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Affordable laptop recommendations: budget £350-£450

UnderOpenSky said:
Ah bugger. Where do you find the specs regarding it not doing video out?

I googled it's SKU and got this page

Lenovo IdeaPad 5 (15) Intel | 15" powerful and affordable laptop

The IdeaPad 5 (15) brings you more for less, by blending affordability and luxury with sleek design and feel, Dolby Audio™, and powerful Intel® processing options.
www.lenovo.com
Click to expand...
Ah, that page says DP over USB. The page I looked at doesn't mention it. And if it doesn't mention it... So sorry I've led you wrong there!
So you can get one screen with a cheap adapter, but you need a dock to get two. It is not a Thunderbolt port, so don't get that by accident.

As for cheapo vs name brand. I can't say I've had great luck with the cheap hubs. But if you have the spare time, try it out. Just return it if it doesn't work and if it does you've saved a lot of dosh.
 
Chz said:
Ah, that page says DP over USB. The page I looked at doesn't mention it. And if it doesn't mention it... So sorry I've led you wrong there!
So you can get one screen with a cheap adapter, but you need a dock to get two. It is not a Thunderbolt port, so don't get that by accident.

As for cheapo vs name brand. I can't say I've had great luck with the cheap hubs. But if you have the spare time, try it out. Just return it if it doesn't work and if it does you've saved a lot of dosh.
Click to expand...


So there might be a hole in my understanding. I thought Thunderbolt was display over USB? But it's actually something different? When you say an adapter do you mean more then a cable with a USB C at one end and a HDMI on the other?
 
UnderOpenSky said:
So there might be a hole in my understanding. I thought Thunderbolt was display over USB? But it's actually something different? When you say an adapter do you mean more then a cable with a USB C at one end and a HDMI on the other?
Click to expand...
No, DP over USB has nothing to do with Thunderbolt, other than the fact that TB supports it as well. If it doesn't say Thunderbolt, it isn't. TB is backwards compatible with USB, but not the other way around.
Yeah, you can get a cable with usb one end and DP/HDMI the other for very cheap since the port supports it (not all USB ports support DP mode), but that just gives you the one.
It's a pity you can't just use the extant HDMI port along with the USB one, but I've never seen the two work together before. Doesn't mean it's not possible, but it's certainly not common.
 
Chz said:
No, DP over USB has nothing to do with Thunderbolt, other than the fact that TB supports it as well. If it doesn't say Thunderbolt, it isn't. TB is backwards compatible with USB, but not the other way around.
Yeah, you can get a cable with usb one end and DP/HDMI the other for very cheap since the port supports it (not all USB ports support DP mode), but that just gives you the one.
It's a pity you can't just use the extant HDMI port along with the USB one, but I've never seen the two work together before. Doesn't mean it's not possible, but it's certainly not common.
Click to expand...

Thanks. So you need Thunderbolt to run multiple monitors of the same port, but a port that does DP over USB can run just one? With a hub can it also run the keyboard and mouse?

My work Latitude does have Thunderbolt, but I'm only using it to drive one screen, I've got the other on the HDMI.
 
UnderOpenSky said:
Thanks. So you need Thunderbolt to run multiple monitors of the same port, but a port that does DP over USB can run just one? With a hub can it also run the keyboard and mouse?

My work Latitude does have Thunderbolt, but I'm only using it to drive one screen, I've got the other on the HDMI.
Click to expand...
DP over USB has no guarantees is more what I'm saying. It will definitely run one screen, of any resolution. It will probably run two 1080p or 1440p screens.
The specs page (I finally dug it up) days DP 1.2 - IdeaPad,IdeaPad 5 15ITL05,Model:82FG00X3UK
So no dual 4k screens for you, but as I say it should run two FullHD screens. Heck, it should run four but I really wouldn't bank on it. USB standards are a very Wild Wild West sort of thing, and even when they're defined they don't always follow the definition - the Lenovo forums seem to have enough users having trouble with it.
 
Chz said:
DP over USB has no guarantees is more what I'm saying. It will definitely run one screen, of any resolution. It will probably run two 1080p or 1440p screens.
The specs page (I finally dug it up) days DP 1.2 - IdeaPad,IdeaPad 5 15ITL05,Model:82FG00X3UK
So no dual 4k screens for you, but as I say it should run two FullHD screens. Heck, it should run four but I really wouldn't bank on it. USB standards are a very Wild Wild West sort of thing, and even when they're defined they don't always follow the definition - the Lenovo forums seem to have enough users having trouble with it.
Click to expand...

That's great, thank you. The screens are of a vintage that I suggested he might not want to use the VGA cables, so nothing to demanding. And there is the HDMI port.

At some point I'd like a KVM solution for my setup which would enable me run my 3440x1440 & 1440 screens at 120Hz to tidy up all the cables in my home office, but suspect that will not be cheap.
 
