Looking for new laptop - suggestions please

Sadmum23

Hi,

I am not very techie,

Need a laptop. Mainly for word , occasionally excel.  Using the internet and storing photos.

what specification should l be looking for? Do not want to spend a fortune but want something that is durable. Not a Lenovo please

thank you

jsmith9

Have a look at the Dell Inspiron range at www.dell.co.uk

neilmcl

Sadmum23 said:

Hi,

I am not very techie,

Need a laptop. Mainly for word , occasionally excel.  Using the internet and storing photos.

what specification should l be looking for? Do not want to spend a fortune but want something that is durable. Not a Lenovo please

thank you

Define what you mean by "a fortune", I saw this the other day, looked OK for the money - https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/dell-inspiron-15-3505-156-fhd-wva-ryzen-5-3500u-8gb-ram-256gb-ssd-black-laptop-ps42414-at-dell-with-code-3640213

BTW, what do you have against Lenovo?

CoastingHatbox

This would be my choice:
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/work/shop/laptop-computers-for-businesses/latitude-5410/spd/latitude-14-5410-laptop/s035l541014ukie

Price is ex-VAT so  you are looking at £730 delivered. I would fully recommend LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office.

The Latitudes (business) are better quality than the Inspirons (consumer). I would expect it to last a good 10 years if it isn't knocked about too much. It has a backlit keyboard, WiFi 6 support.

Sadmum23

Hi,
thank you for suggestions.
Bought a Lenovo a few years ago , it is the slowest thing ever. So did not want to go there again.
I dealt would like to spend around £350 -£400 .

I have had Dell in the past (desktops) and found them good so will give them a try

thank you 

CoastingHatbox

Sadmum23 said:

Hi,
thank you for suggestions.
Bought a Lenovo a few years ago , it is the slowest thing ever. So did not want to go there again.
I dealt would like to spend around £350 -£400 .

I have had Dell in the past (desktops) and found them good so will give them a try

thank you 

In that price bracket I would look for a good second hand one, although the current situation has pushed the prices of the northwards quite considerably and made used models in good condition more scarce. I think it is important to look at the cost over the lifetime of the product. If a laptop lasts a few years longer, then it is going to be worth an extra couple hundred quid.

neilmcl

Sadmum23 said:

Hi,
thank you for suggestions.
Bought a Lenovo a few years ago , it is the slowest thing ever. So did not want to go there again.
I dealt would like to spend around £350 -£400 .

I have had Dell in the past (desktops) and found them good so will give them a try

thank you 

In that case the one I linked to should fit the bill.

HereToday

Sadmum23 said:

Hi,
thank you for suggestions.
Bought a Lenovo a few years ago , it is the slowest thing ever. So did not want to go there again.
I dealt would like to spend around £350 -£400 .

I have had Dell in the past (desktops) and found them good so will give them a try

thank you 

Swap the horribly slow storage method(HDD) for a solid state drive costing £25 and it won't be slow any more.

CoastingHatbox

HereToday said:

Sadmum23 said:

Hi,
thank you for suggestions.
Bought a Lenovo a few years ago , it is the slowest thing ever. So did not want to go there again.
I dealt would like to spend around £350 -£400 .

I have had Dell in the past (desktops) and found them good so will give them a try

thank you 

Swap the horribly slow storage method(HDD) for a solid state drive costing £25 and it won't be slow any more.

It depends which Lenovo it is. Lenovo do produce some dog awful entry level laptops with CPUs that are fine for lightweight Linux distros but totally inadequate for Windows. Their midrange is much much better - both in terms of build quality and performance. A decent Windows Laptop really starts at £400 and that's when it has been discounted from its RRP. The marketing of PC Laptops doesn't really doesn't help consumers make good choices either.

Sadmum23

Thanks thanks for suggestions - my price guide was probably unrealistic . I agree it would be wiser to spend a bit more to get durability . Thanks all 

HereToday

CoastingHatbox said:

HereToday said:

Sadmum23 said:

Hi,
thank you for suggestions.
Bought a Lenovo a few years ago , it is the slowest thing ever. So did not want to go there again.
I dealt would like to spend around £350 -£400 .

I have had Dell in the past (desktops) and found them good so will give them a try

thank you 

Swap the horribly slow storage method(HDD) for a solid state drive costing £25 and it won't be slow any more.

It depends which Lenovo it is. Lenovo do produce some dog awful entry level laptops with CPUs that are fine for lightweight Linux distros but totally inadequate for Windows. Their midrange is much much better - both in terms of build quality and performance. A decent Windows Laptop really starts at £400 and that's when it has been discounted from its RRP. The marketing of PC Laptops doesn't really doesn't help consumers make good choices either.

It almost doesn't matter which Lenovo in terms of spec. If you can fit an SSD to it, it will be at least adequate.

So I cannot agree with you. I am running Windows 10 64-bit on a fourteen year old AMD Turion 64 X2  TL-60. The bottleneck lies with the storage method, not the CPU.