Affordable laptop recommendations: budget £350-£450

[Chz]

About 6 months ago I bought a refurb Thinkpad and it seemed like an amazing deal for £210

It was listed on ebay as "Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 3rd Gen 8GB 256GB SSD QXD Touch Backlit Fingerprint"

Was that a good deal or not because I want to get another one for my other kid but thought I'd ask on here if maybe there's something better in that price range?

(I"m a Mac user so really don't know all the ins and outs of the different laptop variations)

It's a good price for what it is - a heavy duty, solid laptop. But an old one. Something new and cheap will have nowhere near the build quality, but it will eat it alive in performance and battery life and be able to run Windows 11 in a couple years when Win10 is sunsetted.

 

[electroplated]

OK thanks - that makes sense.
I need something quite heavy duty given the kids are not that gentle with these things sadly, despite my best efforts to get them to take more care with their possessions.

 

[Chz]

OK thanks - that makes sense.
I need something quite heavy duty given the kids are not that gentle with these things sadly, despite my best efforts to get them to take more care with their possessions.

The Dell Refurb site has some newer Latitudes at reasonable prices. I can see a 5290 on there for £389. It's not as cheap as the Thinkpad, but it is 3 generations newer and will run Win11. The Lenovo has a slight edge in build quality, but a Latitude is still way sturdier than any consumer level laptop.

 

[8ball]

Yes, but online only is £15/year and the discount on that is worth it. Or I imagine you could probably arrange with someone who is a member on here to buy it for you.

There aren't a lot of sales right now like there usually would be in the new year due to the ongoing inflation, so it's hard to make a good alternative recommendation right now. If you want more powerful than the Zenbook at the price of being a bit fatter and heavier, there's this:

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/acer-aspire-5-14-laptop-intel-core-i3-256-gb-ssd-grey-10239492.html

(Note the 12th gen Core i3 is quite a bit better than the 11th gen Core i5 in the Zenbook)
Or you can save monies and get something as powerful as the Zenbook, but fatter and cheaper...

Or so I thought. Looks like in the new year the decent but under £400 market has been wiped right out. I'm struggling to get anything not a bit shit for less than £399. Even on the refurb market, the best I came up with was this:

Refurbished Cheap Laptops and 2-in-1 PCs: Dell Outlet | Dell UK

(that's a return/refurb, with full warranty. not a used one.)

So yeah. Even a couple months ago the options sub-£400 were still pretty decent, but those seem to have gone the way of the dodo and you're faffing about with dual cores or 4GB RAM or 128GB disks at that point. None of which I would recommend unless you absolutely can't afford better.

That Dell also looks quite nice, cheers.

 

[Chz]

I think I meant to add in that I'd be happy to be a Costco go-between for anyone but forgot to actually put it in the post!

Edit: best thing under £400 I've dug up so far in my search

Cheap AMD Laptop Deals | AMD Ryzen Laptops | Ebuyer.com

From gaming to creative works, an AMD laptop has the power to bring your visual dreams to life with spectacular displays and unbeatable internal components.

www.ebuyer.com

 

[Chz]

Another good sub-£400 deal. I think the Zenbook is nicer, but not necessarily £40 nicer given that I'd take the 5500U over the i5-11 any day. This or the Lenovo is really about whether you prefer a 14" or a 15" screen.

https://www.hp.com/gb-en/shop/product.aspx?id=4h2x5ea&opt=abu&sel=ntb

 

[Red Cat]

I think I meant to add in that I'd be happy to be a Costco go-between for anyone but forgot to actually put it in the post!

Edit: best thing under £400 I've dug up so far in my search

Cheap AMD Laptop Deals | AMD Ryzen Laptops | Ebuyer.com

From gaming to creative works, an AMD laptop has the power to bring your visual dreams to life with spectacular displays and unbeatable internal components.

www.ebuyer.com

This looks good. Looking for a new laptop for the kids, so games, Netflix, eldest uses Photoshop on her dad's laptop but would be good to run that on their own. Any new ones since you posted worth considering instead?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

As soon as you say games you’re talking well into the ball park of over a grand for a laptop.

 

[Red Cat]

As soon as you say games you’re talking well into the ball park of over a grand for a laptop.

That's not true, they currently use a really old one that has just died today and there's no way that cost a grand. Maybe it depends on the game, they use roblox and minecraft.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

That's not true, they currently use a really old one that has just died today and there's no way that cost a grand. Maybe it depends on the game, they use roblox and minecraft.

Roblox will run on the cheaper end. My ex bought my son a laptop for £600 which could run Roblox but not Minecraft.

