Good laptop for no more than £200

EveryWhere

GDB2222 wrote: »

I'll say it in capitals, for emphasis:

YOU CANNOT GET A GOOD LAPTOP FOR £200.

Nor can you buy a good house for £200. Essentially, staying on the house analogy for a bit longer, all these threads have been about what sort of tent or cardboard shelter will do best instead of a house.

To be fair, the most that I have paid for a laptop for myself, is £240 and that lasted nine years.

But many new consumer laptops are a bit gimmicky and not really built to last.

HP page does not even open for me; https://h22194.www2.hp.com/uk/en/laptops/product-details/product-specifications/29636869

That's how impressed that I am with them.

But the OP seems to want something 'as new', so these fit the bill.

I just bought an 'as new' £500 laptop, though I paid just over £200 for it. But these things aren't always available when someone asks.

EveryWhere

hubb wrote: »

Yes but at the end of the links you posted you said “not that its a recommendation” which spoilt what could have been me going for it. You might be more confident but I am literally in the dark spending someone elses money so if any doubt I am not going to gamble.

This always happens on threads like this. You are just about to make a decision and buy until someone else chimes in and says they are rubbish, don’t buy.

Ask as many questions as you like, but do so before the item sells out.

hubb

EveryWhere wrote: »

Really?

20% off with code PARTYTIME. Min spend £25. Max £75 off is not hidden...

You just have to check if a 14" screen is big enough for her. The other HP was 15.6", though not an IPS screen

Sorry, I cant see any reference to this when I click on the link. The seller has some bad feedback so its a risk.

arciere

EveryWhere wrote: »

To be fair, the most that I have paid for a laptop for myself, is £240 and that lasted nine years.

It doesn't matter how long it lasts, it may last another 20 years and still functional. The question is: what are you doing with it? If a 10-year old laptop is good for you, that means that whatever you are doing with it today is not more complex than what you were doing with it 10 years ago, and that's fair enough.

But to me, if a laptop doesn't have USB-C ports, if the battery doesn't last at least 8 hours, if it doesn't weigh less than 1.5 kg, if WiFi is not, at least, ac with MIMO 2x2, if it doesn't have a HDMI port, if it doesn't have a PCIe SSD drive, then it's not good enough.

So back to the 'decent buy' definition, it's all down to what you need to do with it. With a £200 laptop, the answer would be 'not much', in which case it's pointless arguing over whether this CPU is 0.01% better than that CPU or whether the screen is IPS or not.

EveryWhere

arciere wrote: »

It doesn't matter how long it lasts, it may last another 20 years and still functional. The question is: what are you doing with it? If a 10-year old laptop is good for you, that means that whatever you are doing with it today is not more complex than what you were doing with it 10 years ago, and that's fair enough.

But to me, if a laptop doesn't have USB-C ports, if the battery doesn't last at least 8 hours, if it doesn't weigh less than 1.5 kg, if WiFi is not, at least, ac with MIMO 2x2, if it doesn't have a HDMI port, if it doesn't have a PCIe SSD drive, then it's not good enough.

So back to the 'decent buy' definition, it's all down to what you need to do with it. With a £200 laptop, the answer would be 'not much', in which case it's pointless arguing over whether this CPU is 0.01% better than that CPU or whether the screen is IPS or not.

Why would I be doing more complex things? A £200 laptop will be for everyday usage. So I'm hardly going to expect to edit 4k video with it ten years later.

I'm using for my everyday tasks, but now with an SSD. Of course it matters as to how long it lasts. Clearly I mean lasts, as in being useful.

Sorry, but your post appears to be almost complete nonsense.

Of course it makes sense to get the best possible for your budget. Who cares what you consider decent for your own usage? Totally irrelevant.

basic internet banking, social media etc

Remember? Hopefully still good for that in ten years time.

The budget is £200. So you get the best you can get, on balance. That is what we were trying to do for the OP.

arciere

EveryWhere wrote: »

Why would I be doing more complex things? A £200 laptop will be for everyday usage. So I'm hardly going to expect to edit 4k video with it ten years later.

I'm using for my everyday tasks, but now with an SSD. Of course it matters as to how long it lasts. Clearly I mean lasts, as in being useful.

Sorry, but your post appears to be complete nonsense.

Because, unless you are still using Windows XP, Office 97, USB 2 and old SATA ports, whatever your daily tasks are, they will be more complex than they were 10 years ago, in terms of computational power required.

Of course you are so enthusiastic about your £240, 10-year old laptop that still satisfies you, but it doesn't prove that a £200 laptop is a 'decent laptop' today, let alone in 10 years time.

EveryWhere

arciere wrote: »

Because, unless you are still using Windows XP, Office 97, USB 2 and old SATA ports, whatever your daily tasks are, they will be more complex than they were 10 years ago, in terms of computational power required.

Of course you are so enthusiastic about your £240, 10-year old laptop that still satisfies you, but it doesn't prove that a £200 laptop is a 'decent laptop' today, let alone in 10 years time.

Why all this unnecessary waffle?

The OP wants the best that £200 can buy. I don't know why you are quoting me with your pointless posts.

I'm actually using an even older laptop to post here. It does the job that I need it to do. If it didn't I would drag one of my newer laptops out.

Now perhaps you can stop hijacking the thread and help the OP to find the best they can, for £200.

Otherwise, what are you doing here?

arciere

EveryWhere wrote: »

The OP wants the best that £200 can buy. I don't know why you are quoting me with your pointless posts.

BECAUSE very few people have pointed out that you can't have a good laptop for £200, no matter where you look. So I think that it should be emphasised that pretty much no laptop can be a 'decent laptop' at that price level.

Since OP seems to be relying maybe too much on opinions here, it should be made clear that whatever you buy, there's a good chance that you will be disappointed with the product because a £200 laptop is what it is. That is the budget, fair enough, but my suggestion would be 'wait a bit more and buy something better'.

The fact that YOU are using a 10 year old laptop and are happy with it is completely irrelevant.

But anyway, as you said, I should 'know better than arguing with you'.

GDB2222

hubb wrote: »

Thank you for clearing that one up for me. So am I to ignore all the suggestions of decent buys (sadly now sold out) for just under £200 or is this just your opinion ?

What it means is that all the options being put forward have drawbacks. People naturally express their concerns about that, and you take those concerns too seriously.

Given there are compromises, one person will favour a reasonable screen whilst somebody else will favour a decent processor.

GDB2222

EveryWhere wrote: »

To be fair, the most that I have paid for a laptop for myself, is £240 and that lasted nine years.

But many new consumer laptops are a bit gimmicky and not really built to last.

HP page does not even open for me; https://h22194.www2.hp.com/uk/en/laptops/product-details/product-specifications/29636869

That's how impressed that I am with them.

But the OP seems to want something 'as new', so these fit the bill.

I just bought an 'as new' £500 laptop, though I paid just over £200 for it. But these things aren't always available when someone asks.

This desktop that I am typing this on and which I use for work was bought new from Dell is exactly 12 years old. It was bought for £241.

It's a 2.2GHz C2D processor. It came with 2GB of RAM, now upgraded to 4GB. I stuck in a 256GB SSD.

It came with Win XP, now upgraded to Win10. I've gone through a couple of keyboards and mice over that period.

What is more, I built an i7 system in 2015, and I've never quite got round to transferring onto it. This old system just keeps on working adequately.