Hardware New Laptop

[Cressi]

Could someone be so kind as to recommend me a decent spec windows laptop for under £250 that will suffice for my daughter who starts secondary school in a few weeks.

Thank you in advance.

Cressi

 

[Grimeire]

you are going to find it hard to find a laptop for that price new, let alone a good one.

 

[Cressi]

Hence the question. Maybe best spec laptop would have been a better question. No way I"m giving a 12 year old a £1500 MSI happy.

 

[Grimeire]

if it was me i would buy second hand on ebay or get a android tablet for her with a bluetooth keyboard. Android is a lot easier to use and you can use apps to limit her usage

If your set on a laptop, try dell. Best peice of advice i can give you is stay away from the laptops that have fixed small size SSD's in them. they can never be upgraded and you wont be able to fit more than a few apps on them.

A friend of mine got one and after installing office had less than a gig of free space left on her 32Gb SSD.

 

[nara]

8 best laptops under £250

 

[Cressi]

Think I'm going to have to up my budget.All of those have fixed small size SSD's in them, which will be full in no time.

 

[Grimeire]

Think I'm going to have to up my budget.All of those have fixed small size SSD's in them, which will be full in no time.

the only option you have is use a small USB 3.0 drive for extra storage. SD cards are a waste of time there read and write speeds are poor.

 

[wiz569]

Think I'm going to have to up my budget.All of those have fixed small size SSD's in them, which will be full in no time.

Just replace the DVD drive with an adaptor and stick a normal HDD in it

 

[Cressi]

another 3 hours wasted searching. confused as hell

 

[Cressi]

h*tp://www.ebuyer.com/780537-hp-255-g5-laptop-1lu04es-1lu04es-abu?affid=103504&affname=TechRadar&awc=2690_1501331734_db27df5c83d937c48e9d0f070713ad74&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Editorial+Content&utm_source=Future%20Publishing.&utm_content=0&utm_term=103504

Is this as good as it gets under 300?

 

[little_pob]

With an 128GB SSD, yes.

For sub-£300 though, this is probably one of the better models you'll find: Lenovo IdeaPad 110 Intel Pentium N3710 8GB 1TB DVD-RW 15.6 Inch Windows 10 Laptop - Laptops Direct

Note that it's a mechanical hard drive, rather than an SSD. The trade off is much more storage, against higher power consumption and a slower boot speed. I doubt a 12 year old would notice these; but, as a future upgrade, you could consider @wiz569's suggestion of replacing the optical drive with a second hard drive caddy, and picking up a 120-128GB SSD for approx £50.

Also, there are a few 10-12" convertible laptops with 64GB SSDs with that price range too. For reference, my Dell laptop has a 64GB SSD in it. With Win 10, Office 2007, and not much else, there is 14GB of free space left.

 

[Cressi]

Budjet has been increased to £450.more Googling coming up.

 

[Cressi]

I wouldn't normally touch them but anyone seen anything half decent at Pc World? Wife nagging to get it sorted. 350 to 450

 

[flipflop63]

Buy Lenovo Ideapad 110 15.6 Inch Celeron 4GB 1TB Laptop - Black at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for Laptops and netbooks, Laptops and PCs, Technology.

 

[Cressi]

I always thought that Intel Celeron processors were pants?

 

[Cressi]

Buy HP 14 Inch Intel Celeron 4GB 1TB Laptop Red - Bag & McAfee at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for Laptops and netbooks, Laptops and PCs, Technology.

This better? looks the same

 

[little_pob]

I always thought that Intel Celeron processors were pants?

They are budget CPUs; but, that's all your original budget bought.

As a rough guide, Intel's current line goes Atom < Celeron & Pentium < i3 < i5 < i7 <i9.

There are several low end i3 sporting laptops in your new price range. However, they look to perform about the same as the higher end Celeron/Pentiums.

 

[Cressi]

also came across h*tp://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-14-an062sa-14-laptop-red-10156922-pdt.html

it's a chuffin minefield out there. It's for a 11 year going to secondary school. confused as hell.

Only definite is no bigger that 14 inch screen as she has to lug it around.

 

[Cressi]

Right got to get it sorted so it's down to these 2

Medion AKOYA S3409 13.3-Inch Notebook (Silver) - (Intel Core i3 2.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 256 HDD, Windows 10): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

or

Lenovo V110 Laptop - Laptops at ebuyer

Which would you pick ?

Thanks

 

[trevortron]

Right got to get it sorted so it's down to these 2

Medion AKOYA S3409 13.3-Inch Notebook (Silver) - (Intel Core i3 2.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM, 256 HDD, Windows 10): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

or

Lenovo V110 Laptop - Laptops at ebuyer

Which would you pick ?

Thanks

Looking very briefly at the spec's, I'd say the Lenovo looks a better buy. Ebuyer is not my favourite company, but they are generally pretty unbeatable when it comes to price.
Pay with PayPal if you have an account as they will sort out any problem in the unlikely event... more than can be said for Ebuyer.