Fww , I have had 2 ( still got them ) from PC world @ 400£ ish , pretty good and enough for my uses , ( gen surfing , email / internet and photos ) also big advantage is their v cheap all inclusive insurance deals around 3£ pm ( not sure if it covers deliberate toasting ) but covers everything . Full size screen and standard key board . Fww , buying s/h is fine if you know what you want and know what faults to look for and also no insurance ,, unless you know a friendly helpful local shop .
wad gunna get an hp pavilion from pc world today, but after waiting for 15 to talk to someone the ones on display were sold out. Had same thing at Tesco's, waited for 20 mins,while the went to get on from out the back only for them to tell me the were outta stock. Wtf? just tried to by one from Argos, outta stock... I must be looking at the right ones if they are that popular but it would be good if they could at least say when they will have more.
First thing to know: Whatever you get, even if it is the most superest computer in the world, it will end up in the bin in a few years as no longer fit for purpose. If you get a decade out of it, you are doing very well indeed. The slower the computer, the sooner the date of its binning will occur. There is no such thing as a computer which offers "far more than I'll ever need". No one is using a computer from 1990 to do anything useful (whereas a Ducati from 1990 might still be supremely useful). The RAM and the type of processor have nothing to do with each other. 8 Gb of RAM sounds good. Don't get any less. The day may well come when you'd have been happy to have had 16 Gb, but for that budget, forget it. Disc sizes have nothing to do with "the power of the computer". I know this is obvious to most people, but by no means to everyone - as I experience twice a week in the shop. I think of discs as series of bookshelves. If you've only got 5 books, you don't need to buy 6 bookcases from Ikea. In my experience, Most people can get away with 250 Gb discs, or 500 Gb tops. 1 Tb (1000 Gb) is mahoosive for Joe Average unless you want to stock a film library, are an avid photographer, or have decided to copy all your CDs in CD quality. Quad-core processors are good, not because you need them now, but because they may postpone the future bin-date. A quad-core processor for surfing the web, writing letters and sending emails is like having a 5-litre V8 and trundling around town all day. I am astonished that you can get something so specced-up for £400, but what do I know? I work in a Mac shop where everything is expensive so that Apple can stash untold billions in Ireland. I assume the disc is a classic cheapo hard-drive. If you can get a computer with an SSD (solid state drive, ie, just a few silicon chips), also known as a flash drive, get it. The computer performance bottleneck is in the drive and SSDs are far faster (and should be more reliable as they have no moving parts). But you don't get owt for nowt. Gb for Gb, they are 3 or 4 times more expensive. By the time you have been bamboozled with different processors, clock speeds and whatnot, you will have no way of comparing anything to know if it's a good deal. But you can check the performance of any computer by consulting the independent Geekbench score here: Home - Geekbench Browser Then at least you can tell somewhat if a secondhand thing is a good deal or not. Most aren't, because people tend to change them when they find them slow. Who has got time for a slow computer?
+1 for look at the benefits of a (smaller) SSD rather than HDD (Hard Disk Drive). As well as the extra performance SSD has the huge advantage of no moving parts, so it's far less vulnerable to failing as a result of even quite minor impacts. Thinking about the various laptops I have had by virtue of employment and those I have bought for wife and children, I can recall at least 6 HDD failures (a complete pain, because you have the dual problems of having to rebuild Windows etc, and also then having to recover all of your personal data, assuming backed up!). I haven't had the luxury of SSD but I have not met anyone who has moaned about one of those failing. Although most cheaper laptops have HDDs, and £400 is fairly cheap, although not ultra-cheap, some now come with just a small SSD and allow you to keep most of your data remotely - Chromebooks and HP "Stream" laptops I think fall into that category. There are also some cheaper laptops which have HDDs which have some SSD capacity combined with them, but they still have the lack of impact-resistance of the pure SSD approach. I don't mean big impacts either - simply bumping the thing on a desk as you put it down could trigger a problem, if the disk is spinning. I believe it's good practice to avoid walking around with a laptop running, or if you have to, to tread carefully and not jolt the thing. Other options which you can consider, but it doesn't sound like you need them, are touchscreen, or convertible/flexible designs where you can either detach the screen and use as a tablet or fold the screen through 360 degrees to do similar.
Just seen this....dont buy an HP (i work in an IT department and ive repaired more HP's and Acers than i care to remember) usually shitty build quality and bad cooling....go with gimlets suggestion....get an old dell latitude (6400 series upwards depending on where your budget takes you) - a7440 is a nice model...if you can get newer...(get one off of ebay i would say) see if you can get the previous owners name and postcode. Latitudes come with a stock 3 year on site warranty which is transferable by you so, if it breaks, phone up log a fault and a bloke turns up to repair it while you watch...just add tea and biscuits... Latitudes are the ford escort of laptops - you can always find spares for years afterwards if you need them. As latitudes are the business range they also have docking ports (you can get a docker off ebay for 15 quid) which means you can just push it on and leave keyboard mouse (plus other stuff) and leave it connected to a big screen and use it like a regular desktop pc/media box. My kids all have latitudes...theyve been down the stairs a couple of times and survived it! my daughters has a tv tuner hanging off the dock so when she docks it in her room she uses it as a media player tv tuner... 2 cents added.
Check the specs, Buy it, use it. Buy ACER CB3-431 14" Full HD Chromebook - Gold | Free Delivery | Currys
2 It can be had cheaper if you shop around and 1 Whilst you've all been trying out geek each other, you forgot the brief that was asked for
I think you're reiterating what Gimlet said about the option of buying a refurbished (which often means just checked over and fresh OS installed) ex-corporate laptops. These are usually only 3 years old (maybe less) and a fairly safe bet - although battery life can be suspect and batteries can be pricey to replace. Strangely, the corporate-grade laptops seem often to have 14" screens (vs typical 15" for "consumer" laptops), but they are built to higher specifications, and corporations will often have bought/leased units which originally had list prices closer to £1000 than £400. You have to hope you'll get one that was used by someone who didn't work hard and travel around a lot. I don't know what HP units you've been having to repair, but the Elitebook corporate versions are a cut above (metal case etc) the rest (Pavilion is definitely consumer, but I have no experience of the recent Pavilion laptops). Some of the Lenovo Thinkpads favoured by corporate users are very solid too.
I know it's way outside the budget but I wouldn't get anything other than a MacBook. I have had a couple now and they just work. I have never had a windows computer that didn't need virus scanning and adware scanning and defragmenting and they still all got slower and broke with everyday useage.
Well... Ive always said they're like cars... Want a brand new 1.1 hyundai get the Chrome book... Want a second hand focus St. Get the latitude... Been repairing hardware for over 20 years so I've seen what's reliable and what's not... Ironically we've got a 17" probook in the office and no one wants it! I did recommend a precision 6700 to friend for a kids gaming laptop and it's brilliant... 400 quid for the laptop with warranty transferred and a couple of ssd's installed... Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
