New laptop advice

pelipost

I need a new laptop - last one a panasonic bought  5 years a go - started getting black screen and then gradually taking out battery, using recovery stopped working and now totally bricked.
New laptop needs to run multiple programmes at the same time, windows, microsoft office, zoom (so reasonable colour and sound), adobe photoshop and be light so I can carry about. I was borrowing a dell which is quite heavy but seems solid. Budget c. £400 is this doable? suggestions please.
Many thanks

cx6

Have a look a Dell Inspiron laptops (they come with SSD and are quite light) - I would avoid the Celeron ones.

J_B

As this is MSE, 'we' ought to offer to fix the existing one first, especially as it's only 5 years old.

Would the fitting of a new SSD and perhaps more RAM sort the job?

What Panasonic is it?

CoastingHatbox

I must admit I'm curious as to the root cause of the problem with your Panasonic laptop, as at five years old if it can be repaired and upgraded with an SSD, dependent upon the original specification, should be quite usable.

Do you know the model number / specifications of your laptop? The actual model number will be on a sticker on the base of the laptop or under the battery.

I have very limited experience with Lenovo laptops so I can't make this a recommendation, but for a thin/light/reasonably capable machine this looks like it will fit the bill:
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/thinkbook/thinkbook-series/Lenovo-ThinkBook-13s-IML/p/XXTBXTM1335

Sorry for it being £100 over budget.

pelipost

having a brain storm sorry it is a Toshiba Satellite L50-B-1NZ bought in 2015. I don't have it with me. Pwer function F5 worked to start it for a while once I started getting the black screen problem, and then taking the battery and hard drive out. But now it doesn't respond to anything and I can't reboot or anything. I even tried plugging it in to an external screen but nothing.

CoastingHatbox

Yeah, that is a reasonable spec machine.

Have you tried it with either a clean install of Windows (download and create installation media using a USB stick and the Windows 10 Installation Media creation tool: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10) or try booting it from an Ubuntu* live distribution (https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/try-ubuntu-before-you-install#1-getting-started), which you can do without a hard disk in the machine.

It would be good to know whether there is a problem with the laptop itself (hardware) or the current Windows installation.

*Not an endorsement for Ubuntu

grumpycrab

pelipost said:

 Toshiba Satellite L50-B-1NZ ... it doesn't respond to anything 

I had a cheap Toshiba that died a sudden death.  If you cannot see any BIOS messages (on any screen) OR any lights on case then it sounds dead. Holding power button for 20secs with battery out and mains plugged in BUT with mains switch off, may bring it back but I wouldn't hold your breath.

Cisco001

Is £515 too expensive?

This one with OLED screen
https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/asus-vivobook-oled-156-amd-ryzen-5-8gb-ram-512gb-ssd-membership-required-ps49999-at-costco-3831280

CoastingHatbox

Have Asus fixed the power supply sockets wearing out?