Will Lenovo Thinkpad do the job?

bubblycrazy

Hi, I currently own a Toshiba Satellite intel i3 m330, 4GB RAM.
I've had it for over 7 years, the microphone no longer works and there's a black line appeared across the screen. I tried to install Windows 10 a few years ago and got the blue screen of death. Had to get it rebooted with windows 7 for it to work again.
Apart from this it works quite well.
The only thing I can't do on it which I would like to, is play android games on it through an emulator.
Whenever I try to install something, bluestacks, nox etc, it gets to a certain % then stops. 

I've seen a refurbished Lenovo ThinkPad x270 for sale.
Intel core i5 6300u 7th Gen, hard disk 128GB SSD, 8GB RAM, 12.5" screen. £250, is this a good price? 
Will I be able to install an android emulator?
Does it sound like it's time for a new laptop or is there anything I can do to fix my Toshiba? It probably needs updates, but since the windows 10 fiasco I'm too scared to update anything.

Apart from android games, the only thing I would use it for is general website browsing, watching online films and currently my son's school work which mainly uses word and powerpoint. 

Neil_Jones

Presumably there is more than one Android emulator?  If so have you tried another one?

bubblycrazy

I've tried 3. Bluestacks, nox and LDplayer. Same problem with them all, they either install but then don't do anything if I try to use them, or only get to 50%, or 91% and stall. 

HereToday

Swap the HDD for an SSD and then clean install Windows 10 to it. Nothing bad can happen. 

Part no.? It's on the underside.

tacpot12

I think you would be ok with the Lenovo Thinkpad. I have a Lenovo Thinkpad 13 which is the previous model to the x270. I have core i5 6200, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD and this runs Windows 10 well. Bluestacks runs on it fine.
£250 is an ok price if the laptop is in good condition.

Jon_01

It would also depend on what Android apps you want to run. I've run Bluestacks on an i7 with 16gig and some apps run so slow they are unusable.

Neil_Jones

Jon_01 said:

It would also depend on what Android apps you want to run. I've run Bluestacks on an i7 with 16gig and some apps run so slow they are unusable.

This might be of interest for slow-running Android on the likes of Bluestack:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/53968186

bubblycrazy

HereToday said:

Swap the HDD for an SSD and then clean install Windows 10 to it. Nothing bad can happen. 

Part no.? It's on the underside.

I'm currently saving everything important off the computer and going to give windows 10 another go. I would replace with SSD but with the screen having a black line running across it, I'm worried it's not going to last much longer anyway.
Part no: PSLS6E - 00Q00WEN

Jon_01 said:

It would also depend on what Android apps you want to run. I've run Bluestacks on an i7 with 16gig and some apps run so slow they are unusable.

Mainly Merge Dragons.

HereToday

bubblycrazy said:

HereToday said:

Swap the HDD for an SSD and then clean install Windows 10 to it. Nothing bad can happen. 

Part no.? It's on the underside.

I'm currently saving everything important off the computer and going to give windows 10 another go. I would replace with SSD but with the screen having a black line running across it, I'm worried it's not going to last much longer anyway.
Part no: PSLS6E - 00Q00WEN

Jon_01 said:

It would also depend on what Android apps you want to run. I've run Bluestacks on an i7 with 16gig and some apps run so slow they are unusable.

Mainly Merge Dragons.

Easy swap:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_V2cIHUk8s

But a few things you should do in preparation. You'll need a USB Flash drive of at least 8GB in capacity

Create the Windows 10 USB flash drive

1. Visit the Microsoft Media Creation Tool website: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10
2. Click Download Tool Now.
3. Save the Application.
4. Plug your USB Flash Drive into the PC where you saved the application.
5. Run the Application.
6. Accept the EULA
7. Select Create installation media for another PC and click Next.
8. Choose the correct settings for your version of Windows 10

• Language (Country)
• Windows 10
• 64-bit (x64)

Click Next.Select USB Flash Drive and click Next.Select the Flash Drive and click Next.

Allow the application to complete. You will be prompted when it is finished and has successfully created the bootable drive.

New SSD will set you perhaps £20 https://www.mymemory.co.uk/memory/data-storage/ssd-drives/120gb-ssd.html?price=2,15

Replace with SSD or don't bother. The HDD will fail taking any useful data with it the next time.

bubblycrazy

Thanks, so you don't think it will work just updating it directly on the laptop?

[Deleted User]

Personally I would not throw any more money at the old laptop with a screen on the way out, especially if you are looking to run an Android emulator to play games. It is very dated, the i3 m330 processor was poor when first released over a decade ago.

The Lenovo you suggested is a reasonable spec and should do everything you are asking for. I've got two similar Lenovo's for my kids that I bought for a similar price that I bought refurbished and the perform well.

Merge Dragons doesn't look to heavy on the graphics so the inbuilt Intel HD 520 GPU should cope in theory but emulators aren't always able to make the most of the hardware so I can't guarantee it will perform as well as it does on native Android hardware. Also the Intel HD 520 isn't a very good if you want to push it for graphics based PC games so consider that for the future.