 

[Chz]

My son's Chromebook runs Roblox. Probably not as nicely as he'd like it to, but it runs and he still plays it.
Minecraft is configurable such that it can take a potato to run it, or a £2k PC depending on what you turn on and off. I'd say any Ryzen 5000+ or Intel 11th gen+ has the graphical oomph for either of those. Just don't expect wonders from any sort of more complicated games.

 

[maomao]

Minecraft runs on my kids' Kindle tablets and they've got about as much processing power as a zxspectrum (I know it's a different edition but it's almost identical).

 

[Red Cat]

We have an xbox the eldest uses, youngest prefers being in her room and has been running games on an about to die laptop for the past 2 years, she doesn't play anything complicated.

What would be the advantage of spending £600 over £400?

 

[Red Cat]

They could do with a laptop each really, there's that to consider too.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

We have an xbox the eldest uses, youngest prefers being in her room and has been running games on an about to die laptop for the past 2 years, she doesn't play anything complicated.

What would be the advantage of spending £600 over £400?

Probably nothing. My ex got told it was a gaming laptop. I told her it wasn’t. Tbf I haven’t tried to run Minecraft. I just used one of those websites that tells you if your pc is up to spec for a particular game and it said the processor wasn’t good enough.

 

[Red Cat]

Ah right, I don't think they need a gaming laptop, they just need one good enough for some standard ones, not paying more than we need to if they also have an xbox (barely used).

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Ah right, I don't think they need a gaming laptop, they just need one good enough for some standard ones, not paying more than we need to if they also have an xbox (barely used).

I think I’d be encouraging use of the Xbox for gaming tbh because wanting laptops to do similar gets pretty pricey. If a gaming PC is desired then a desktop would always be a more value bang for your buck solution than a laptop.

 

[Red Cat]

Cool, so the Levono or similar spec be good enough for every day school stuff, social media, you tube/netflix, roblox?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Cool, so the Levono or similar spec be good enough for every day school stuff, social media, you tube/netflix, roblox?

Yeah, good for all of that because it doesn’t need massive horsepower. Although I ‘assume’ Roblox will be good.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Maybe not practical, but you can get a lot more horsepower for gaming with a desktop.

 

[Chz]

Maybe not practical, but you can get a lot more horsepower for gaming with a desktop.

Although right now it's kind of sad that frames per £ used is best right now. 3060Ti in the sweet spot at 350 used.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Although right now it's kind of sad that frames per £ used is best right now. 3060Ti in the sweet spot at 350 used.

That's a very good price. My 1065* TI runs everything still in my desktop, but everyone wants 4k nowadays, or vr, which does turn the notches up a bit.

*1665? I can't even remember what it is but it isn't current.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

That's a very good price. My 1065* TI runs everything still in my desktop, but everyone wants 4k nowadays, or vr, which does turn the notches up a bit.

*1665? I can't even remember what it is but it isn't current.

Yeah I grabbed a second hand 3080 and I certainly can't max the refresh rate on my ultrawide screen on most games.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Yeah I grabbed a second hand 3080 and I certainly can't max the refresh rate on my ultrawide screen on most games.

4K?

 

[UnderOpenSky]

4K?

No, 3440 x 1440. 4k would bring it to its knees

 

[Red Cat]

So, it seems that 16gb of ram means a big jump in price, a lot of the affordable ones are sold out on various sites I've looked at, or else there's a compromise elsewhere. Is 8gb enough? Is it easy to add more in any laptop or just some?

I've used a chromebook for years, so I don't know.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I think it might depend on the laptop so it’d be worth checking before purchasing.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

So, it seems that 16gb of ram means a big jump in price, a lot of the affordable ones are sold out on various sites I've looked at, or else there's a compromise elsewhere. Is 8gb enough? Is it easy to add more in any laptop or just some?

I've used a chromebook for years, so I don't know.

It depends what your doing of course but 8 is still enough for most stuff. Gaming on a budget laptop you'll be more limited by GPU. That said upgrades are easy and cheap on machines that support it, but not all do anymore so you could check that.

Also not sure if mentioned if budget gaming is a thing AMD generally have better integrated graphics then Int.

 

[Red Cat]

Thinking of this one. My daughters could do with one each, eldest has her gcses coming up next year and could do with her own, plus they (still) fight a lot, so if I can get an interest free credit deal then I can do that. What d'you all think?

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/a...QpdfQSaCPZ-QOYreFVcaAodlEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I’d be aware that it comes with Windows S which means you can only browse with edge and only use software from the Microsoft store which may or may not be an issue depending on what you want it to do.