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Affordable laptop recommendations: budget £350-£450

Any recent additions for this list - I'm going to get hit up for a laptop on Friday by theBoy.

His desktop's hard drive dies last month and he's been using Puppy Linux since (and moaning about it), so we need to get him a stop gap computer - he's going to Uni next year- this is for twatting around at home on. He'll be affixing it to a desk/monitor/kybrd&mouse set up so he can sit at his desk, if that matters (are docking stations worth it?)


Anyway - suggestalot.
 
Scan doesn't necessarily have the best deals, but their customer support is tops (by online electronics shop standards, at least) and they use DPD to ship instead of Yodel or some other crappy courier. Yes, their shipping costs more. And yes, you want to pay it.
 
BuzzaroundTown said:
Award winning supplier, performance hardware & systems - Scan.co.uk is a good site for laptops, with good prices.

I'm on a Lenovo Flex 2, configured with Linux Mint 17.2. It's very nice.
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Yes, Scan are good. I have used them in the past for components. Long time ago, though. I live nearer to them now so I could even drop in there if I'm over that way.

Chz said:
Scan doesn't necessarily have the best deals, but their customer support is tops (by online electronics shop standards, at least) and they use DPD to ship instead of Yodel or some other crappy courier. Yes, their shipping costs more. And yes, you want to pay it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they were always good on the customer service front in my experience. Advice too. No bullshit or unnecessary up-selling for the sake of it.
 
Looking for a laptop for 500 or under. I'd like one with touch screen, but also a keyboard. But...most stuff now is going to come with windows 10 on it, and I'd much rather have 7. Is that going to be a major kerfuffle?
 
xes said:
Looking for a laptop for 500 or under. I'd like one with touch screen, but also a keyboard. But...most stuff now is going to come with windows 10 on it, and I'd much rather have 7. Is that going to be a major kerfuffle?
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What screen size? SSD? What games do you want to play on it?

I'd probably wait for the January sales now.
 
yield said:
What screen size? SSD? What games do you want to play on it?

I'd probably wait for the January sales now.
Click to expand...
Just a fair sized screen, think the one I have now is 15", and that's ok. Don't really play games, only really internet use and playing music.
 
Chz said:
Scan doesn't necessarily have the best deals, but their customer support is tops (by online electronics shop standards, at least) and they use DPD to ship instead of Yodel or some other crappy courier. Yes, their shipping costs more. And yes, you want to pay it.
Click to expand...

Tbh, I'd rather have Yodel delivering my stuff than DPD - I live on a housing estate with pedestrian-only access, and all my deliveries via DPD have gone wrong because walking 50 yards will knock off their entire schedule, and they make a (sensible from the delivery person's point of view, I suppose) decision to miss 1 delivery (or drop it off at a different flat nearer the road than the delivery address, including stuff that is supposed to be signed for, but they don't tell you they've dropped it off at a different address until hours later) rather than jeopardise the timing of all their subsequent scheduled deliveries. Yodel don't tend to do scheduled 1 hour delivery slots, so they will bother to walk to my door. At least that is my experience, I've never had a problem with Yodel, but DPD always, every time, fail to deliver - citing "could not get access to the building", or deliver stuff that is supposed to have a signature on receipt to some random house or flat and not let me know where it has ended up for hours whilst I am sat here waiting in for the delivery :mad: I have never once had DPD make a delivery to my door as expected, there is always some massive fuckup.
 
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It definitely does depend on the local staff. But if you look at their customer ratings, it's assuredly true that DPD is generally much better than Yodel.

We had a good Yodel deliveryperson a few years back. I couldn't understand the hate. Then she quit and went to work for someone else and I haven't had Yodel actually deliver a single thing to my door since. And that's not without me trying to get them to!
 
my parents have asked me for advice on buying a laptop - they have about 300 to spend and don't do anything but emails and web-browsing. But I guess they do need it to not take ages to start up (which my cheapy Lenovo is shit for) and to just run okay. Any good options?
 
crustychick said:
my parents have asked me for advice on buying a laptop - they have about 300 to spend and don't do anything but emails and web-browsing. But I guess they do need it to not take ages to start up (which my cheapy Lenovo is shit for) and to just run okay. Any good options?
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Chromebook if they can live without windows?
 
crustychick said:
my parents have asked me for advice on buying a laptop - they have about 300 to spend and don't do anything but emails and web-browsing. But I guess they do need it to not take ages to start up (which my cheapy Lenovo is shit for) and to just run okay. Any good options?
Click to expand...

I say Chromebook too - the OS shouldn't be the thing you interact with, the web, the email, the content is.

Mine starts in seconds. If they literally only do email and web browsing, it is perfect for that unless they are looking at niche stuff in weird formats and sending millions of emails for which they need special software.

The learning curve is minimal.
 
