Recommended laptop and supplier

harrys_dad

Evening everyone, I have followed this forum for a long while but rarely posted. I am looking for a new laptop, and know there has been good advice here in the past.

I use a PC for the only intensive application I do, namely photos/lightroom/photoshop. For the laptop all I really want to use it for is internet browsing, skype video calls, and text based stuff, like downloading attachments from emails, filing etc etc, and the occasional youtube video. I don't do gaming.

Budget is flexible, but I am sure I should be able to get something to do what I want for £300 or less. I am quite happy to buy a refurbished machine if that is considerably cheaper.

My last attempt a year ago to sort this was to buy a small HP notebook for £125. I have been really happy with this but windows 10 eats most of the 32GB memory and is telling me it doesn't have space for "necessary" updates.

Options? Thanks in advance,

debitcardmayhem

harrys_dad wrote: »

Evening everyone, I have followed this forum for a long while but rarely posted. I am looking for a new laptop, and know there has been good advice here in the past.

I use a PC for the only intensive application I do, namely photos/lightroom/photoshop. For the laptop all I really want to use it for is internet browsing, skype video calls, and text based stuff, like downloading attachments from emails, filing etc etc, and the occasional youtube video. I don't do gaming.

Budget is flexible, but I am sure I should be able to get something to do what I want for £300 or less. I am quite happy to buy a refurbished machine if that is considerably cheaper.

My last attempt a year ago to sort this was to buy a small HP notebook for £125. I have been really happy with this but windows 10 eats most of the 32GB memory and is telling me it doesn't have space for "necessary" updates.

Options? Thanks in advance,

You could clear out lots of stuff, using the in-built windows drive cleaning stuff , not read this but it may help https://www.windowscentral.com/5-tips-free-hard-drive-space-windows-10-pc
Also you could use an external drive to offload some of your data

System

Pop on Ebay and buy a Lenovo Thinkpad T420 or T430. Go for the one with the 1400x900 screen and fitted with a SSD. This one for example.

If you want a smaller one look at the THinkpad X220 or X230.

Both of these are corporate grade laptops built like a tank that cost four figures new, third party replacement batteries are cheap. There are plenty of sellers on Ebay selling refurbished ones with a 12 month guarantee. The seller newandusedlaptops4u has been on the go for a long time and seems to have a good reputation. Don't worry about them coming with Windows 7 as you can download the latest installation ISO for Windows 10 from Microsoft and use the Windows 7 product key to upgrade.

dunroving

Also, see here for refurbished Dells:

http://mcscom.co.uk/

System

harrys_dad wrote: »

Evening everyone, I have followed this forum for a long while but rarely posted. I am looking for a new laptop, and know there has been good advice here in the past.

I use a PC for the only intensive application I do, namely photos/lightroom/photoshop. For the laptop all I really want to use it for is internet browsing, skype video calls, and text based stuff, like downloading attachments from emails, filing etc etc, and the occasional youtube video. I don't do gaming.

Budget is flexible, but I am sure I should be able to get something to do what I want for £300 or less. I am quite happy to buy a refurbished machine if that is considerably cheaper.

My last attempt a year ago to sort this was to buy a small HP notebook for £125. I have been really happy with this but windows 10 eats most of the 32GB memory and is telling me it doesn't have space for "necessary" updates.

Options? Thanks in advance,

whats wrong with a tablet considering your requirements doesn't seem to require heavy workload

letsbehonest

A friend and a sister were in the same predicament wanting a new Laptop but went shopping with the need for instore advice. Both were sold a budget range £350 ish one bought a Toshiba satellite the other a H.P. Both loaded with Windows 10 and both are terribly slow, maybe these low spec budget units just cannot cope to well with windows 10. I have played with both and IMOP this is the case.

System

Most of the problem with the low spec ones is down to the fact that they put the slowest hard drives there are on the market in them. Change out to a SSD and they're perfectly acceptable. It certainly isn't down to Windows 10 as I have it running on machines 7-10 years old just fine. A SSD drive for the OS and applications should be seen as a statutory requirement for any PC nowadays.

AlSto

Crazy money wasting advice here.

Just run a clean install of Windows 10 to your current laptop and all will be fine.

Otherwise you may have have the option to add a 32 GB SDHC card for the extra space you need. So no cost or perhaps £10 to fix the issue.

What model is it?

harrys_dad

Thanks for all the advice everyone, will consider next step carefully.

harrys_dad

Tarambor wrote: »

Pop on Ebay and buy a Lenovo Thinkpad T420 or T430. Go for the one with the 1400x900 screen and fitted with a SSD. This one for example.

If you want a smaller one look at the THinkpad X220 or X230.

Both of these are corporate grade laptops built like a tank that cost four figures new, third party replacement batteries are cheap. There are plenty of sellers on Ebay selling refurbished ones with a 12 month guarantee. The seller newandusedlaptops4u has been on the go for a long time and seems to have a good reputation. Don't worry about them coming with Windows 7 as you can download the latest installation ISO for Windows 10 from Microsoft and use the Windows 7 product key to upgrade.

Thanks very much for all the advice. I did indeed buy a Thinkpad X230 with a decent SSD from the seller linked above. I don't use Ebay or Paypal, so contacted them directly by phone, and paid on my credit card (for added consumer protection as advised by MSE).

I am more than happy with windows 7, so do not see the need to upgrade.

For those who offered solutions for my HP 32gb, I am going to wipe that clean and give it to my grandson as a present, so win win I think.