Buying Notebook in October

goodValue

A couple of months ago I was finding out about Chromebooks, but it looked like what I really needed was a Notebook.

I didn't seem to be making progress in finding a particular Notebook, so I decided to wait until expected sales in October.

I'm not much of a consumer so don't know details of the October sales - it's called Black Friday?? and is in late October?? Is that right?

Searching for a Notebook wasn't going well because though I used Notebook as a keyword, the search would always return Laptops - so giving a large number of products.

When I filtered by putting 12" or 13" screens, all the results seemed to be high cost. I was expecting Notebooks to be at the low cost end of the laptop spectrum.

Can I do a better search for Notebooks?

Neil_Jones

A note book is to all intents and purposes the same thing as a laptop in terms of a portable computer.

Sales / Black Friday deals not guaranteed and aren't always what they seem anyway.

What do you want to do with the unit and what's your budget?

Why do you specifically want a 12/13" screen?

Vitor

'Netbooks' was a term used to describe devices with 10"-12" screens but the market for them was taken over by tablets (iPad/Samsung Tab/Microsoft Surface Go) up to 11" with detachable keyboard as part of the flip-case. Notebooks now are generally 14" and upwards, some like the devices with ARM CPU are optimised for very long battery life, others are more performance inc. some light gaming. 

The Samsung Tab A9+ 11" Android tablet was £122 for a bit (see other thread) plus £25 for a keyboard/case

QrizB

Might a nice pre-loved Dell 7320 suit you?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/336157783288

Some major corporation will have paid £1000 or so for that back in 2022, and today it could be yours for one-fifth of that.

goodValue

I want a small, light laptop, as it will be used when I travel.

I need a keyboard, and so tablets wouldn't be suitable.

I have very little experience buying tech products, so I don't want to buy second-hand or online.

I have a couple of Windows apps that I would want on the device, so a tablet with a keyboard wouldn't be suitable.

I've not heard of Microsoft Surface Go, so I'll do a search on that.

Is it true to say that the laptops with 12"/13" screens are not really Notebooks (as they have disappeared), and so are not entry-level devices; they could have much better specifications than entry-level machines. Could they be light enough to make travelling with them easy? 

QrizB

goodValue said:

Is it true to say that the laptops with 12"/13" screens are not really Notebooks (as they have disappeared), and so are not entry-level devices; they could have much better specifications than entry-level machines. Could they be light enough to make travelling with them easy? 

Nine years ago my son had an 11" HP Stream x360 like this, when he was in secondary school. It ws definitely small and light, measuring 30.6 x 20.8 x 2 cm and weighing 1.35 kg. That might be what you're thinking of when you refer to a notebook; roughly the same size as an A4 sheet (29.7 x 21 cm).

The 13" Dell 7230 I link to above is possibly slightly smaller than the HP Stream, at 30.7 x 2 x 1.8 cm, and weighs less at 1.29 kg. It's also a much better computer in every resepect (although it doesn't have a touch screen).

I would suggest that a laptop of that size and weight should be easy to travel with. I have a similar machine and use it for that purpose.

Edit:

According to Wikipedia, a notebook computer was originally "seen as having a footprint exactly that of or smaller than letter paper (8.5 by 11 inches or 22 by 28 centimetres) ... An additional distinction was weight, with 8 pounds (3.6 kg) a loose upper limit". A foonote says that in metric countries, A4 paper size was the limit rather than letter.

So both my examples are metic notebook dimensions (A4 paper sized) but less half the weight.

Does this help at all?

SiliconChip

Not sure where you've got the idea that Black Friday is in October. It's origin is as the Friday following Thanksgiving in the USA, and Thanksgiving has long been the 4th Thursday in November, so this year Black Friday is on 28th November. However, you'll find that the sales are likely to start earlier than that and continue later, with Cyber Monday (the Monday after Black Friday) falling on 1st December, which is typically the day when many online retailers have their sale. 

Vitor

- I have very little experience buying tech products, so I don't want to buy second-hand or online. - 

Probably best to go to John Lewis, they're still doing 2 year guarantees on laptops. They have machines with acceptable specs. for example ASUS Vivobook 16 Laptop, AMD Ryzen 5 Processor, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 16” WUXGA, Silver

Frozen_up_north

Goodvalue, the smaller notebook/laptops tended to be either cheap, low spec ones, or expensive ones often favoured by corporate users for presentations.

The vast majority of reasonably priced laptops are in the 14" to 16" size and priced from £300 to £500. Assuming you are looking at a Windows 11 Home laptop, a typical example is the HP 15.6" Ryzen 5, with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD, item 344/3499 from Argos, price £369.

The minimum memory/storage for a Windows laptop is 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD.

Beware of the many "silver" coloured laptops, my OH has a really nice Asus Vivobook in Silver with a backlit keyboard... you struggle to see the letters/numbers on the keyboard in typical room lighting, they are in white on silver! The Dell I am typing this on also has a backlit keyboard, but is white letters on black keys, a vast improvement over that Vivobook silver keyboard.

goodValue

Probably best to go to John Lewis

I've also seen Argos recommended, but Curry's not.

Are there any other shops worth visiting?

It looked like your ASUS Vivobook recommendation is a 16" machine, which would be too big for travel.

I did check the size in the Product specification, but didn't understand the following:

Dimensions H310 x W65 x D488cm

The vast majority of reasonably priced laptops are in the 14" to 16" size and priced from £300 to £500. 

So does looking for a lightweight 14" laptop seem a good idea for a laptop that will be used when travelling?

QrizB

goodValue said:

So does looking for a lightweight 14" laptop seem a good idea for a laptop that will be used when travelling?

Looking at the Asus Vivobook range, how about the Vivobook Go? 14", cheap, not particularly powerful (a similar class of machine to the HP stream my son had in 2016) but might work for you?

Looking at your previous thread, your requirements were:

1 storing travel data - mainly offline use
2 a small light device w/o the problems I get using a mobile for internet use

I would expect a Vivobook Go to be adequate for this.

https://www.asus.com/uk/laptops/for-home/vivobook/vivobook-go-14-e410/