Need Help Buying a Laptop

Doom6311

New Member
Hi, I've been avoiding buying a laptop for a long time because I've always had a good desktop. But living out in uni made me realise that a student travelling back and forward from home really can't rely on a desktop.

So I've been looking around for a cheap laptop I don't need anything too special and I don't mind used laptops as long as their in a working state. Looking for something that is decent but relatively cheap. My budget preferably is £200 but I don't mind going up to £250.

Best laptop I've found so far, £200

HP ProBook 4540s 15.6
Intel Core i7-3632QM @ 2.20GHz Quad core
DDR3 8GB RAM
600gb HD
Radeon HD 7650m

The Laptop is in Refurbished condition. My Plan is to buy 250 GB SSD and replace the hard drive with that to make it a bit better. I've looked around I can't seem to find a better laptop around this price used or new.

If anyone has some better suggestions I would love to hear them.
 
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_Pete_

Active Member
Dell yes IMO but spend a bit extra and go new. I think you are probably going for the i7 for speed etc but you aint gonna play any worthwhile games on any laptop unless you spend thousands and faster speeds will make little difference to office type programs. I, also, wouldn't do any video or image editing on a laptop. Dell do have a very good back up service IMO whereby they try to fix over the internet using Dell Connect and if they cannot do that they will come and pick it up, take it away and fix it and then bring it back. This is during the guarantee preriod. Having said that I did look at a refurbished Dell the other day for someone and it did say that Dell's normal guarantees applied to that computer. No doubt somebody will come on and tell how rubbish Dell are and that you can play games on a laptop. Bottom line is you cannot unless you spend thousands and if you do decide to spend those thousands laptops are notoriously, if not impossible, to upgrade. I have had Dell computers for years and as long as all you want to do is write essays and stuff they are perfectly fine.
 

Doom6311

New Member
Dell yes IMO but spend a bit extra and go new. I think you are probably going for the i7 for speed etc but you aint gonna play any worthwhile games on any laptop unless you spend thousands and faster speeds will make little difference to office type programs. I, also, wouldn't do any video or image editing on a laptop. Dell do have a very good back up service IMO whereby they try to fix over the internet using Dell Connect and if they cannot do that they will come and pick it up, take it away and fix it and then bring it back. This is during the guarantee preriod. Having said that I did look at a refurbished Dell the other day for someone and it did say that Dell's normal guarantees applied to that computer. No doubt somebody will come on and tell how rubbish Dell are and that you can play games on a laptop. Bottom line is you cannot unless you spend thousands and if you do decide to spend those thousands laptops are notoriously, if not impossible, to upgrade. I have had Dell computers for years and as long as all you want to do is write essays and stuff they are perfectly fine.

Its a HP laptop btw, secondly what could spend a bit extra on which is better than this for this price to go get a new laptop for. PS I've got it down to £180 now for that laptop.
 

_Pete_

Active Member
HHMM yes I'm not sure why I answered this thread to be honest LOL. I had commented on a thread by someone called Dell and I followed on immediately by reading your thread. That is where the Dell bit came in. My opinion still stands though on Dell. You will not get a new laptop at that spec for the small amounty you are going to pay. But what sort of guarantees will you have and do yhou really need that spec.
 

Doom6311

New Member
That's the risk I'm going to have to take with this spec, it's good but only thing is, it's a used laptop so I'm going to do best to examine the laptop to see if their is any other flaws to it which I hope there is not.
 

ssal

Active Member
I bought a refurbished HP 8470p a couple of months ago and am extremely happy with it. It is practically brand new with very few surface wear. Came with a 120 gb SSD, which I swapped out for a 240 last week. I spent $7 to buy a DVD caddy to put a 500 gb HHD in. Mine has an i7-3720QM processor. I use this machine primarily for Photoshop and Premiere Pro video editing. With the understanding that this machine has a few year vintage and costed me only US$242 initially, I found it exceeded my expectation by a few horses.

The model you are looking at has a max. ram capacity of 8gb only. If this is all you'll need then it's OK. Mine accomodates 2x8gb DRAM.
 
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