Laptop Recommendations for Normal People

[sonofsanta]

tl:dr; this will be a thread for laptop deals to recommend to other staff for personal use. Post good deals when you find them!

 

In full: people often ask us what's a good laptop to buy, and we're happy to recommend so that they don't end up getting fleeced by a shop floor salesman nor end up with something chronically underpowered because it was the cheapest option. What's around/on offer/good value changes almost weekly, though, so I thought we could crowdsource this work a little bit - we can't be the only ones who do this, so there must be times when we can help each other out.

 

My hope is that everytime you need to recommend a laptop to someone, you can check this thread (and mayhap, in time, it can be stickied); if someone has posted something in the last week, result! You've just saved half an hour of research and can send a recommendation straight over. If there's nothing recent, when you've done the shopping around you'd do anyway, you can post a link up here and hopefully save someone else the time.

 

This isn't about the best laptop to use in school - it's about having an answer when people say "my son is going to University, what would be a good laptop for him to take?" Any laptop posted here should be available Joe Bloggs to buy on his credit card: no education specific models, no invoice only suppliers. I don't mind if suppliers post in here so long as they are happy for people to phone them and make personal purchases, and if it is actually a good deal, in line with previous offerings.

 

In general, when we recommend a laptop, it's something that only has to run Office & Chrome but needs to last a few years. We look for something with an i3 or i5 in it (the latter can be good deals sometimes), 4GB+ of RAM and from a decent make - Lenovo and Asus get our approval for being fairly sturdy as consumer laptops go, you may have your own preferences. The ideal price point is around £300, depending on offers, and we usually recommend a 256GB Crucial MX100 SSD as well and copy the laptop image over for people (for the price of beer, ofc).

 

Hopefully this grows to be a useful thread for curated laptop deals; I reckon we end up looking around every 4-6 weeks so even if no-one else posts*, maybe someone else can make use of what we turn up

 

*but please do

[sonofsanta]

So, laptop deals as of 17th November 2014:

 

Lenovo B50-70 - £300 (£250 after cashback) on eBuyer

Intel Haswell Core i3-4010U Dual Core, 1.7GHz (ultra-low voltage CPU - lower performance, better battery life)

4GB RAM, 500GB HDD

15.6" 1366 x 768 display

Windows 8.1 x64

 

Lenovo G510 - £300 on Amazon

Intel Core i3-4000M, 2.4GHz

4GB RAM, 500GB HDD

15.6" 1366 x 768 display

Windows 8.1 x64

 

Personally I prefer M processors to U processors, but £50 isn't insignificant if you are prepared to deal with the faff of cashback. Depends on personal preference, though.

 

We also recommend the 256GB Crucial MX100 to upgrade any laptop, currently £51.74 on Amazon.

[sonofsanta]

"I don't want to spend more than a thousand pounds, but I want it to last." Last? For £1000, it'll wash your car and mow your lawn for you.

 

Best options with a bit more headroom in the cost, then. All of these recommended with the addition of £79 spent on a 256GB MX100 SSD

 

£300: PC World, Lenovo i3-4005U, 4GB RAM - good spec for now if anyone you know wants a cheap laptop, but doesn't meet future requirements as well as some of the pricier options

 

£450 gets you a Lenovo with an i5-4200U and 8GB of RAM at Amazon, but...

 

...£470 gets you the same with an i7-4510U instead. Worth the £20 upgrade, I reckon. Also at PC World for £500 if Amazon run out of stock.

 

My preference, though, money allowing, is £520 for a Lenovo with an i7-4510U, 8GB RAM, nVidia 820M and a 1080p screen in a slimmer chassis at Amazon. Looks lovely. Nearly £600 with a true SSD in, but if someone is willing to spend the money it'll be grand.

 

I'm still amazed that PC World are one of the best options for laptop purchases at the moment. They're seriously upped their game. Now we just need manufacturers to start using proper M chips instead of silly ULV U chips!