Is it to be their only PC? Much as I love 'em, I wouldn't recommend a CB to most people as a sole machine. As a laptop to go with a Windows PC? Always.
 
crustychick said:
no, don't think that would work for them really... they need something familiar...
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OK - so what is familiar in this case? Are you talking about Windows (which version?) or particular software like Word/Chrome/Outlook etc

Chz said:
Is it to be their only PC? Much as I love 'em, I wouldn't recommend a CB to most people as a sole machine. As a laptop to go with a Windows PC? Always.
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this is a good point
 
I'm going to get my Mum a Chromebook. Windows update would completely baffle her and all the starting up palaver wouldn't help either.
 
John Lewis have a few, all with 2 year guarantees here.

Personally I like Lenovo machines, but I am basing that on older machines. All laptops slow down after a while as they get full of dust and chock full of bits of software. I religiously reinstalled the OS annually to roll mine back to just having Win7 on it and that helped a lot with boot times. Hardware (screen in this case) is failing now though.

The other thing to remember is that a £300 laptop ain't going to be brilliant so won't be the quickest but perfectly adequate for what you've described.

I have a Chromebook now and hardly ever use my Lenovo Windows laptop. Occasionally there will be something I can't do on my CB or iPad and I have to boot it up and blimey it feels like a long time. Usually this is something to do with a physical CD, something to do with iTunes or I can't get the online version of MS Word to render summat properly and I have to check it in Word on the Windows machine.

Pretty much everything else I can do it all on a Chromebook.
 
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Right - suggestions appreciated regarding a laptop for a 9 yr old.

She plays stuff like Animal Jam (website based game) and uses YouTube a bit. She has her own channel and is getting into hosting her own live streams over Google Hangouts. She mainly uses web-based resources, websites to do with school, a bit of research for projects she's doing in class and the games I've mentioned.

She has taken to monopolising my Chromebook for the majority of the above. The problem I have with this is the lack of easily configurable parental controls. Chromebooks do have what they call 'supervised users' but this means literally saying 'yes' with an admin password every time they visit a page they haven't been to before (page, not site).

I have used Windows Home Safety or whatever it's called in the past and found it good and easy to use and like the email reports it sends me about what the child has been doing over the previous few days, what it has blocked etc

SO... would she be ok with summat like an HP Stream (like a Windows chromebook in my opinion) 32gb storage, no cd drive, relies on the cloud etc, BUT has Windows software which she is used to as she uses these at school

Suggestions are GO >>>>>
 
Throbbing Angel said:
Right - suggestions appreciated regarding a laptop for a 9 yr old.

She plays stuff like Animal Jam (website based game) and uses YouTube a bit. She has her own channel and is getting into hosting her own live streams over Google Hangouts. She mainly uses web-based resources, websites to do with school, a bit of research for projects she's doing in class and the games I've mentioned.

She has taken to monopolising my Chromebook for the majority of the above. The problem I have with this is the lack of easily configurable parental controls. Chromebooks do have what they call 'supervised users' but this means literally saying 'yes' with an admin password every time they visit a page they haven't been to before (page, not site).

I have used Windows Home Safety or whatever it's called in the past and found it good and easy to use and like the email reports it sends me about what the child has been doing over the previous few days, what it has blocked etc

SO... would she be ok with summat like an HP Stream (like a Windows chromebook in my opinion) 32gb storage, no cd drive, relies on the cloud etc, BUT has Windows software which she is used to as she uses these at school

Suggestions are GO >>>>>
Click to expand...

Why the need for a Chromebook like device? It sounds like a bog standard (and maybe tough given her age) windows machine is what your after.

I'd be wary of a small SSD on a Windows machine as they tend to fill them...
 
If anyone can help with this it will be Urban!

Can anyone give me a clue as to what the specs should be for a laptop for me.
I need to use MS office applications on it, some reasonably lean accounting and payroll stuff, email, browse, listen to a bit of music. Skype too at some point.

I don't need to store masses of anything on it, don't need all day battery life; do need enough ports to add mouse, external hard drive and maybe a monitor or TV when at home.

TIA
 
AnnaKarpik said:
If anyone can help with this it will be Urban!

Can anyone give me a clue as to what the specs should be for a laptop for me.
I need to use MS office applications on it, some reasonably lean accounting and payroll stuff, email, browse, listen to a bit of music. Skype too at some point.

I don't need to store masses of anything on it, don't need all day battery life; do need enough ports to add mouse, external hard drive and maybe a monitor or TV when at home.

TIA
Click to expand...
Budget? Screen size? What MS Office apps do you need to run?
 
editor said:
Budget? Screen size? What MS Office apps do you need to run?
Click to expand...

Gosh that was quick!
Screen size 15.6in, using Excel and Outlook mainly, then Word, the rest not so much atm but I don't know what the future may bring.
As for budget, the lower the better really, tops would be 450; what I'm trying to find here is roughly what specs I need to look for. Is 4gb RAM too little, or 6 or 8?
 
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