UnderOpenSky said:
That's great, thank you. The screens are of a vintage that I suggested he might not want to use the VGA cables, so nothing to demanding. And there is the HDMI port.

At some point I'd like a KVM solution for my setup which would enable me run my 3440x1440 & 1440 screens at 120Hz to tidy up all the cables in my home office, but suspect that will not be cheap.
Click to expand...
VGA cables can't work with a digital signal. They'd need to accept DVI-D at the least and then you'd need an adapter. HDMI or DP is best.
 
Chz said:
VGA cables can't work with a digital signal. They'd need to accept DVI-D at the least and then you'd need an adapter. HDMI or DP is best.
Click to expand...

I just meant to show the age of the monitors and so they won't be high resolution. They have other ports.

Although some cheap docks have VGA ports, I've suggested not using them. I've nothing to base that on other it seems like something else to go wrong.
 
UnderOpenSky said:
I just meant to show the age of the monitors and so they won't be high resolution. They have other ports.

Although some cheap docks have VGA ports, I've suggested not using them. I've nothing to base that on other it seems like something else to go wrong.
Click to expand...
They'd need a DAC to put out VGA, and you can probably guess at the quality of the DAC based on the price. I always needed quality cable to get anything over 1024x768, too.
 
AnnO'Neemus said:
When's the last time you defragged the harddrive on the desktop that started being glitchy? Doing that can often give a bit of a new lease of life. Also doing the software updates.

As far as buying a computer in France goes, be aware it will have an AZERTY keyboard, rather than a QWERTY keyboard.

That might be preferable, if you end up typing a fair amount of stuff in French, as it's easier to type letters with accents and cedilla etc.

It will take a wee bit of getting used to, if you're used to touch typing on a qwerty keyboard, as you need to retrain your muscle memory, but it's very doable, even though when you start you might make a lot of typos.

I've lived and worked in France, for two three-month stints, participating in EU-funded programmes, brushing up my French and doing internships in office-based roles, and I got used to using azerty keyboards very quickly.

(Or you can change the keyboard settings to switch it from qwerty to azerty, or vice versa, although if you do the letters on the keyboard won't necessarily correlate to what's typed.)
Click to expand...
Fast forward a couple of months and I'm currently alternating between an AZERTY keyboard in the office during the day and a QWERTY keyboard at home at night, can switch between both without a problem, although it's been almost two weeks and I still occasionally have to look for something on the AZERTY, haven't had to do an umlaut (or whatever it's called in French yet), and although my French keyboard has two hash keys on it, I still haven't figured out which combination of shift / Ctrl / Alt / Whatever will make either of them work, so I'm currently copying and pasting hashtags at work. :rolleyes::oops::D
 
Super low key as I know it's a bit frowned upon, but I've got two laptops for sale, I've put them on eBay, but I'd take less elsewhere to not deal with the hassle. Identical specs, Ryzen 5 4500U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSDs, 14" screens. One is a Medion Akoya E14303 and the other a HP 14s-fq000na . The Medion appears to be new with just the box opened, the HP some very light use. Weird story about how I came to have them and why they are for sale, which I'll share if your interested. Anyway after around £250 each. Drop me a PM if your interested, can supply photos and any other information you need.
 
Outside the 14 YO budget in thread title but I just got a new laptop on Prime sale day. Pretty pleased with it. Acer Aspire Vero, 16gb ram I7, 1TB SSD. Win 11 Home. Made partially from recycled plastic but it has a nice mat finish. 600 quid reduced from about 800. My other laptop is 9 years old and stuck on Win7. This is so much lighter too.
 
I need a laptop that meets the following requirements for a course as my M1 MacBook and 5th gen processor ThinkPad won't cut it.
Any suggestions??
  • CPU: 64-bit Intel i5/i7 (8th generation or newer), or AMD equivalent. OR an x64 bit, 2.0+ GHz or newer processor is mandatory for this class
  • A BIOS I can access (not p/w protected) I need to be enable virtualization technology, such as "Intel-VTx" or "AMD-V" extensions
  • 16GB of RAM or more
  • At least one available USB 3.0 Type-A port. A Type-C to Type-A adapter may be necessary for newer laptops
  • Wireless networking (802.11 standard) is required.
 
yield said:
What's your budget? Screen size? Possibly these two?

ASUS Laptop Vivobook 16 Laptop (AMD Ryzen 7-5800H, 16GB RAM, 1TB PCIe SSD, Windows 11) - £580 https://www.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-Vivobook-M1603QA-16-0-WUXGA/dp/B0BN9D21RJ

Dell Inspiron 14 5425 Laptop, AMD Ryzen 7 5825U, 14 Inch FHD+ Display, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Win 11H - £550 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-Inspiron-Keyboard-Fingerprint-Platinum/dp/B0C7LHMRQV

You'd want more than 16GB RAM if you're running lots of virtual machines?
Click to expand...