Edited December 18, 2014 by sonofsanta

[yugo]

Good idea sonofsanta, although I missed this in November. Like you I'm always being asked my opinion on the best laptop or tablet etc.

[jinnantonnixx]

Good thread idea.

 

Suggestion (if the fancy takes you) - make a public Google Doc of these deals and paste the link. This way the thread won't be full of out-of-date deals and the doc will contain the current best deals.

Edited December 18, 2014 by jinnantonnixx

[nicholab]

I would say the Lenovo E540

[witch]

For people who want a higher quality laptop than they could afford new, I recommend ICT-Direct. They do sell to non-business customers

[Arthur]

I'm still amazed that PC World are one of the best options for laptop purchases at the moment. They're seriously upped their game.

Except for the mandatory £35 "setup" fee if you use reserve and collect.

 

www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/2qjkpl/scam_alert_dont_buy_your_next_laptop_from

[sonofsanta]

Except for the mandatory £35 "setup" fee if you use reserve and collect.

 

www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/2qjkpl/scam_alert_dont_buy_your_next_laptop_from

 

Righto, that's PC World removed from my recommendations going forward. I knew their recent reasonable prices were too good to be true; I had, in my naivety and optimism, thought that they were just turning their business aroung by being competitive. Heaven forfend

[newpersn]

What about this one:

Lenovo Essential B5400 Laptop

 

Intel Core i3-4000M 2.4GHz

4GB RAM + 500GB HDD

15.6" LED + DVDRW

Webcam + Bluetooth

Windows 7 + 8 Professional

 

£339.99 (Cash back: £50) Until 31st Jan

Edited January 5, 2015 by newpersn

[MkII]

ASUS EeeBook X205 - £180 ish

 

Processor Quad-core Intel® Atom™ Z3735 Processor (Bay Trail –T)

Operating system Windows 8.1 with Bing

Display 11.6-inch LED backlit HD screen (1366 x 768)

Cameras VGA camera

Memory 2GB RAM

storage eMMC 32GB plus 500GB ASUS WebStorage (free for 2 years)1

Connectivity 802.11a/b/g/n dual-band Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.0

Interface 2 x USB 2.0

3.5mm audio jack (headphone / mic)

Micro-HDMI

microSD card slot (SDXC)

Battery 38Wh, up to 12 hours (for web browsing)

Colors Black, White, Gold, Red

Size 286 x 193.3 x 17.5mm

Weight 980g

 

 

HP Stream 14 - £200

 

A super low end machine, a 14" 1366x768 nontouchscreen laptop, running 2GB of soldered on, non-upgradeable RAM, eMMC based storage (think a slow SSD) and a Quad-Core AMD Mullins A4 6400T APU, pretty basic CPU, but the iGPU matches the higher end iGPU of intel silicone, you can play portal 2 at native res everything on good settings with no hiccups, but again, CPU perf is nothing special... at all.

 

Windows 8.1 64

AMD Quad-Core A4 micro-6400T

35.6 cm (14") diagonal HD BrightView display

2GB DDR 3 Memory and 32GB eMMC storage

[sonofsanta]

N-n-n-necro!

 

This laptop (eBuyer, £260) is too good not to post about. Normal sort of price for a 15" i3 + 4GB, from a decent brand, but it already comes with a 128GB SSD installed. Can't find anything useful about what SSD it is, but as far as most people's needs are concerned, any SSD is good enough SSD.

[LeMarchand]

N-n-n-necro!

 

This laptop (eBuyer, £260) is too good not to post about. Normal sort of price for a 15" i3 + 4GB, from a decent brand, but it already comes with a 128GB SSD installed. Can't find anything useful about what SSD it is, but as far as most people's needs are concerned, any SSD is good enough SSD.

 

8GB RAM but quad core Pentium Lenovos £249 + VAT from @VeryPC this week: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/our-advertisers/175218-week-1-stocktober-special-offer.html