Looking for a new laptop - PC World trade in?

davey4444

Hi there,

My wife is looking for a new laptop as her old one (Lenovo G50 4GB RAM, Celeron Processor) is rather slow and slightly too big for her needs as she's travelling with it.
We've looked at the Trade In offer with PC World and they will give £50 cashback on the laptop if you buy one of their qualifying laptops (https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/windows-laptops/laptops/laptops/315_3226_30328_xx_ba00010671-bv00308565/xx-criteria.html?intcmp=com_tradein_generic_windows_310719)

We don't have to go for this deal though as we're really just after a simple laptop which will be used for browsing and Word for 99% of the time. My wife is not so keen on Google Docs as she's unfamiliar with it and at this stage of her studying wants to stick with MS (we currently have Office 2007 installed). She might well get O365 for free as a student though which may open up the possibility of Chromebooks.

Can anyone recommend a half decent deal at the moment then which will fulfill our needs? Ideally with a cost of under £250.

Thanks.

EveryWhere

Keep the G50, but put a cheap SSD within, As little as £16.50. A five minute job.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZQKLKCG33E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZQKLKCG33E

The SSD will solve the slowness problem. You can keep that as a backup for occasional use or whatever.

For the £250 buy a second user business quality laptop.
Example; https://www.blackmoreit.com/e7250-dell-latitude-e7250-laptop-core-i7-5600u-8gb-ram-256gb-ssd-windows-10.html

Obviously not that one. Just an example of what can be available

that

if you have the g50 with the intel i3 4030U , then cpu wise the is one one for £299 has no real cpu improvement DELL Inspiron 15 3000 15.6” Intel® Pentium® Gold Laptop - 128 GB SSD, Silver
the next one along (left to right) costs £429, and also except for the SSD, the cpu is also very little difference in performance -you also wont notice the minuscule increase in speed

The HP ENVY x360 13.3" AMD Ryzen 5 2 in 1 - 128 GB SSD, Grey : £639, is better than your wifes

Don't be as cheap as EveryWhere, and splurge an extra £8.50 and get a 240Gb SSD

davey4444

Thanks for the replies both of you. It's a Intel Celeron N2840 processor which I guess is sluggish to say the least?
Do you think it's worth popping in an ssd first of all and see how that is?

EveryWhere

davey4444 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies both of you. It's a Intel Celeron N2840 processor which I guess is sluggish to say the least?
Do you think it's worth popping in an ssd first of all and see how that is?

If you are happy with the size of the laptop, which is one of the things about which you complained initially, then you should definitely fit an SSD.
But you should run a clean install on Windows 10 to the SSD. Don't clone the bloat of Windows 8.1 with Bing to the new SSD.
You can put the old HDD into a caddy. Such as any of these;
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-5-External-HDD-Enclosure-USB-SATA-Hard-Drive-Black-Caddy-Case-for-Laptop-PC/192934660120
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-3-0-to-SATA-Hard-Drive-Enclosure-Caddy-Case-For-2-5-Inch-HDD-SSD-External/282930148654
https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/USB-3-0-2-5-Inch-External-Hard-Drive-Enclosure-SATA-HDD-Case-Caddy-for-Windows/1139730908

Five to ten minutes to swap the HDD with the SSD in a leisurely fashion. Two minutes to place the old HDD into a caddy.

debitcardmayhem

davey4444 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies both of you. It's a Intel Celeron N2840 processor which I guess is sluggish to say the least?
Do you think it's worth popping in an ssd first of all and see how that is?

It will improve especially if you do a re-install of windows, however the weight will only drop by a few ounces
Edited my mentor was too nifty with his reply , beat by 1 minute:cool:

EveryWhere

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

It will improve especially if you do a re-install of windows, however the weight will only drop by a few ounces
Edited my mentor was too nifty with his reply , beat by 1 minute:cool:

Mentor? :eek:
:)

EveryWhere

Actually contrary to what that might think I'm not a fan of the current crop of cheap SSD at all.
I generally only recommend cheap SSD for devices that are really old or to people who might be reluctant to spend much on an upgrade.
Seeing as you were happy to part exchange it for £50, I saw more value in you fitting an inexpensive SSD drive, installing Windows 10(preferably Pro) and keeping it as a backup.

But if you actually want to use the thing on a daily basis, better to purchase an SSD with DRAM.
Though it will still work fine with a cheapo SSD such as https://www.mymemory.co.uk/integral-240gb-p-series-5-sata-iii-ssd-drive-560mb-s.html for £26.49

If you are will to spend a bit more, then look at the Crucial MX500; https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0764WCXCV/ref=twister_B07PMS54X2
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0784SLQM6/ref=twister_B07PMS54X2

or the WD Blue; https://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-WDS250G2B0A-Blue-Internal/dp/B073SBZ8YH?th=1 500GB
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-WDS250G2B0A-Blue-Internal/dp/B073SB2MXW

that

davey4444 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies both of you. It's a Intel Celeron N2840 processor which I guess is sluggish to say the least?
Do you think it's worth popping in an ssd first of all and see how that is?

I think that ssd could make a difference, but I do not know this particular model, but I'm sure others will have blogged, if you google them.

###########
The curries 'cheat sheet'.
On your link https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/windows-laptops/laptops/laptops/315_3226_30328_xx_ba00010671-bv00308565/xx-criteria.html?intcmp=com_tradein_generic_windows_3%20%2010719

Avoid the ones that say EMMC. They are slow, not replaceable and you cant upgrade them either

on the above link I will choose the "DELL Inspiron 15 3000 15.6” Intel® Pentium® Gold Laptop - 128 GB SSD, Silver" with the "Intel® Pentium® Gold 5405U" as an example. Then next go to google and type :
Intel Celeron N2840 vs Pentium Gold 5405U

my choice from the google results are https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pentium-5405U-vs-Intel-Celeron-N2840/m767922vsm16086 and it show that the new cpu is 200% faster, however unless you are number crunching, encoding video, playing real time games, you possibly will not notice it, especially with an ssd

EveryWhere

that wrote: »

I think that ssd could make a difference, but I do not know this particular model, but I'm sure others will have blogged, if you google them.

###########
The curries 'cheat sheet'.
On your link https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/windows-laptops/laptops/laptops/315_3226_30328_xx_ba00010671-bv00308565/xx-criteria.html?intcmp=com_tradein_generic_windows_3%20%2010719

Avoid the ones that say EMMC. They are slow, not replaceable and you cant upgrade them either

on the above link I will choose the "DELL Inspiron 15 3000 15.6” Intel® Pentium® Gold Laptop - 128 GB SSD, Silver" with the "Intel® Pentium® Gold 5405U" as an example. Then next go to google and type :
Intel Celeron N2840 vs Pentium Gold 5405U

my choice from the google results are https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pentium-5405U-vs-Intel-Celeron-N2840/m767922vsm16086 and it show that the new cpu is 200% faster, however unless you are number crunching, encoding video, playing real time games, you possibly will not notice it, especially with an ssd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk1wwGPvXHI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk1wwGPvXHI

EveryWhere

As you can see from the video of your device, above(SSD on the left), it is never going to be super fast, because of that CPU.
But the fitting of a solid state drive will bring it into the usable category and also make the thing more robust, as she will be able to move it around whilst in use. Unlike when using a hard drive, you don't need to worry about giving it a knock when using/moving it.

In conclusion, I would not spend too much on an SSD, but I would definitely choose to fit an SSD.