OV9

My wife needs something as she wants to start studying something soon and it'll be shared with our son for his Google Classroom stuff, as it's not practical for him to use my work laptop.

Want a proper SSD, no eMMC or UHS stuff. Battery life and screen quality more important than gaming capability, naturally. As long as it can stream youtube vids without dropping frames I'll be happy. Prefer AMD over Intel but it's not a deal-breaker. Not ashamed to go into Currys to pick something up if theirs is the best price. Budget £500-£600 or so. Windows, not chromebook.

What would anyone recommend please?

Screen size ???

This will largely determine the quality of machine you'll get for your budget...

Edit - Assuming 15"...

I've had a couple of Lenovo's and they haven't put a foot wrong. Perhaps something like this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flagship-Lenov ... 157&sr=1-7

Other half has similar (but smaller screen and Intel i3 chip)

but I'm no expert - there are others on here who will give you better advice

Similar needs - very recently got one of these for my eldest

Decent i5 processor
16gb RAM
512GB SSD

https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/lenovo- ... ersion.asp

I've bought all mine secondhand from eBay. You'll get a business grade machine that's a couple of years old, looks brand-new and that'll run anything you need from an office/study perspective. £3-400 is plenty.

There are plenty of Lenovo T-series ones at that price point.

Thanks. Yes, Forgot to say screen size. 15-16 inch. That ballpark. Funnily enough I looked at a Lenovo on Currys website as there are a couple on offer on there. My son has a Lenovo tablet for play which is good value.

Only thing putting me off is the extra number pad on the keyboard. Not a fan of number pads at all, let alone using up space on a laptop keyboard.

I think that’s pretty common with the 15.6-16” screen models no?
As they have “spare space” compared to smaller models.

I've a Dell Precision 5560 (basically a business XPS) 15.6 laptop and that doesn't have it. It feels more 'right', especially as the keyboard isn't then off-centre....

Ironically, and slightly contradicting my original request, I have bought one of these.

However, I paid just £249 from the Currys refurbished section. Listed as 'very good condition', what arrived is literally flawless. Only 1 charging cycle on the battery too. Absolute bargain.

It'll do till later in the year when my job/side hustle situation is more stable and I can treat myself to something better (and the Lenovo will become a family/lounge device useful for my son to access Google Classroom).

Very happy, especially as I had £130 of Currys voucher from work, so this laptop cost me £119 of my own cash.

I bought this for my stepson for Christmas: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09TKKNQHV - £449, OLED screen (only Full HD though), 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD. It should do him for a while with that memory and storage. He seemed really pleased with it. Often going for the versions with more RAM and storage can get you a better deal because they're slower sellers. Not a patch on the price of your deal though!

DeskJockey wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2024 5:11 pm I've bought all mine secondhand from eBay. You'll get a business grade machine that's a couple of years old, looks brand-new and that'll run anything you need from an office/study perspective. £3-400 is plenty.

There are plenty of Lenovo T-series ones at that price point.

Second that. I know nothing about windows/PC laptops, however needed one for a couple of random tasks that wouldn't run on parallels, so bought a second-hand HP Elitebook off eBay for £200 which is really well screwed together and does everything I need (running TikTok Live Studio and some random temp logger software)

Simon, yes less than £500 and with an oled screen seems awesome value.

I should've said that my original needs changed - this would've been just for my wife and son's usage, but what with leaving my job and therefore my work laptop going back I needed something too.

My main machine is a decent spec desktop in my office, but I like to have something around the house for light usage.

Still loving it.

Costco normally have cracking deals, if you or someone you know has an account.

Also need a new laptop this caught my eye as it was a very good price.
https://www.costco.co.uk/Computers/Lap ... 1/p/525234
Drove to Costco tonight as items in store are usually cheaper than online but it was the same price. And lost £12.50 to ULEZ as I’ve currently got the Defender in London due to the snow. But that meant I could buy enough toilet paper and beer to see me through WW3.

Anyway, so far the laptop is nice, all magnesium body and it charges with USB C and has an SD card slot which is rare these days so I now don’t need to carry any extra cables or adapters.