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So, you’ve got a budget of £350 per laptop and you’re weighing up whether it’s better to buy new or buy refurbished. Right now, HP have got some cracking deals on. You can pick up a brand-new, and imaginatively named, HP Laptop 14” with Windows 11 for around £340 ex.VAT. Meanwhile, at ICT Direct we’ve got a refurbished HP 14” Windows 11 laptop priced at £310 ex.VAT. (Left/Top) NEW HP Laptop 14" (14-ep1010nax) £340.83 ex.VAT | (Right/Bottom) REFURBISHED HP Elitebook 840 G9 £310 ex.VAT £30 more for a brand-new laptop? It’s surely a no brainer, right? They have the same size screen, they both have Intel CPU’s, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage. At first glance, they’re almost identical, and even photos of them look the same. But one is a 4-year old business class laptop, and the other is a brand-new consumer laptop. So, for comparison’s sake, let’s throw in the most affordable, new, HP Business-Class laptop money can buy too, again with an Intel Processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB Storage: NEW HP 250R G10 £555.99 ex.VAT Eek! That price is a fair way beyond our budget! All because we added “business-class” to the description? This is taken from Misco’s website, as HP are only selling their most premium business class devices directly, but it is still a readily available budget business device. Unlike the other 2 devices, this has a 15.6” screen – the new 14” business-class laptops available all cost more than this, so I deemed the 250R a good comparison machine regardless. Somehow, you have to navigate which of these options is actually best value for money, so I’ve thrown them head-to-head (to-head?) in a breakdown based purely off HP’s datasheet’s and website, and third-party CPU performance benchmarks, and ranked them 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Surprise, surprise – in a blog written by a refurbished IT Salesperson, the refurb unit wins! So, don’t just take my word for it based on this chart alone, let’s get into the details of what this all means. Screen: NEW HP Laptop 14” Refurbished HP EliteBook 840 G9 NEW HP 250R G10 14” 1366x768 TN Panel 250 Nits Brightness 3rd 14” 1920x1200 IPS 400 Nits Brightness 1st 15.6” 1920x1080 IPS 250 Nits Brightness 2nd The HP Laptop 14” is the biggest loser here – IPS displays are far superior to TN Panels, and the Refurb 830 G9 unit pips the 250R with its extra screen real-estate, pixel density and much brighter screen. In fact, it has over double the number of pixels of the HP Laptop 14”! As I mentioned the 250R does have the larger display and if that is important to you, then it’s worth keeping in mind. CPU: NEW HP Laptop 14” Refurbished HP EliteBook 840 G9 NEW HP 250R G10 Intel Core 3 – 100U 3rd Intel Core i5 – 1245U 2nd Intel Core 5 – 120U 1st This turned out to be very close; there is not a lot of difference between these three. They all have a TDP of 15W; both the Core 5 and i5 have 10 cores and 12 threads; both the newer CPUs Turbo higher, but the Refurb has the higher base clock speed. Based on comparisons on cpubenchmark.net and technical.city, these are our results. Table data taken directly from https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/5948vs4733vs5892/Intel-3-100U-vs-Intel-i5-1245U-vs-Intel-5-120U RAM: NEW HP Laptop 14” Refurbished HP EliteBook 840 G9 NEW HP 250R G10 8GB DDR4 3200MT/s Not user-upgradable 2nd 8GB DDR5 4800MT/s Upgradable to 64GB Joint 1st 8GB DDR5 5600MT/s Upgradable to 32GB Joint 1st Another clear loser here – despite being 4 years newer than the 840 G9, the New HP Laptop 14” is using slower DDR4 memory, plus it’s not upgradable and is soldered to the motherboard! Given the RAM shortages of 2025/26 this is a tactical way to keep costs down. The 2 business-class devices are tied in 1st place as they both use much faster DDR5. If you need 64GB of RAM, the 840 G9 wins. If you don’t, the 250R supports faster RAM, so comes out on top. Storage: A 3-way tie! They all have 256GB M.2 NVMe drives, they’re all user-upgradable, they all support PCIe Gen 4. Ports: NEW HP Laptop 14” Refurbished HP EliteBook 840 G9 NEW HP 250R G10 1x USB Type-C (10Gbps, Power Delivery, DisplayPort 1.4b) 1x HDMI 1.4b Joint 2nd 2x Thunderbolt 4 USB Type-C (40Gbps, PD, DisplayPort 1.4b) 1x HDMI 2.0 1st 1x USB Type-C (10Gbps, Power Delivery, DisplayPort 1.4b) 1x HDMI 1.4b Joint 2nd They all have 2x USB Type-A (5Gbps) ports, and they all have a headphone/microphone jack too. But the 840 G9 has the higher spec HDMI port, and 2x Thunderbolt 4 ports, that’s double the USB-C and quadruple the speed in each! Wi-Fi: NEW HP Laptop 14” Refurbished HP EliteBook 840 G9 NEW HP 250R G10 Realtek Wi-Fi 6 3rd Intel AX211 Wi-Fi 6e 1st Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 2nd This one is straight forward. Intel Wi-Fi cards are better (and more expensive) than Realtek ones, and Wi-Fi 6e can support faster speeds than Wi-Fi 6. HP don't actually do us the courtesy of including what model of Wi-Fi card the Realtek one is! Build Quality: NEW HP Laptop 14” Refurbished HP EliteBook 840 G9 NEW HP 250R G10 Plastic Chassis MIL-STD-810H Tested Joint 2nd All-aluminium chassis MIL-STD-810H Tested 1st Plastic Chassis MIL-STD-810H Tested Joint 2nd Both new laptops are built of plastic – they’ve got a lovely silver coat of paint to look much like their EliteBook counterpart, but the 840 G9 is all Aluminium and built to last. It’s a premium feeling product, and there’s no paint to chip off. Charging: NEW HP Laptop 14” Refurbished HP EliteBook 840 G9 NEW HP 250R G10 45 W AC power adapter (recommended, sold separately Joint 2nd 45 W AC power adapter INCLUDED IN THE PRICE 1st 45 W AC power adapter (recommended, sold separately Joint 2nd I honestly hadn’t realised the whole laptop market was onboard with charging extra for power supplies and lucky for you, ICT Direct still isn’t onboard with it. All our laptops come with a charging brick. Price: HP Laptop 14” HP EliteBook 840 G9 HP 250R G10 NEW RRP: £499.17 Offer Price: £340.83 NEW RRP: £1000 Our Price: £310 NEW RRP: £555.99 Misco Price: £555.99 The RRP should tell you all you need to know – it may be 4 years old but the 840 G9 was valued at around the price of the other 2 laptops combined. It remains a top-end business class laptop, and the clear winner. HP’s top-end laptops today will set you back at least £1000, if not more, but they’re designed to last. That’s why we provide a 3-year Advance Replace Warranty to our managed customers, also included in the price, rather than as a paid return-to-base add-on from new. So, is the EliteBook 840 G9 the best offering for you? It’s the cheapest, and it wins by far the most categories when put head-to-head against new alternatives. It’s the toughest, with an aluminium chassis designed to survive the daily combat of school warfare. It’s easily customisable both at purchase and once in your hands – we can configure it to more RAM, or a larger NVMe; or you can upgrade it yourself further along the line. It feels daft to be typing this but... IT COMES WITH A CHARGER. There is only one more question to ask. How many can I put you down for?

