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Affordable laptop recommendations: budget £350-£450

UnderAnOpenSky said:
God. I wouldnt go to a shop and expect to actually get useful advice!
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Well, salespeople should have some idea about what they're selling, imo. I'm not much of an audiophile, but whenever I'd go to Richer Sounds in Tooley Street to buy something the staff seemed to know their shit. Whenever I go to Curry's/PC World most of the staff really don't know shit. I've found John Lewis staff to be more knowledgeable but even they are quickly out of their depth after a few questions.
 
My 2008 Samsung Laptop is still alive and kicking with Windows 7 64 bit. It semi died a few years back but a format and getting rid of vista solved that.

Im just about to fit a 250gb samsung SSD as a bit of a future plan. Can always swap that over in future right? Been overheating sadly but i opened it up and blew out some dust, which has actually helped a lot. Im sure ssd wont run at full speed and the processor is a bottleneck tho...

Im wondering where to go from here anyway! We shall see how the ssd helps (worth a shot for 90 quid) but I think it's time for an upgrade this year. Can probs spend up to 600. Are the new ASUS models any cop?
 
PaoloSanchez said:
Well, salespeople should have some idea about what they're selling, imo. I'm not much of an audiophile, but whenever I'd go to Richer Sounds in Tooley Street to buy something the staff seemed to know their shit. Whenever I go to Curry's/PC World most of the staff really don't know shit. I've found John Lewis staff to be more knowledgeable but even they are quickly out of their depth after a few questions.
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Richer Sounds staff are top notch. I will always buy something from them over anywhere else if they have it in stock and will price match. In fact the fact they sell it gives me confidence that it's fairly decent.
 
cybershot said:
Richer Sounds staff are top notch. I will always buy something from them over anywhere else if they have it in stock and will price match. In fact the fact they sell it gives me confidence that it's fairly decent.
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I haven't been there for a while but I always found the staff to be very knowledgeable. It would be nice if Currys/PC World staff had similar levels of quality but they're not even close. The main reason for my visits to Currys/PCWorld for laptops is to get some hands on for laptops that I've already researched on the interwebz. A few months ago I did buy an HP laptop on behalf of an elderly family friend and the staff were pretty much useless as they usually are.
 
Do people err one way or the other with regard Lenovo vs Toshiba? The two I'm looking at are virtually the same spec and the same price, so I'm keen to hear if I should towards one.
 
A 512gb Micro SD card for £17??

I've not kept up to date with the latest trends but that sounds an awful lot of storage for the money. Almost too good to be true. I'm guessing it's not a Sandisk or Kingston.
 
Riklet said:
Im wondering where to go from here anyway! We shall see how the ssd helps (worth a shot for 90 quid) but I think it's time for an upgrade this year. Can probs spend up to 600. Are the new ASUS models any cop?
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stavros said:
Do people err one way or the other with regard Lenovo vs Toshiba? The two I'm looking at are virtually the same spec and the same price, so I'm keen to hear if I should towards one.
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Which brand should I buy? This isn't always straightforward. I will always suggest that you do at least a bit of homework and check the reviews. If you are novice buyer then the various online buyers guides might be a good first port of call for general advice, for example...

Laptop Buying Guide: 8 Essential Tips
Laptop Buying Guide: 10 tips to help you choose the right notebook | Trusted Reviews

Laptop guides and advice - Which?

From there you can create a shortlist of laptops that suit your budget and pick one from your list.

I bought my current i7 Asus laptop 5 years ago after doing some research. I currently have a bias towards Lenovo Thinkpads mainly because of their build quality, however I'm not sure about their consumer models (Ideapads) they don't seem to be as good. Toshiba's were a leading quality brand once upon a time. however I think they've had a few troubles of late. My understanding is that the current crop of laptops are mostly reliable but you need to check the reviews before parting with your cash.
 
The fake SD cards never record the data in the first place, they have software on which falsely reports the disk size as higher to the computer and only stores the last few files loaded onto it.
 
Yeah I ended up with a fake SD card a few years back, the seller fortunately lived quite near. I went and paid him a visit! :)
 
Well, I have tested the card and it is legit. it works in my old laptop and on my phone but the new laptop does not seem to be picking it up. Have tested all the files on my phone and they are fine. i am wondering if it is the card holder (to make it into a full sized one) is a bit dodgy
 
Just out of interest, what did you use to test the card? Did you use any of the card testing utilities or did you just copy a selection of your own files?
 
