Mrs a needs a new laptop....advice please.

[leemarkadams]

Hello all and been a while since I bought a laptop.

Mrs a needs a new one to use for Web browsing, word documents, movie watching etc usual stuff but not any gaming.

Ideally a 14" screen and can't be a chrome book as we are living on a boat and hence travel about a lot without WiFi.

So any suggestions under £500, as got some friends coming to visit us in a few weeks and can get it bought off amazon and delivered to their place.

Cheers

LMA

[AJB88]

Chromebooks can be used without Wifi, In all reality a Chromebook acts exactly the same as anything else with or without Wifi, if its connected you can access Google Drive / Dropbox if its not connected you cant.

If your using Google docs and dont have a connection just save it to the SSD like you would on a normal machine.

[leemarkadams]

I get all that but the wife would not!

So just a normal laptop that runs on windows please.

[AJB88]

needs to have have atleast 4gb ram and a SSD IMHO

[LordGrover]

I've been pleasantly surprised by a lenovo thinkpad - I'm normally an Apple person and usually spec Dell for work/windows machines. It wasn't great out of the box, but a quick fresh install of Windows (rather than spend ages removing pre-installed garbage) and it's pretty zippy.
It was over your budget, but I think the same applies - whatever you buy, spend a little time upfront installing a virgin copy of Windows and apply all Windows updates, plus a decent anti-virus solution.

[Derek Smith]

I've just bought a laptop from PCSpecialist. I was able to spec it myself so I only paid for what I wanted. It was reasonably priced and it feels well-built. I've used them twice for desktops and they were fine.

[maccas99]

I've always recommended Dell in the past to anyone that has asked. I use Dell for laptops and have done for the past 4-5 years and more often than not I source mine from Dell Outlet which gives you a significant discount - always aim for "certified refurbished" and try and get one with an SSD - I would not use a laptop without one these days.

[RammyMP]

The wife got a cheap HP one about a year ago, it’s bloody rubbish! I’ve told her to stop fking about buying crap and get a MacBook.

[Tycho]

RammyMP said:

The wife got a cheap HP one about a year ago, it’s bloody rubbish! I’ve told her to stop fking about buying crap and get a MacBook.

Or any other laptop that costs the same as a MacBook.

[RammyMP]

Tycho said:

Or any other laptop that costs the same as a MacBook.

Yes. If you buy cheap, you buy twice.

[Skyedriver]

RammyMP said:

The wife got a cheap HP one about a year ago, it’s bloody rubbish! I’ve told her to stop fking about buying crap and get a MacBook.

HP Stream by any chance?

I will never buy another HP product, except possibly the sauce!

[drmcw]

RammyMP said:

Yes. If you buy cheap, you buy twice.

I'm not so sure. I bought a small touch screen Lenovo laptop with a Celeron processor with Windows 10 at least three years ago for £179. Ok it's slow but it runs Lightroom - just, various versions of Visual Basic a bit slow but adequately. Word, Excel, Access (a bit too slow). Chrome is fine and Outlook was fine but I got fed up with Outlook in general.

It's small and light has been to India twice and the US three times as my on the road laptop with Lightroom for proofing photographs.

As I say £179, 4 gig RAM and some poxy small HD 256 gig I think. I'd probably fit an SSD if I could work out how to open the case.

My main computer is Dell i5 laptop about 5 years old, 15" screen, 8 gig RAM, now got a huge SSD and it's fine for Photoshop, all the Microsoft stuff. It does moan and groan if I try stitching 6 large photos together. I basically have to go off for a cup of tea. I should worry.

It cost £360 5 five years ago.

If you wait for the deals you can risk buying cheap in my experience.

Oh and the wife has a £160 i3 laptop with 15" screen, 4 gig Ram, 500 gig hard drive running Windows 10 and it does all she needs to do pretty well which is Chrome (with sometimes 20+ tabs), MS Office and little else. I could add more RAM but she really doesn't care. That was from Tesco open box or whatever they call it. An Acer.

Of course YMMV.

[james_TW]

I bought this for my daughter back in March:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07HJLZ4YG/ref...

It's a Celeron laptop with 4Gb RAM - Basic, but it does the job (bigger than you want, I know) even though it was slowish and noisy. Put an SSD in it and it now flies and it silent with good battery life.

I reckon it'll keep her going for a good few years in the SSD guise...

[LordGrover]

Is yours the only genuine review on Amazon? I'd begun to wonder...

[james_TW]

LordGrover said:

Is yours the only genuine review on Amazon? I'd begun to wonder...

There were definitely more reviews when I bought it...

It works well though - I hated the disk thrashing when I bought it, but a Sandisk SSD makes it perform pretty well.

[nealeh1875]

leemarkadams said:

I get all that but the wife would not!

So just a normal laptop that runs on windows please.

Hi OP

i'd go for 8gb ram, the os will use 1gb, plus whatever else she uses so 4gb gets eaten up very easy.
256gb ssd is fine i think too. does she save a lot of music or good quality photos?
i5 min

have a play with the filters on here but i5 8gb ram and a ssd and she'll be sound with that imo

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/nav/pt/laptops/c/n...

[Luke.]

I'd be all over this:

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/huawei-matebook-d...

[leemarkadams]

thanks all and going to see what the best option is, after speaking to her of course as the colour of it may well be a decision!! LOL

[budgie smuggler]

Luke. said:

I'd be all over this:

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/huawei-matebook-d...

That looks like a good price. Similar spec to my Acer Swift which RRP at almost twice that cost, and the Matebook's battery is a third larger.