Looking to change my current laptop and wandered if anyone has any suggestions?

At the moment I'm using a Toshiba Satellite with and i3 processor that has been a good servant over many years

I use an ipad at work, but prefer a laptop at home (and already have a basic garage laptop with MBE tuning software etc)


Don't need it for gaming or anything complicated, just mainly for the internet and general use

I do like having a 15" screen though and also a DVD writer on-board

Budget up to £650 ish although this is pretty flexible


Any suggestions ?

Thanks in advance

[Edited on 25/4/20 by perksy]

My last two work laptops have been HP at around £750 (both i5) and been very reliable.

My home laptop is an Acer Aspire E5-475 series i3 £220. It works fine, but is noticeably slower than the i5 work works (sometimes annoyingly slow).

Microsoft seem massively keen for users to take up Windows 365 (Software as a service) these days as well. We do this at work, but for home use I've avoided it as I don't want to keep paying every year. I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels this way.

I am no techy. But a user, probably too much...
Anyway, our rarely use desktop was getting veeerrry slow to start up. Daughters boyfriend suggested fitting an ssd as the windows disc, keep the old HDD for storage.
Best money we spent I reckon, a 128gb SSD and he kindly fitted it. Almost instant startup. So much so an order went in for my wifes laptop, and fitted a couple of weeks later. Totally transformed the machines re startup times.

So thats my suggestion, get one with an SSD.

I can recommend PC Specialist - https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/
You can custom spec a laptop with the parts that are important to you. You say you won't be gaming, so instead of opting for expensive graphics card you can put that part of the budget on a larger SSD hard drive or max out ram. They use quality parts but you're not paying for the brand name. You'll end up with a bigger spec for same spend in PC world or the likes.
I got an i7 years ago and it's the only laptop in the house that has never had an issue.
Regards
Charlie

I have a preference for Lenovo, but it's only because most work laptops I've had are Lenovo as well. I'm currently on an X1 Carbon, which is a beautiful piece of kit but designed for portability. So while the screen is very high resolution, it's only small. And it's not expandable at all, even the drive is specific to this machine.

Having said that, I tend to recommend company refurbished laptops as you get a lot for your money. And I second the earlier mentioned SSD, any laptop that is still running a normal hard drive will run so much faster with an SSD. I'm talking 'holy c**p that's fast', not just 'meh that's a bit quicker'.

beware of mistaking machines with "embedded MultiMediaCard (eMMC) " for proper ssd, the former is essentially just a flash drive, and inherently slow by modern standards.
for office365, many 'work' versions include a license for you to use it on a machine at home, or a very substantual discount.
I would say for any serious laptop nowadays min ssd of 250GB twice that or more if you can.
perhaps use a seperate screen and decent keyboard when its on your desk.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and info, Especially about SSD's which I didn't know about



[Edited on 26/4/20 by perksy]

Here is a pragmatic non-IT literate approach that has worked for us now twice for a laptop used for the similar straightforward purposes, from Internet use, email, Skype and word processing (not used for shoot 'em ups or streaming).

Budget £350 for what is the largest processing memory (and speed of chip) available so it can cope with endless upgrades on Windows and MS Office that are even more more memory hungry AND with largest storage memory AND the computer is a brand I have heard of AND which available easily locally (i.e. From Argos or Currys) and can return without quibbles with a fault (paying by credit card also for a bit more protection). Argos often has £50 vouchers that you can then use to buy anti-virus or other software if you need it. The memory you can get goes up every time (but software seems even more badly written /put together so it gets swallowed!)

Plus a keyboard, mouse, shoebox to put the laptop on when sitting at a desk (or screen if you wish) and a wireless printer and scanner that you can a easily buy cartridges for that drivers are available for for all your devices (so an HP or Canon). If you are replacing stuff you probably have a keyboard and mouse already and maybe a screen.

Have you already got MS Office and an anti-virus programme on an existing multi-computer licence that you can just add this as a new machine to?

Cheers
Mike

[Edited on 27/4/20 by Mike Wood]

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as above even a half decent SSD can make a night and day difference to any machines loading times - my desktop is now ~12 years old (first gen i7) and swapping the boot drive for even just a SATA SSD (the board is too old to have M.2 slots for modern SSD's) from a reasonably quick spinning hard drive means that from a cold start it can now boot windows and open a program (say chrome or office) in about 20 seconds were as before this would take 3min


also there is a huge difference in the quality of a ~£700+ laptop vs the sub £400 ones
based on the one I've used or been asked to fix most of the cheaper ones are pretty much disposable (fine if you want a basic new machine every couple of years like my in-laws, but I think thats a waste of cash and a lot of hassle changing machines when a good £700 machine will easily last 5+ years)

currently got a lenovo one from work (£990) and its ok as a desktop replacement for CAD work (although I'd rather they got the £1500 or £2000 ones)
but my 1st choice is still ASUS stuff (excluding the very cheap ones you get in Argos and the likes) - their better stuff can be bombproof, even my first one from 2002 still works (bit slow, but ideal for megajolt tuning in the garage )

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Originally posted by Mike Wood
Budget £350 for what is the largest processing memory (and speed of chip) available so it can cope with endless upgrades on Windows and MS Office that are even more more memory hungry AND with largest storage memory AND the computer is a brand I have heard of AND which available easily locally (i.e. From Argos or Currys) and can return without quibbles with a fault (paying by credit card also for a bit more protection). Argos often has £50 vouchers that you can then use to buy anti-virus or other software if you need it. The memory you can get goes up every time (but software seems even more badly written /put together so it gets swallowed!)

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