Please help me choose between a Dell or HP laptop

lr1277

Hi. Hope you can help.

My current HP laptop is over 8 years old and is showing signs of physical wear (the 'j' key no longer works and it is taking longer and longer to start up and close down at the end. So I am in the market for a new laptop.I can't get a keyboard as I am working with limited space so don't have the room for extra kit.

For a similar spec machine, why are Dell laptops twice the price of HP laptops? Are they inherently better. One advantage of Dell laptops if bought from Dell is that they offer next day on-site service/repair, which I have found useful in the past, however you do pay for this service. I have not found this service on the HP website.

Btw: I am looking for reliabilithy and dependability. In this respect HP and Dell fit the bill.

Thanks in advance for any posts.

J_B

You have a laptop from HP that's 8 years old and you're wondering about reliability - hmm

I suspect you could take it to a local repair shop, get the keyboard fixed, fit an SSD and it *may* prolong it's life for circa £50

Whatever you prefer.

EssexExile

Have you looked at the HP outlet store?
https://www.hp.com/gb-en/shop/offer.aspx?p=c-hp-outlet

MattMattMattUK

My personal opinion would be Dell, although I have had good HP laptops in the past. Dell build quality seems to be better at all price points but especially anything under £1,000. Their after sales care is exceptional and I would not rate HPs at all.

Also since the HP printer ink firmware changes I just cannot trust or support HP.

lr1277

EssexExile said:

Have you looked at the HP outlet store?
https://www.hp.com/gb-en/shop/offer.aspx?p=c-hp-outlet

Thanks. I looked at the regular HP store. Didn't realise there was an outlet store. Will take a look.

lr1277

MattMattMattUK said:

My personal opinion would be Dell, although I have had good HP laptops in the past. Dell build quality seems to be better at all price points but especially anything under £1,000. Their after sales care is exceptional and I would not rate HPs at all.

Also since the HP printer ink firmware changes I just cannot trust or support HP.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I think I bought my Dell in 2003 and it lasted till 2009 so say 6 year lifespan. I can't remember why I replaced it. I bought my HP in 2014 and it is the laptop I am now looking to fix or replace.So 8+ year lifespan. Since I bought from HP from PC world, I got what was in the box. So this is a HP Envry Beats. The bass sounds dropped from the speakers in about 2017. So in that respect, less than desirable. But everything else seems to work ok, except starting up and shutting down take longer than I am used to.

At the price points I am looking at, a Dell is upwards of £2600 and the HP is under £1400. Not including accessories and other paraphernalia.

The odd thing is the specs from 2014 are not much different from the specs available now.

i7 processorboth then and now. i9 processors are rare.

Back then I got 12MB ram and now can get 16 or 32MB, or less for that matter.

The main difference now seems to be SSD for hard drives and no built-in CD/DVD drive. And no ethernet port, though I stopped using a cabled network and now use wi-fi. I suppose the advantage is the machine could be thinner and lighter, though I haven't measured either property.

lr1277

From 2009 till 2015 I had a Dell workstation. That entirely broke down on me in that in the end it wouldn't even boot up.

400ixl

Both are of similar quality with retail and business focussed laptops which are built with different materials and price points. 
Retail devices tend to be more plastic frames and business ones having alloy frames.

I would agree that Dell do tend to have better customer support than HP does these days, but it is far from perfect.

If build quality is important then I would also throw Lenovo into the mix as they do tend to be very robust. If price is important then Asus and Acer could be worth a look as well, some of the higher range is pretty good these days.

Find the right spec you need and then look at the brands and prices from there.

An i7 processor for today will be many times faster then one from 8 years ago, as well as being far more energy efficient. As for memory, 16Gb should be the minimum for any performance laptop these days (8gb for just casual home use on an i5 for example).

With USB C now being the standard (I would suggest finding one which also charges by USB C) you can connect many devices via that at high speed. Hence many ports shifted to multiple of those being provided and adaptors used for whichever you wanted to convert it to.

DVD's phased out mostly for space, but equally because people tended to use USB memory sticks or MicroSD cards.

SSD is so much faster for boot than older spindle disks and again smaller so have become the standard now. Prices have also come down to make a decent sized SSD affordable.

datostar

lr1277 said:

From 2009 till 2015 I had a Dell workstation. That entirely broke down on me in that in the end it wouldn't even boot up.

Usually blown capacitors on the motherboard on Dells from that era and anybody else's motherboards don't fit the case. Same happened to me!

EssexExile

lr1277 said:

EssexExile said:

Have you looked at the HP outlet store?
https://www.hp.com/gb-en/shop/offer.aspx?p=c-hp-outlet

Thanks. I looked at the regular HP store. Didn't realise there was an outlet store. Will take a look.

Or the Dell outlet:
https://www.dell.com/en-uk/dfh/shop/dell-refurbished/cp/outlet

I'm using a "scratched or dented" laptop from there.