Fingers said:
i copied all the files on my old laptop to my phone (around 30gb) and all the files work fine on the phone.
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Fair enough if you're happy with that test although I would exercise caution before saving valuable photos/videos onto one of those cards because the scam appears to work by making you think that you've got a lot more space than you've actually got. So for example, you might have a 16gb SD card which does a really good job of pretending to be a much larger capacity and you may not find out until much later when you try to retrieve the photos or watch the recorded video only to find that they are corrupted.

I would personally use something like h2testw before trusting my content on one of those generic SD cards.

Software Sunday EP7: Verify Flash Media With H2testw

 
lil'Angel needs a laptop to replace that chunk of crap we bought about 18 months back.

She is soon to be 12 and at secondary school so she'll use it for study & writing.
She does a lot of drawing and animation on her phone & tablet and wants to progress to doing this on a laptop with a graphics tablet.
She is getting into youtubing and podcasting.

The laptop needs to do all the above well and quick as we're all sick of slow laggy laptops that take an age to do anything.

She thinks she wants a touchscreen laptop - what do we reckon? I think it is just summat else to go wrong personally - if you want a touchscreen device, use your tablet.

I'm also interested in graphics/drawing tablet and microphone recommendations. She has mentioned Blue Yeti mic she has seen for about a ton - I know the brand name and nothing else.

Suggestatron 5000 is GOoooooo>>>>>
 
Touchscreen laptops don't cast the earth any more. Lenovo's Yoga line stretches from cheap 'n' cheerful to "I keep a tiny god in a box" and the bendy hinge thing is great for using it as laptop or tablet.

I know nowt of mikes, but Wacom has pretty much owned the serious drawing tablet market for forever. It's not obvious that these are better than touchscreens, but a decent drawing tablet senses different pressures which can be a huge advantage for replicating physical media (paint, pastel, etc.) rather than just digital stuff. You'd probably end up spending more on the software than the hardware for that sort of thing.

Edit: Some of the Yogas even come with a pressure-sensitive pen, negating the tablet need.
 
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You won’t find anything that does what you want well for £450.

If she’s serious about graphics tablet I’d recommend a full desktop system. You might get close enough to your budget then. Certainly if it was custom built.
 
Throbbing Angel said:
lil'Angel needs a laptop to replace that chunk of crap we bought about 18 months back.

She is soon to be 12 and at secondary school so she'll use it for study & writing.
She does a lot of drawing and animation on her phone & tablet and wants to progress to doing this on a laptop with a graphics tablet.
She is getting into youtubing and podcasting.

The laptop needs to do all the above well and quick as we're all sick of slow laggy laptops that take an age to do anything.

She thinks she wants a touchscreen laptop - what do we reckon? I think it is just summat else to go wrong personally - if you want a touchscreen device, use your tablet.

I'm also interested in graphics/drawing tablet and microphone recommendations. She has mentioned Blue Yeti mic she has seen for about a ton - I know the brand name and nothing else.

Suggestatron 5000 is GOoooooo>>>>>
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Maybe not appropriate but it's one hell of a price at £299:

Pixel C - Google Store
 
Throbbing Angel said:
lil'Angel needs a laptop to replace that chunk of crap we bought about 18 months back.

She is soon to be 12 and at secondary school so she'll use it for study & writing.
She does a lot of drawing and animation on her phone & tablet and wants to progress to doing this on a laptop with a graphics tablet.
She is getting into youtubing and podcasting.

The laptop needs to do all the above well and quick as we're all sick of slow laggy laptops that take an age to do anything.

She thinks she wants a touchscreen laptop - what do we reckon? I think it is just summat else to go wrong personally - if you want a touchscreen device, use your tablet.

I'm also interested in graphics/drawing tablet and microphone recommendations. She has mentioned Blue Yeti mic she has seen for about a ton - I know the brand name and nothing else.

Suggestatron 5000 is GOoooooo>>>>>
Click to expand...


So, we have a £90 voucher for Amazon that we can put towards the lappy we need - seen these two today - would appreciate your thoughts Urban..

HP 250 G6 i5 Laptop, Intel Core i5-7200U 2.5GHz, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 15.6" ...
£486.99 & FREE UK delivery (minus £90)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076ZXMNBZ/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_LwceAbP6SD840 via @AmazonUK

vs

Dell Inspiron 3000 15.6-Inch HD Laptop - (Black) (Intel Core i5-7200U, 8GB ...
£549.99 free delivery thru Prime (minus £90)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073QSWZH6/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_PwceAb157Z7NQ via @AmazonUK


Same processors and RAM right? Main diff is one has an SSD and one has a HDD, from a performance POV. So why the initial price difference of nearly £60? The one with the HDD is more expensive which I find odd.

Whaddya think? Suit our needs?
 
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