bod, I know pretty much nothing but ive been told this laptop is fairly decent

https://pricespy.co.uk/computers-accessories/lapto...

Lenovo V130-15 81HN00NGUK

Looking for a HD screen
Plenty of storage space
Something I can watch Netflix on and business use
Most RAM
Best processer etc

Anyone have any experience or opinion on a better laptop?

[95JO]

I'm no expert, but you're definitely on the wrong forum here mate...

[Tycho]

To give you advice we'd really need to know what you need to do with it.

Is it just browsing and writing a few documents or a bit of video and photo editing. If the former then you'd probably be able to either spend a lot less on a Chromebook or get a nice Chromebook for the same price.

[Kingdom35]

Hi
I will need to use it predominately to design products using software like adobe and store these designs, secondary will be using it for watching films when away etc and surfing the net

[95JO]

Up your budget and get a well spec'd MacBook Pro and never buy another laptop for 10 years, job jobbed.

[coldel]

I bought a macbook pro and its still going, needs a decent clean up as it has slowed a fair bit but it is a mid-09 model

[Kingdom35]

Ok but my budget is my budget :-)

[HM-2]

Something like a Lenovo V130 is a great shout:

i5-7200U is plenty of processor for an ordinary user.
8GB RAM as standard.
256GB NVMe SSD- so incredibly fast storage.
1080p 15.6" screen
Decent battery life.
Under 2kg weight


No real reason a "normal" user should spend 5 times as much on a MacBook Pro, other than to have something flash and shiny to show off in coffee shops.
This should be fine for your use case (though "Adobe" doesn't really tell us much about your use case...)

Edited by HM-2 on Thursday 8th August 14:35

[Over over under steer]

coldel said:

I bought a macbook pro and its still going, needs a decent clean up as it has slowed a fair bit but it is a mid-09 model

Have you tried buying a cheap SSD (solid state drive) and putting that in it?

I did it 6 months ago and honestly it's feels like a brand new machine - mine is 2009 macbook pro as well

[Kingdom35]

HM-2 said:

Something like a Lenovo V130 is a great shout:

i5-7200U is plenty of processor for an ordinary user.
8GB RAM as standard.
256GB NVMe SSD- so incredibly fast storage.
1080p 15.6" screen
Decent battery life.
Under 2kg weight


No real reason a "normal" user should spend 5 times as much on a MacBook Pro, other than to have something flash and shiny to show off in coffee shops.
This should be fine for your use case (though "Adobe" doesn't really tell us much about your use case...)

Edited by HM-2 on Thursday 8th August 14:35

Sorry I meant I use Adobe illustrator to design products :-)

[HM-2]

In that case I'd suggest you probably do want to boost your budget and look for a laptop with a dedicated GPU, assuming you're using the various functions that are GPU-accelerated.

[AJB88]

HM-2 said:

No real reason a "normal" user should spend 5 times as much on a MacBook Pro, other than to have something flash and shiny to show off in coffee shops.

Edited by HM-2 on Thursday 8th August 14:35

Dont forget getting it out on the train!

[ging84]

I'm not sure how well adobe creative cloud runs on a chromebook but it is supported as a playstore app, I'd look into that.
You're not going to get a decent windows laptop for £400 but you will get a decent chromebook.

[The Mad Monk]

Which highest score max £400 is Acer Swift 1 SF114

[HM-2]

The Mad Monk said:

Which highest score max £400 is Acer Swift 1 SF114

Which is an order of magnitude slower than the Lenovos already posted in the thread...

ash73 said:

If you can increase the budget a tad, here's one with a graphics card
https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/lenovo-v330-15ikb-...

That's a pretty good option.
I'd also look at some of the Dell refurbished stuff: https://www.europc.co.uk/dell-g3-15-3579-gaming-bl... looks great value IMO.

Edited by HM-2 on Friday 9th August 15:10

[Kingdom35]

ash73 said:

If you can increase the budget a tad, here's one with a graphics card

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/lenovo-v330-15ikb-...

Thank you. Wont the one ive posted work as its HD Display so wont it have a Graphics card?

Id be using Adobe illustrator also for vector designs.

[HM-2]

Kingdom35 said:

ash73 said:

If you can increase the budget a tad, here's one with a graphics card

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/lenovo-v330-15ikb-...

Thank you. Wont the one ive posted work as its HD Display so wont it have a Graphics card?

Id be using Adobe illustrator also for vector designs.

It'll still work, but various bits of Illustrator are GPU accelerated, so they'll work significantly better on a system with a dedicated GPU.
That one also has a more powerful processor (i7), in fact it's a good chunk more powerful in general.

[Kingdom35]

HM-2 said:

It'll still work, but various bits of Illustrator are GPU accelerated, so they'll work significantly better on a system with a dedicated GPU.
That one also has a more powerful processor (i7), in fact it's a good chunk more powerful in general.

Thank you. My current Acer is about 7yrs old and it works fine with Adobe CS2.

Problem I have now is, I have all my files saved and designed using this version. If I then upgrade the laptop and the version of Adobe will these saved files then convert to a newer version?

As you can tell, im not the most computer savvy :-/

[HM-2]

Kingdom35 said:

HM-2 said:

It'll still work, but various bits of Illustrator are GPU accelerated, so they'll work significantly better on a system with a dedicated GPU.
That one also has a more powerful processor (i7), in fact it's a good chunk more powerful in general.

Thank you. My current Acer is about 7yrs old and it works fine with Adobe CS2.

Problem I have now is, I have all my files saved and designed using this version. If I then upgrade the laptop and the version of Adobe will these saved files then convert to a newer version?

As you can tell, im not the most computer savvy :-/

As far as I'm aware, same file format for newer versions as older. Even if they've added new stuff, they should be backwards compatible.

[loudlashadjuster]

HM-2 said:

Something like a Lenovo V130 is a great shout:

i5-7200U is plenty of processor for an ordinary user.
8GB RAM as standard.
256GB NVMe SSD- so incredibly fast storage.
1080p 15.6" screen
Decent battery life.
Under 2kg weight


No real reason a "normal" user should spend 5 times as much on a MacBook Pro, other than to have something flash and shiny to show off in coffee shops.
This should be fine for your use case (though "Adobe" doesn't really tell us much about your use case...)

This would be my suggestion too. Bought the 2017 equivalent (amazingly, still a 7200U) for my son for school as it was the best price/performance I could find with HD & SSD that wasn't an enormous, plasticky monstrosity, and I've always preferred the build quality of IBMs & Lenovos over HPs and Dells.

It's been great, has put up with serious abuse (amazed he hasn't destroyed it yet) and looks much more expensive than it actually is, far better than my work HP Elitebook which cost 3x as much.