Help - New Laptop Purchase

mimi1234

Hi all,

Might one of you be able to help me?  I'm wanting a new laptop but not sure what would be best for me.  

Currently, I have a Lenovo Ideapad 330s which I have had for 2+ years.  It's getting a bit slow now so I am wanting to get something a bit faster.

I've seen this one at Argos and it seems quite nice but don't have a clue if it's the right one for me: https://www.argos.co.uk/product/9490123?clickSR=slp:term:laptops:68:108:1
Any others that are sort of similar or better than this one?  

I want to spend between £400 and £500 but not more than £600.  I use the laptop mainly for browsing and internet shopping and might watch a movie or two on iPlayer or Amazon Prime.  I don't play any games on it.  I might use it for Word or Excel once a month or so.  I don't store tonnes of stuff on it so won't need loads of storage space.  Loud whirry laptops give me the willies so I don't want one of them!

I normally buy laptops from PC World but have a £200 gift card to use at Argos hence wanting to buy it from there.

Hopefully someone can help me out.  Thanks.

J_B

mimi1234 said:

Currently, I have a Lenovo Ideapad 330s which I have had for 2+ years.  It's getting a bit slow now so I am wanting to get something a bit faster.

I'm sure there's plenty you can do with a laptop that's only 2+ years old rather than spending £4/500 on a new one.

This is, after all, MSE, so, hope you remember what the MS stands for? 

mimi1234

You are right but it's so slow now and it's not charging properly either.  I will happily palm it off to my nephew who has been asking for it, mwahaha!

Langtang

• 1GHz processor speed with a burst speed of 3.6GHz.
• 8GB RAM DDR4 and 4GB DDR4.

Been out of the game a while, so things may have moved on.


Not sure what it means by 8Gb & 4Gb - it doesn't mention that there are 2 models to choose from.. If it means 12Gb, great (don't think it does) If it means 8 OR 4, not so good on the lower side. 

Slow processor imo - 1Ghz. Burst speed is good, but if you were multi-tasking....

Neil_Jones

The processor clock speed (the 1Ghz thing) isn't as important as it used to be.  It ceased to stop being important about 20 years ago because the faster it runs, the more heat it generates and there comes a point where it'll a) use more power, and b) generate more heat than a heatsink and fan can dissipate, so it'd be as good as not having anything at all.  So the improvements in speed came in the architecture/make-up of the processor instead, so we had more cores, faster caches, more cache, more efficiently (throttling when it's just sitting there doing nothing and ramping up when there's a demand) and generally improvements in that regard, rather than just having a processor at 10Ghz all day every day.

ann_droid

Hi
A bit of reading....   https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/the-best-laptop-deals

Screen size and quality is vital IMHO.

Late edit.....
Onboard Memory  -  8 GB DDR4 3200MHz
Selectable Memory  -  8 GB DDR4 3200MHz SoDIMM
Total Memory  -  16 GB (8 GB Onboard + 8 GB SoDIMM) DDR4 3200MHz

8 GB soldered into/onto Mainboard, and I chose another 8 GB as an add in.
Obviously an 8 GB is the 4 + 4 option.

I would also consider these...

ASUS VivoBook 14 X413 14in i5 8GB 512GB 32GB Optane Laptop   818/1756

Lenovo IdeaPad 3i 15.6in i5 8GB 512GB Laptop          813/2918

BUT your choice is a good choice, mine similarly.
The Lenovo is perhaps better and does justify the extra £50, but that is opinion not fact.

neilmcl

mimi1234 said:

You are right but it's so slow now and it's not charging properly either.  I will happily palm it off to my nephew who has been asking for it, mwahaha!

Install an SSD if it doesn't have one and perform a clean install of Windows 10.

The_Fat_Controller

I have a 27 month old 330s and it came with an SSD drive.

The SSD drive is just over half full and it is just as fast as the day it came out of the box.

Suggest you back up all your important stuff and refresh your OS along with running the trimming tool  on the drive.

mimi1234

Thanks for all your advice.  I will be looking all the things up.  I have no idea what an SSD is but once I have finished cooking, I will look it up on Google.

Thanks again.

OnlyTheBestWillDo

Seeing as you have a penchant for buying from the High St, chances are a bought a version fitted with one of these: 
, as opposed to one of these: 

One is slow and gets slower over time and one is fast and efficient and mainly stays that way.

Your problem is that it isn't that easy for a total novice to swap them. it's not difficult, but perhaps daunting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qid1orDLz78

mimi1234

Oooh thank you @OnlyTheBestWillDo Now I know what everyone is talking about :-)