Budget Laptop Recommendations

[The binman chronicles]

work has i5 lenovos, I used to have a lenovo it was slow and overheated about 1 week out of the box, they are @#$% + make sure you scrub all the bloatware off them. For what its worth lenovo does make decent budget cell phones (they are motorolas).

Owned a few acers and they are fine until they break about 1-2 years in. also expensive.

Buy an HP (who sell at good prices) or an ASUS. Would recommend an i5/8G setup but they are both well made enough that you could get away w/ an i3 if you need to for budget purposes.

computers are expensive now bc virtual learning/at home work but had good luck w/ refurbished HPs which you could prob get cheap on ebay.

That's just the randomness of it all I think. I've had two HPs and both have been crap. I also had two Dells between 2005 and 2011 that broke down.

My sister in law has had a lenovo for nearly 3 years and my wife for a year and both seem OK. I know someone who had an acer and got a good 3 years out of it.

So could well be the model of that brand and how you use it. Someone playing games with the graphics turned right up are probably going to have more problems than the occasional surfing and watching films.

Always good to check the reviews.

 

[Rook]

That's just the randomness of it all I think. I've had two HPs and both have been crap. I also had two Dells between 2005 and 2011 that broke down.

My sister in law has had a lenovo for nearly 3 years and my wife for a year and both seem OK. I know someone who had an acer and got a good 3 years out of it.

So could well be the model of that brand and how you use it. Someone playing games with the graphics turned right up are probably going to have more problems than the occasional surfing and watching films.

Always good to check the reviews.

They all made in the same factory so could be just luck.


low end HP stuff has always been good for me. to be honest I really don't like HPs high end compared to say Windows or ASUS.

lenovo really cranks up the bloatware to offset the low price on their budget stuff. maybe their i7s are different or maybe its illegal to hide stuff in the UK.

for internets surfing only I'd always recommend a chromebook (especially when refurbished stuff and they can't download so hard to get infected).

Now if you do go budget and you really something for a cheap price go to uk.gearbest.com They have a bunch of CHUWI comps which are supposedly good and you can get an good ultrabook w/ intel gemni lake/i5/i7 w/ 8G and 256SSD shipped from China. Supposedly they are pretty good. Telcast and Jumper are also good brand names (especially jumper) and sell for less than $500. never bought one so can't say but will probably try it when i need a new one (ebay sells them too)

 

[Dylan]

Cheers lads - I've been looking at AMD Ryzen processors (seems to be the best type nowadays) but struggling to decide on one - Every laptop i've bought over the past 6-7 years has just eventually slowed to a crawl due to Windows processes

Do you know which Lenovo model you bought the wife?

Buying a cheap laptop and then complaining about it slowing down over time........

If you want powerful and future proof for a reasonable amount of time, you will have to pay for that.

Get a ryzen processor, as much ram as you can afford and get one with a nvme ssd for storage.

 

[navidson]

Buying a cheap laptop and then complaining about it slowing down over time........

If you want powerful and future proof for a reasonable amount of time, you will have to pay for that.

Get a ryzen processor, as much ram as you can afford and get one with a nvme ssd for storage.

I hardly do anything intensive on my laptops - no gaming, photo editing etc - Seems mad that a laptop can't maintain a standard speed for browsing the bloody internet due to 100% disk usage errors caused by windows

Anyway I digress - Have been looking at a few Ryzen ones - Is there a world of difference between the 3,5 and 7?

 

[Gwladys St. Glory]

Afternoon fellow nerds - Looking for a cheap, reliable laptop for studying/general internet browsing/grumble flick watching

Not bothered about battery life, how portable it is, don't want a touchscreen or a Chromebook or anything for gaming - Just something quick and basic for under £500

Any suggestions?

'kin hate laptops, the spiteful non-upgradeable bastards...just remember that these days, provided it's got an SSD, out-of-the-box it's as fast as it will ever be and it's only downhill from the day it comes off the production line. The words cheap and laptop don't make good bedfellows 99% of the time.

 

[Gwladys St. Glory]

Come to the dark side, @navidson ...

 

[Gwladys St. Glory]

*in best Geoffrey Holder voice*

"Navidsoooon....come, hahahaaaa"

 

[Dylan]

I hardly do anything intensive on my laptops - no gaming, photo editing etc - Seems mad that a laptop can't maintain a standard speed for browsing the bloody internet due to 100% disk usage errors caused by windows

Anyway I digress - Have been looking at a few Ryzen ones - Is there a world of difference between the 3,5 and 7?

Yes there is a difference. The higher the number, the more powerful.

Ryzen as a whole offer far more performance for the price than Intel, so even a ryzen 3 should be good value. Personally, I'd aim for a ryzen 5 with 16bg memory (if you can, at least 3200Mhz speed) and I reasonable sized nvme ssd.

 

[Dylan]

Come to the dark side, @navidson ...

*in best Geoffrey Holder voice*

"Navidsoooon....come, hahahaaaa"

Both of those aren't exactly cheap options mate......

 

[Gwladys St. Glory]

Both of those aren't exactly cheap options mate......

lol I'm just messin' with him...

 

[navidson]

Yes there is a difference. The higher the number, the more powerful.

Ryzen as a whole offer far more performance for the price than Intel, so even a ryzen 3 should be good value. Personally, I'd aim for a ryzen 5 with 16bg memory (if you can, at least 3200Mhz speed) and I reasonable sized nvme ssd.

Cheers Dylan - think I'll see if Prime Day next week has anything suitable