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Affordable laptop recommendations: budget £350-£450

Copied from another thread because I'd not seen this one

Which? is recommending good, cheap laptops.

Don’t buy a cheap laptop that has an Intel Atom, Celeron or AMD Athlon from more than four years ago. At this point you’re buying a product that was hardly fast when it was launched, and will feel positively ancient in 2024.
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(also says used laptops are good if they have decent processor like Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5.

https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/why-cheap-laptops-are-better-than-you-think-aUENb3F5Haoj?mi_u=216536047&mi_ecmp=C_WS_EM__20240809​

We explain what to expect from budget laptops, and the pros and cons of spending less on a computer
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Let me know if anyone wants to know their best buys.
 
I think the giveaway there is that none of those processor lines have even existed for the past two years, outside of old stock being thrown about. And Intel's replacement for Atom/Celeron (the Intel N-series) is actually pretty decent now, given the right price. AMD is currently capacity constrained and don't even make a proper bottom of the barrel CPU. Even their worst 2024 model is adequate (again, given price).

Anything Intel 12th+ generation is radically more powerful than 11th or lower. Not to say "don't buy", but at the risk of sounding repetitive... There are no bad products, just bad prices.
 
Acer Aspire 5
Specs: AMD Ryzen 3/5 or Intel i3/i5, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD
Why: Solid performance for web browsing, office tasks, and streaming with a nice display.
 
Chz said:
I think the giveaway there is that none of those processor lines have even existed for the past two years, outside of old stock being thrown about. And Intel's replacement for Atom/Celeron (the Intel N-series) is actually pretty decent now, given the right price. AMD is currently capacity constrained and don't even make a proper bottom of the barrel CPU. Even their worst 2024 model is adequate (again, given price).

Anything Intel 12th+ generation is radically more powerful than 11th or lower. Not to say "don't buy", but at the risk of sounding repetitive... There are no bad products, just bad prices.
Click to expand...

I'd steer clear of Intel 13th and 14th gen processors at the moment, until Intel can show they've fixed the issues at the fabrication level that's caused
the desktop CPU's to break.
 
taperoo2k said:
I'd steer clear of Intel 13th and 14th gen processors at the moment, until Intel can show they've fixed the issues at the fabrication level that's caused
the desktop CPU's to break.
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The laptops are reputed to be safe, except for some of the desktop replacement class ones. Whether that actually proves to be true over time is... Eh.
Problem is that most laptops are Intel. There's not a lot of choice AMD-wise, everything prior to 12th gen sucks, and there's a limited number of those about due to covid constraining supply.

A lot of the lower-end 13/14th gen chips (dual prime core i5 and lower) are in fact just rebadged 12th gen, as well.
 
I would be very grateful to the good folks of this forum for a laptop recommendation for a simple laptop:
  • I'd like it to have a keyboard and a decent battery life
  • I'd like to watch live sports on it
  • Edit photos
  • Create documents and tables

Thank you very much :)
 
little_legs said:
I would be very grateful to the good folks of this forum for a laptop recommendation for a simple laptop:
  • I'd like it to have a keyboard and a decent battery life
  • I'd like to watch live sports on it
  • Edit photos
  • Create documents and tables

Thank you very much :)
Click to expand...
Value for money, a pretty good deal.

But if you can say whether you like thin and light or a big screen, and what the budget is it would help.
 
Chz said:
Value for money, a pretty good deal.

But if you can say whether you like thin and light or a big screen, and what the budget is it would help.
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Thank you very much. I'll have a look at this option.

So up until recently I've been using a refurbished ThinkPad with soft keys, it used to struggle sometimes by freezing, so I had to regularly reboot it. I can't find its name. I dropped it against the floor a couple of months ago and it no longer catches the wireless signal and one of the keys became loose and lost its hat. The chap in the PC shop in Crystal Palace said that the only way to fix it is to buy a mobile extension (or something). I don't want to buy anything that I need to attach to the laptop, and it's high time to replace this old feller.

I wouldn't mind another refurbished ThinkPad as long as it's not super heavy.
 
Chz said:
If you do prefer a bigger screen, you get a better spec for your money. Small and light has a cost. I wouldn't find a 16" laptop "super" heavy, but this is definitely a chonk compared to the other one. But twice the RAM, twice the disk, and you get a numpad.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much. Much appreciated.

I wanted to mention that I also had an Acer laptop before and was happy with it. If you can recommend any housewife Acer laptops, please let me know. Bless you!
 
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