Looking for slim, lightweight laptop - or Chromebook?

Bendy_House

Hi.

This is for my bro. Priorities are that the 14" laptop should be easily portable as he carries it around with him a lot, and on flights etc. - so as slim, durable and lightweight as possible. It only has to 'surf', and run Office - nothing really heavier than this. But, it must do this snappily!

He'd pretty much decided on an Acer Swift 3 (AMD Rizen 5 4500 8GB RAM, 1TB SSD) as he'd previously owned a Swift 5, tho' with a smaller screen. I mentioned Chromebooks to him as being super-slim and light, but I had little to add to this as they are an unknown to me. A possible issue is that the device must work fully when off-line, and also run MS Office.

Any suggestions, please?

Budget of £500-£700. Crisp screen, long battery life, storage of, say, 250GB+, enough RAM to boot up and load quickly - 8GB? Must boot and load quickly.


Thanks

 

RumRat

Just bought one of these for my niece..BUY HUAWEI MateBook 13 2020 AMD - Laptop - HUAWEI UK  AMD Ryzen 7, 16GB mem and 512GB SSD storage.
£549 (£240 off) Plus Free gifts (Blue tooth speaker and mouse worth £190) and £80 cashback. She loves it and has found no downsides at the moment.

OnlyTheBestWillDo

RumRat said:

Just bought one of these for my niece..BUY HUAWEI MateBook 13 2020 AMD - Laptop - HUAWEI UK  AMD Ryzen 7, 16GB mem and 512GB SSD storage.
£549 (£240 off) Plus Free gifts (Blue tooth speaker and mouse worth £190) and £80 cashback. She loves it and has found no downsides at the moment.

AMD Ryzen™ 7 3700U in the advertising; AMD Ryzen™ 5 3500U listed in the Specification....twice. Though if they say Ryzen 7 3700U in their blurb, then I am sure that is what they will supply.

OnlyTheBestWillDo

If a 13" screen won't do; here is a DELL Outlet S&D with a 14.5" screen: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-Inspiron-14-7400-11th-gen-i7-4-7ghz-8GB-512GB-SSD-14-5-QHD-2560x1600-S-D-/353604247572

[Deleted User]

If budget can be stretched (and screen shrunk!) the 2020 13.3 inch M1 MacBook Air is about as good as it gets as far as powerful lightweight laptops go. Currently 899 quid in John Lewis and available on interest free credit.
Look at YouTube reviews, it knocks everything else out of the water at this price point. An Apple product which is good value for money, who'd have thought it.
I'm running a 2015 MacBook Air which isn't anywhere near as powerful but it's still a pleasure to use.

Bendy_House

Thanks everyone - good food for thought

Yes, the MacBook is too costly, and almost certainly MS's alternative, the Surface.

I'll check out all the ones suggested. His current laptop - the Swift 5 - is 13" screen, I understand, and just a tad too small, hence going the extra inch.

Thanks.

OnlyTheBestWillDo

Bendy_House said:

Thanks everyone - good food for thought

Yes, the MacBook is too costly, and almost certainly MS's alternative, the Surface.

I'll check out all the ones suggested. His current laptop - the Swift 5 - is 13" screen, I understand, and just a tad too small, hence going the extra inch.

Thanks.

If he wants new and unused; DELL Outlet have:



for around the £600 mark or less.

https://www.dell.com/learn/uk/en/ukdfh1/campaigns/first-time-customer-dell-outlet-uk

https://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdfh1&l=en&s=dfh&sign=PXhcOSHtr1T4IOw/PR7UdVhf/2CSsqsi9HUZwCyEceno5rO3i1s+AI8GXCWvpXpKR4x8tMhTOWlCRzueAxgCbo7nZaiRh3tD7VxlHL8Hk2GNed3yuk2ECUvwbzkKtUqUeR7eZVeSB9FzYs6XAMDo8u7uFZouuHQPI7KRsacOWpMHxvm/OxLXxKkj0oMoeG0wXCMWGS8jAI9Nfk8uKA7uWdKYh/YXSL8SQuz2nAYXpbB4/442UZ0r40lD+8PYoMfZuX7jYeBQkHk4ljM5QJUbZQjVIVI7D/SZzwp1NUSnFdD1tVsCgfQSJw==

Bendy_House

Nice, OTBWD - thanks!

I'll check all these out for weight and thickness.

Bendy_House

All the lovely Dells are slightly thicker and heavier than the Acer Swift 3 - tho' the price of the Swift is actually £799, so I got the budget bit wrong.

For my bro's purposes, are there any simpler - notebook/netbook -type - alternatives. Ie without the heavy duty processing, but still 'fast' when it comes to 'office' tasks? Are Chromebooks not an option?

Ta.

RumRat

Top of your budget, but, reportedly the best Chromebook out there....Acer Chromebook Spin 713 | Laptops | Acer United Kingdom

OnlyTheBestWillDo

Bendy_House said:

All the lovely Dells are slightly thicker and heavier than the Acer Swift 3 - tho' the price of the Swift is actually £799, so I got the budget bit wrong.

For my bro's purposes, are there any simpler - notebook/netbook -type - alternatives. Ie without the heavy duty processing, but still 'fast' when it comes to 'office' tasks? Are Chromebooks not an option?

Ta.

You aren't just paying for the processor. If you look at the DELL; you are getting a taller and higher resolution screen than is standard. Also more colourful (100% sRGB) and bright (300-Nits). Plus Thunderbolt 4

You can definitely get cheaper and more simple; but then you lose the higher quality screen, higher quality finish and faster ports...without saving that much money.