Thanks for those suggestions. The spec I posted above states 16gb or more so I assume that's a minimum - more usually = better, though, innit.

I'm never sure what Ryzen 5.7/5nnn equates to which intel i5/i7 10/11/12nnn processor.
 
Throbbing Angel said:
I need a laptop that meets the following requirements for a course as my M1 MacBook and 5th gen processor ThinkPad won't cut it.
Any suggestions??
  • CPU: 64-bit Intel i5/i7 (8th generation or newer), or AMD equivalent. OR an x64 bit, 2.0+ GHz or newer processor is mandatory for this class
  • A BIOS I can access (not p/w protected) I need to be enable virtualization technology, such as "Intel-VTx" or "AMD-V" extensions
  • 16GB of RAM or more
  • At least one available USB 3.0 Type-A port. A Type-C to Type-A adapter may be necessary for newer laptops
  • Wireless networking (802.11 standard) is required.
Click to expand...

I mean does it need to be a laptop? Or course you can run VMs on them, but this is where we are getting to where desktops really shine. I got an old Xeon recently with 18 Cores/36 threads and 64GB RAM for the price of a very budget laptop. I can remote to it from a laptop. Even a Chromebook.

If you do need a laptop with lots of RAM the I suspect the way to go will be to install it yourself. Ones that come specced with 32GB or more are serious money.
 
UnderOpenSky said:
I mean does it need to be a laptop? Or course you can run VMs on them, but this is where we are getting to where desktops really shine. I got an old Xeon recently with 18 Cores/36 threads and 64GB RAM for the price of a very budget laptop. I can remote to it from a laptop. Even a Chromebook.

If you do need a laptop with lots of RAM the I suspect the way to go will be to install it yourself. Ones that come specced with 32GB or more are serious money.
Click to expand...
I know what you mean and I think that'd be my preference but
  • I don't have anywhere to put one and a desk chair set up, and
  • there is a possibility I may be doing exams on the laptop in an exam centre, so I'd have to take it with me
 
There seems to be a huge leap in price when talking about a laptop with 32GB RAM. Mostly because all the other components are also improved at that level. Is it a simple job to replace RAM on a laptop? I’ve never done it but imagine it’s a sliding scale from do-able to nightmare depending on the model.
 
Magnus McGinty said:
There seems to be a huge leap in price when talking about a laptop with 32GB RAM. Mostly because all the other components are also improved at that level. Is it a simple job to replace RAM on a laptop? I’ve never done it but imagine it’s a sliding scale from do-able to nightmare depending on the model.
Click to expand...
Dunno, never done it myself but the videos I've seen of it make it look simple enough, cost and warranty invalidation being the main issues.
 
MrSki said:
Waicid 15.6 inch 75% off Now £299 for the next three hours on Amazon

Click to expand...

12gb of RAM on that, thanks, though.

I'm always wary of these minor brands with huuuuge discounts, £1199.99 down to £299.98! If it seems to good to be true, etc...
 
Throbbing Angel said:
Thanks for those suggestions. The spec I posted above states 16gb or more so I assume that's a minimum - more usually = better, though, innit.

I'm never sure what Ryzen 5.7/5nnn equates to which intel i5/i7 10/11/12nnn processor.
Click to expand...
Rule of thumb is that Ryzen x5xx is 6 cores and Ryzen x7xx is 8 cores. Until quite recently they were the better deal over Intel by quite a lot (11th gen Intel even the i7 is just 4 cores), but the Intel 12/13 gen are just as good.

You cannot take it for granted that you can upgrade laptop RAM. You'll need to research whatever you're fond of. Some have 2 replaceable slots, some 1, some none, and there's even the odd one with one soldered RAM chip and one user replaceable slot.

Edit to add: Know for a fact that the Ryzen Inspiron above has two slots accessible. Have seen many Dell configurations where AMD has two slots and Intel just the one.
 
Throbbing Angel said:
12gb of RAM on that, thanks, though.

I'm always wary of these minor brands with huuuuge discounts, £1199.99 down to £299.98! If it seems to good to be true, etc...
Click to expand...
Yeah I was thinking it was too good to be true but brand gets pretty good reviews. Was half tempted but thought I don't need a new laptop and certainly not one cos it might be a bargain.
 
Throbbing Angel said:
I know what you mean and I think that'd be my preference but
  • I don't have anywhere to put one and a desk chair set up, and
  • there is a possibility I may be doing exams on the laptop in an exam centre, so I'd have to take it with me
Click to expand...