The oxford dictionary doesn't define OOMF as a 12th Gen Intel i7 with 16GB of DDR5 and an Nvidia T550 GPU. BUT I DO. We've got our hands on some lovely HP ZBook Firefly 14 G9's with some cracking specs: CPU: i7-1265U (10 Cores, 12 Threads, Max Turbo of 4.8GHz) RAM: 16GB DDR5 Memory Storage: 512GB NVMe Display: 14" WUXGA (1920x1200) GPU: Nvidia T550 Mobile (4GB GDDR6) A Grade Refurbished Condition BUT WHAT DO THEY LOOK LIKE?! Nice eh? But that just begs one more question. HOW MUCH FOR AN A GRADE? £475 exVAT Reach out to me at [email protected] for a quote and if you're after several, many, or even lots, we can look into a volume discount.

I have been told to look into buying a couple new laptops. My minimum spec is at least i3, 4GB Ram and a screen size around 15". They will run on Win7 and preferably have a dvd drive. The laptop image is currently at around 80GB so I don't need a massive 1TB HDD. Does anyone have any recommendations on what to look into? Top end of the budget is about £400-£450 a laptop.

fell from car roof.... Can you believe the screen is ok and it works, touchpad and keyboard!

Title : Or help me choose. So its my birthday next month so I am thinking of upgrading my ageing Lenovo SL500 with something that has a bit more grunt. Here is my wishlist. i5 (Quad core) 8gb ram+ 1tb or SSD DVD drive could duel boot linux £££ - Under £600 Main use - Website development work, Graphics, some games, general internet use, will be used in place of my aging secondary desktop. What do people recommend?

One of my friends is looking for a new laptop for around £400-500. Portability/battery life isn't an issue as it's his main PC so a desktop replacement style model would probably be the preferred type. Ideally needs to fall into the following criteria :- £400-500 Windows 7 15-17" Screen Any recommendations would be appreciated TIA

I have many laptop PSUs with damaged low Voltage plugs/leads. Since new PSUs cost anything from £20 - £70, I offered to fit new plugs @ £2. Our new school manager thought this was not a good idea from a legal liability poit of view. In the past I did all sorts of repairs and wiring. I've stopped mains wiring now, because by the time you've paid to have it certified, you might as well let a contractor do it and self-certify. But I had continued to do anything at Extra Low Voltage. I just wondered, what happens elsewhere?

