17.3" laptop for £400 (ish)

Biggus_Dickus

esuhl wrote: »

My sister asked if I could suggest a "good" laptop for her. (Groan! I've no idea what spec laptops are on the market!)

She'd really like a 17.3" screen, and "ideally" she has a budget of £400. (She knows I'll blow the budget! )

She wants it to work on multiple large spreadsheets, and general home/office stuff, and to connect to her work's VPN. Nothing too taxing.

The best I've come up with is this Lenovo IdeaPad 330 for £430:
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8628697

It only has 4GB of DDR4 RAM, and a 5,400 RPM HDD, but they can be upgraded. What I'm most concerned about are the CPU specs:
Is that processor "good enough", or a false economy as it would need upgrading sooner than spending a little bit more...?


Are there any better 17" laptops she should consider?



Cheers

£349 for the same laptop at ao.com

https://ao.com/product/81dm0044uk-lenovo-laptop-grey-59721-251.aspx
Not a bad spec at that price for 17.3”. No DVD though.

Reviews are quite good: One of the reviews, quote “Impressive; Use this for accounting, The large screen and number pad make it an excellent tool for working with large spreadsheets”.

The processor is not bad either. Have a ‘compare’ here:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php

EveryWhere

Biggus_Dickus wrote: »

£349 for the same laptop at ao.com

https://ao.com/product/81dm0044uk-lenovo-laptop-grey-59721-251.aspx
Not a bad spec at that price for 17.3”. No DVD though.

Reviews are quite good: One of the reviews, quote “Impressive; Use this for accounting, The large screen and number pad make it an excellent tool for working with large spreadsheets”.

Good price, but HD+ TN screen

agrinnall

EveryWhere wrote: »

What was there? It states "sold out!" Cheapest I see with an IPS screen is £774. Without £642. So cannot imagine there was anything close to £400.

I didn't say there was anything suitable, I just suggested looking in case there was. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't.

EveryWhere

agrinnall wrote: »

I didn't say there was anything suitable, I just suggested looking in case there was. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't.

That's ok. It's because it states "sold out!" when you click through, so I imagined there was a specific machine to which you linked.

esuhl

Thanks everyone for your replies! I'm weighing up the many options

Cisco001 wrote: »

Is it has to be laptop?

I'm afraid so. I've tried many times to preach the merits of desktops, but she won't have any of it!

Biggus_Dickus wrote: »

£349 for the same laptop at ao.com

Ooh! Nice find -- thanks.

Biggus_Dickus wrote: »

Not a bad spec at that price for 17.3”. No DVD though.

Hmm... so maybe not as low spec as I feared? I was eyeing up the i5-8250U or Ryzen 5 2500U processors, but they definitely seem to smash the budget! And maybe they are OTT for a simple workstation...

A 1920x1080 IPS screen sounds like it might be worth having, though...?

esuhl

EveryWhere wrote: »

https://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/ct250mx500ssd4

Both would have a 250 GB M.2 SATA SSD boot drive and 1TB HDD storage drive.

You mean I could fit an M.2/SATA drive in addition to the build in HDD?

Does the SSD require a dedicated bay, or are the M.2 cards so small that they can be crammed in to any nook or cranny?! (Probably a dumb question )

EveryWhere

esuhl wrote: »

You mean I could fit an M.2/SATA drive in addition to the build in HDD?

Does the SSD require a dedicated bay, or are the M.2 cards so small that they can be crammed in to any nook or cranny?! (Probably a dumb question )

Yes. It should have a dedicated M.2 bay;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRWb9Lzjf-g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRWb9Lzjf-g

But you can double check with HP before purchase. Especially to confirm if the M.2 slot is compatible with NVMe SSD. Crucial indicates M.2 SATA; https://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/compatible-upgrade-for/HP---Compaq/hp-17-ca0999na

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05985614 is the Maintenance and Service Guide for the device.

EveryWhere

esuhl wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your replies! I'm weighing up the many options



I'm afraid so. I've tried many times to preach the merits of desktops, but she won't have any of it!



Ooh! Nice find -- thanks.



Hmm... so maybe not as low spec as I feared? I was eyeing up the i5-8250U or Ryzen 5 2500U processors, but they definitely seem to smash the budget! And maybe they are OTT for a simple workstation...

A 1920x1080 IPS screen sounds like it might be worth having, though...?

At a minimum for a 17.3" screen. The HP's 300 nits is also good.

Lenovo 330 has a relatively poor screen; low resolution, poor viewing angles and low brightness. Battery is reportedly undersized and there is no M.2 slot for an SSD boot drive in addition to the HDD storage.
The whole thing is made down to a price. Hence £349.

You can compare the screen differences here;
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-IdeaPad-330-17IKB-i7-8550U-GeForce-MX150-Laptop-Review.414570.0.html

&

https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Pavilion-17z-ak000-A9-9420-Radeon-530-Laptop-Review.234458.0.html

There are pics of the screen if you cannot make sense of the measurements.

Frozen_up_north

OP, your sister needs to wake up to the lousy ergonomics of using a laptop for any serious work related use on spreadsheets. As a home worker she should be evaluating her “work station” in order to comply with the DSE Regulations, in all likelihood a laptop will fail unless used in a docking station with an external keyboard, mouse and screen. See:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/msd/dse/

EveryWhere

Seems the HP at Argos is back up to £550, from £450. So no longer viable.





Now just returns ;
https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/HP-17-ca0999na-17-3-Inch-AMD-Ryzen-3-2200u-8gb-RAM-1tb-HDD-Windows-10-OS/16031183836?iid=183810873616
https://www.laptopoutlet.co.uk/hp-17-ca0999na-17-3-full-hd-laptop-amd-ryzen-3-2200u-8gb-ram-1tb-hdd-windows-10-home-64-bit-4xy31ea-abu.html
https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/HP-17-ca0999na-17-3-Inch-AMD-Ryzen-3-2200u-8gb-RAM-1tb-HDD-Windows-10-OS/16031183836
https://www.electrical-deals.co.uk/hp-17-ca0999na-17-3-inch-amd-ryzen-3-2200u-8gb-ram-1tb-hdd-windows-10-os

Not really a fan of HP and Lenovo consumer, but you don't have a lot of choice.