Fair enough. Maybe that comes later if it's what you want. I started just running VMs on my PC, then got an older desktop and then added the workstation with a Xeon. It's been over a few years. :)

You don't need to have a monitor, keyboard and mouse plugged into them as you remote into them with whatever device is convenient.
 
UnderOpenSky said:
Fair enough. Maybe that comes later if it's what you want. I started just running VMs on my PC, then got an older desktop and then added the workstation with a Xeon. It's been over a few years. :)

You don't need to have a monitor, keyboard and mouse plugged into them as you remote into them with whatever device is convenient.
Click to expand...
If your VMs aren't the high impact sort... Well, I just run my docker containers on my NAS. The QNAP takes up to 16GB and the dual-core Celeron that powers it is fast enough. But you couldn't do any serious work on it. I just run a Ubuntu desktop VM and a few docker containers.
 
Chz said:
If your VMs aren't the high impact sort... Well, I just run my docker containers on my NAS. The QNAP takes up to 16GB and the dual-core Celeron that powers it is fast enough. But you couldn't do any serious work on it. I just run a Ubuntu desktop VM and a few docker containers.
Click to expand...

Probably the most resource heavy one I've got is vCenter Server Appliance which takes up a fair bit of RAM & Disk Space, then Windows Server & Desktop VMs I play with. The few Linux ones I've got use hardly anything, the ubuntu server I set up most recently to run Technitium uses hardly anything. I've still got my Plex/torrent box on bare metal.
 
Since I last logged on: all the people on the course questioning the laptop specs have had a clear explanation of what we need and why and how to check the machine out via some link they provided.
Suggestions again, please.
So...the potted version is:

"The reasons we need a 'high-spec' laptop for the course are
  • we need to run 2 and sometimes 3 VMs at the same time (plus the host/Windows of course)
  • The VMs will use approx. 4gb each
  • CRITICAL: Apple systems using the M1/M2 processor line cannot perform the necessary virtualization functionality and therefore cannot in any way be used for this course
  • and ... Windows needs 3gb-ish to just sit there running a browser and Slack will take it to 4gb easily (I'm told)"
So...
  • I have decided to just buy a high-spec Windows laptop because | easier
  • if I have to sell the Macbook, so be it
  • I'm leaning towards ThinkPads (keyboards, 3 yr warranty, robust)
So I'm open to suggestions, again ;)
I'm leaning towards getting something with 32gb of RAM from the Lenovo UK site. Preferably with a 3yr warranty.
More cores=better.
More RAM=better.

I'm currently lusting over the ThinkPad X1 Carbon range which starts at £1849 [Fuck. Me!] As well as the

I really like the ThinkPads I've had in the past for light/home/academic use. So browsing and writing, mainly. Love the keyboards on older models.

I will probably keep this laptop after the course has finished and it may become my main machine, so selling the MacBook isn't too painful as they hold their prices quite well. So I may recover in the region of £700 if/when I sell.
I'm not married to Lenovo/would welcome alternatives to look at. I can stomach a price of around £2k if necessary /faints/
 
Throbbing Angel said:
Since I last logged on: all the people on the course questioning the laptop specs have had a clear explanation of what we need and why and how to check the machine out via some link they provided.
Suggestions again, please.
So...the potted version is:

"The reasons we need a 'high-spec' laptop for the course are
  • we need to run 2 and sometimes 3 VMs at the same time (plus the host/Windows of course)
  • The VMs will use approx. 4gb each
  • CRITICAL: Apple systems using the M1/M2 processor line cannot perform the necessary virtualization functionality and therefore cannot in any way be used for this course
  • and ... Windows needs 3gb-ish to just sit there running a browser and Slack will take it to 4gb easily (I'm told)"
So...
  • I have decided to just buy a high-spec Windows laptop because | easier
  • if I have to sell the Macbook, so be it
  • I'm leaning towards ThinkPads (keyboards, 3 yr warranty, robust)
So I'm open to suggestions, again ;)
I'm leaning towards getting something with 32gb of RAM from the Lenovo UK site. Preferably with a 3yr warranty.
More cores=better.
More RAM=better.

I'm currently lusting over the ThinkPad X1 Carbon range which starts at £1849 [Fuck. Me!] As well as the

I really like the ThinkPads I've had in the past for light/home/academic use. So browsing and writing, mainly. Love the keyboards on older models.

I will probably keep this laptop after the course has finished and it may become my main machine, so selling the MacBook isn't too painful as they hold their prices quite well. So I may recover in the region of £700 if/when I sell.
I'm not married to Lenovo/would welcome alternatives to look at. I can stomach a price of around £2k if necessary /faints/
Click to expand...

Don't think you can upgrade the RAM in them as it's soldered onto the motherboard. Also lightweight/thin machines are more likely to throttle when they got hot, so I'd probably avoid.

But yes. As many cores and as much ram as you can afford.
 
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