Hi I was wondering if this is possible. I am trying to find out when laptops where last brought in and connected to the network. I need to be able to do this from the server end. I was wondering if there is any way from within AD? Any help on this would be really great. i have got windows server 2003 Cheers

We have received a letter from Ergo, who provided laptops and a trolley to us a few years ago. The HSE has issued a statement regarding laptop trolleys and their lack of CE marks. HSE - Services - Education ? Information sources / Guidance - Laptop computer charging trolleys safety alert Ergo outlined the issues to us in a letter dated the 10th of October. Firstly the trolleys do not have a CE mark, which doesn't necessarily make them unsafe but without assurances from the manufacturer, they represent an unquantifiable risk. Secondly there is a concern raised about the residual voltage on the pins of the plug which could cause a shock. Thirdly there is a risk of damage to the power cables (being run over for example) which is a particular risk on trolleys using more than one cable. Lastly the HSE requires all none CE approved trolleys to be operated with earth leakage trips either on the disboard, or the mains plug itself. Ergos full response is here… http://www.ergo.co.uk/pdf/trolleys/ergoPDFletter.pdf Ergo today have sent us a compliance pack, which is basically some cable tidy to wrap around the trolleys cables so they are kept together, and some signs warning of potential dangers. They also advise that all staff are trained in the proper use of the trolley (ie. switch off the plug before unplugging it). I suspect this all comes from the guy in Bradford who got zapped last Christmas. Anyone else been contacted? Do you think this is a little over the top, or perhaps an accident waiting to happen?

Hi Wasn't sure which area to post this one in as it's Windows but also CC3 and firewall related. Let me know if I need to move it :-) I have a teacher using Moodle but on his laptop he gets problems where the RMSmartCache proxy stops him navigating around at seemlingly random points. E.g. he'll log in, be using it for 10 mins and then when tries to move to another page within Moodle, the proxy/firewall error reports he cannot get to the page. This is not the RM blocked warning, just the smartcache box reporting no access. The Laptop is set up on XP using CC3 and on IE7. Any ideas? I'm stumped at the moment. Cheers Nozza

After another round of covertly dual purpose batterys/anti-personal mines were included in laptops yet another recall is in effect. Said batteries have a tendency to catch fire and exibit macroscopic expantion in a microscopic time period. HP Recalls Notebook Computer Batteries Due to Fire Hazard The batteries were manufactured around 2007-2008, I wonder how may other manufacturers will end up needing to issue a recall. HP site: http://bpr.hpordercenter.com/hbpr/M14.aspx Affected laptops: HP Pavilion dv2000 dv2500 dv2700 dv6000 dv6500 dv6700 dv9000 dv9500 dv9700 Compaq Presario A900 C700 F700 V3000 V3500 V3700 V6000 V6500 V6700 HP G6000 G7000 HP Compaq 6720s Batteries that can be subject to the recall will have one of the following bar code labels (^ in the code can be any letter or number): 62940^^AXV^^^^ 65033^^B7U^^^^ 65033^^B7V^^^^ 65033^^BGU^^^^ 65035^^B7U^^^^ 65035^^B7V^^^^ 65035^^BGU^^^^ 65035^^BGV^^^^ 67059^^V8U^^^^ 67059^^V8V^^^^

When I connect a projector to a laptop, I'm getting 2 images side by side. I've tried adjusting the resolution and settings with no luck. Any suggestions? Thanks S.

Hello, Just a quick one. The hard drive in one of our DELL Latitude 505's has failed. Can I just put any EIDE into it to replace it?

Hi, Just looking for laptop recommendations which could be downgraded to XP. Has anyone managed downgrade a laptop recently to XP Pro with out any problems? Some laptops just wont run xp, whether its the drivers aren't available or the SATA on the BIOS wont let you change to IDE mode etc etc. Were looking at getting some laptops for the next school year for our Art dept to run Adobe CS4, Internet browsing and general network use. Laptops will be connected to network via wireless or good old fashioned plugged in! Thanks, Dean

Hiya, I need to order some batteries for some laptops and just wondered if anyone could recommend any suppliers that you have used? Could do with someone that will invoice us as well rather than having to pay by credit card. Many Thanks Tom

I work in a High School and a number of are teachers use laptops that they log on locally to, this allows them to use them at home, at my pervious job the teachers could come into the school and not have to uncheck the Auto Detect Proxy tab and re enter it every time they want to use the internet. Im sure this has something to so with the WPAD file that sits on the server! Im pretty sure I can find this however I don't want to touch it until I have a better understanding of what each section does! Can anyone help me with this issue?

weird one here, According to a teacher they have been showing the class educational videos on an interactive whiteboard for almost two years but in the last two weeks the video only shows up on the laptop screen and not on the interactive whiteboard where there is just a blank space. The teacher first had this problem with realplayer and so switched to windows media player which worked for several days before having the same problem. Have tried resolution changes, setting the board as primary display and fiddling round with different players but suspect possible p.i.c.n.i.c meanwhile the teacher is blaming me any ideas?

Hiya! I don't how it's possible but one of our Fizzbook Spin netbooks (the 10.1" version) has had its screen smashed (poor blighter). Does anyone know a good source to get it replaced? Appreciation in advance! J