Buying Notebook in October

Vitor

Notwithstanding the OP's comment about buying online, I've always done well with Amazon certified refurbs of HP Elitebook 840s. 14" screen and designed for business users so very tough and well engineered. They're currently selling Generation 11 new but a refurbed G9 is still a very useable machine. 

Aidanmc

goodValue said:

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?

Argos, Currys, Amazon, John Lewis and Very are all worth checking out.
I bought an Acer Aspire 3 recently from Very, and i'm very happy with it

goodValue

Looking at the Asus Vivobook range, how about the Vivobook Go? 14"

I had a look at the specifications which included:

CPU: Intel® Celeron® N4500 2 Core-Processor

Memory: 4GB DDR4 RAM

Storage: 64GB eMMC

Screen: 14 in FHD Screen

GPU: Intel® UHD Graphics

OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Home S 64-bit

Isn't 8GB Ram and 512 GB storage normally recommended as minimun?

Is Windows 11 Home S a cut-down version of the operating system?

QrizB

goodValue said:

Isn't 8GB Ram and 512 GB storage normally recommended as minimun?

4GB / 64GB meet Microsoft's minimum requirements for Windows 11.

You've not yet given any requirement that would demand more. You've not mentioned gaming, handling databases, video editing etc.

Do you need to do any of these things?

goodValue said:

Is Windows 11 Home S a cut-down version of the operating system?

It's Windows 11 Home but limited to only running apps from the Windows Store. You can switch it into "full" Windows 11 Home at any time.

https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/got-a-new-laptop-with-windows-11-in-s-mode-lets-break-down-what-that-means-and-how-to-switch-it-off-if-its-not-for-you

If you don't like the sound of this option, please explain why. If you can be more explicit about what you're looking for, we might be able to give better suggestions.

SiliconChip

Travel seems to be one of your key uses so you might be better with a tablet, possibly with a physical keyboard if you're planning to type a lot.

goodValue

4GB / 64GB meet Microsoft's minimum requirements for Windows 11.

It seems I'm getting conflicting advice.

Previously I read that a minimum of 8GB Ram/256 or 512 GB? storage was necessary. 

I keep seeing this repeated without any qualification of the tasks to be done.

So it appears to be a basic need for a Windows machine.

That said, I have not seen any evidence presented for this minimum, so how did it originate?

Vitor

I wouldn't go less than 8GB of RAM. The SSD size is less critical as you can push data up to OneDrive

Newcad

Don't get too bogged down on the RAM, someone who wants to play multi-player games online needs more RAM than someone who just wants some browsing/shopping/streaming.

I've seen ridiculous amounts of RAM quoted as being "the minumum' despite all evidence to the contrary. (Oh and they never qualify if they mean DDR3, DDR4, or DDR5 RAM).

Unless you are MRPG'ing or video editing i'd say 8 GB of DDR4 or DDR5 RAM is fine for general use of Windows 11.*

Personally in February my 10 year old Asus laptop died and I got a 15.6" Lenovo laptop from Argos, intel 12th gen i5 processor, 8 GB of fast DDR5 Ram (soldered in so not expandable), and a 256 GB NVMe drive.

It's  a great little machine if you are not a gamer, or Youtube streamer, it may be a bit on the big size for what you want, but is fairly light.

PS back in Feb.  I got it on 25% off sale at £280, it's currently not much more than that at £299:

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8488617?clickPR=plp:3:53

*Just as a by-the-way, I have an old desktop computer that runs Windows 98SE, it has 127 MB of RAM and runs Word, Excel, etc, and even Autocad 2000i with no problem  of course it doesn't have to cope with the internet.

QrizB

goodValue said:

4GB / 64GB meet Microsoft's minimum requirements for Windows 11.
It seems I'm getting conflicting advice.

Microsoft publish minimum specs. Microsoft say the minimum spec for Windows 11 is 4GB / 64GB.

Asus wouldn't be selling a Windows 11 machine that didn't meet the minimum specs.

Frozen_up_north

I wouldn't rush to buy the slowest/lowest spec laptop, given the Lenovo recommended by Newcad is only £299 and in stock at Argos - which is really good value.

The amount of storage used by my laptop is currently hovering around the 150 GB mark, I have a few installed programs including Paintshop Pro, Word, Excel, etc. I don't save a lot of images or documents on my laptop as they are stored in the cloud for security.