Don't like the adverts?  Click here to remove them

What budget laptop?

So long as your mrs has an ipad so you can upload a pic when you want to and you dont mind that stuff saves to wherever the hell it wants to and often can never be found again . As for maintenance wipe and reset to factory only takes a few hours once a month which is 3 days less than it might take to find and fix a problem with win10 .
 
Basically a computer wot runs chrome and pretty much nothing else!
Ah OK, so all of my shite on my current windows 10 pc will tranfere over OK?
What is the difference between chrome and Windows 10 etc?

I'm actually showing an interest..

In all fairness, back in the day of the cpc6128 plus and the Japanese grey import gaming consoles I used to know my way around them. Nowadays it all goes over my head.
A bit like modern day car owners. I want to jump in, press the button and go..

Thanks for your patience by the way.. :)
 
So long as your mrs has an ipad so you can upload a pic when you want to and you dont mind that stuff saves to wherever the hell it wants to and often can never be found again . As for maintenance wipe and reset to factory only takes a few hours once a month which is 3 days less than it might take to find and fix a problem with win10 .
I see you share my enthusiasm for computers Shane...
 
I was mid 30's before i ever touched a keyboard but then the kids got a laptop and because they liked breaking it i had to learn to fix it , BT once asked me how when i fixed something they failed to by remote control . It was never something i enjoyed but at least once it made some kind of sense back then . Now its like searching for a pen in a bathtub full of crayons .

I got a win7 made of wood and hemp rope upstairs which i still use for very technical stuff like typing out a letter to print off and post or burning music to a CD .
 
Last edited:
Chromebooks stop receiving updates a few years after they are released ( usually 3yrs) So be careful which one you get. It's going to brick itself much like a phone ( it won't... but with no updates and a locked firmware.... Would you really use it?)

Lenovo ThinkPad's are good ; the T460p is a fair workhorse and is a 14" screen, if you want a smaller and more portable, then look at the x270. Either of these can be had for £300 or less with an i7 CPU/16gb ram and 256gb SSD . Avoid the touch screen options. All corporate ones would have sold with 3+ years of warranty, some will even have had 5. So shop around, you should be able to get a reasonable device that still has warranty for a year or so. Avoid all ThinkPad's from 2018+.

HP EliteBook are another good option, that were built exactly into the ThinkPad market. Avoid all EliteBook from 2017+

Or you could just buy the Lenovo IdeaPad 5 15" with the AMD ryzen 4800u CPU and 16gb of ram, brand new for £500 - it runs faster, cooler and longer than the £2500 macbooks and almost all the latest intel 10th gen i7 based laptops. Lenovo is out of stock all over Europe at the moment though, so it might be a few weeks before they start taking orders.

Most phones these days are pretty capable. Maybe just get a keyboard + mouse and a hdmi out for your phone?
 
Lenovo IdeaPad 5 15" with the AMD ryzen 4800u CPU and 16gb of ram, brand new for £500

This actually sounds good to me , budget nowadays means so the kids can destroy it within a month of purchase .

Most phones these days are pretty capable. Maybe just get a keyboard + mouse and a hdmi out for your phone?

This is exactly what went wrong , only someone with a loving affinity and admiration for binary code could possibly think its a good idea , good for them but for me its like saying learn to speak Klingon and play the clarinet fluently and we will let you turn on the tv .
 
Don't like the adverts?  Click here to remove them
Ah OK, so all of my shite on my current windows 10 pc will tranfere over OK?
Probably not. You can put things like photos and docs/spreadsheets onto google and access them, but thats about it!
What is the difference between chrome and Windows 10 etc?

So Chrome is the internet browser you probably use on Windows. You might use internet explorer, edge or firefox - but they're all browsers. On a chromebook, the computer basically is the browser. Thats all you get. If you can do it in a browser, you can (generally) do it on a chromebook, if you cant do it on a browser, you're probably stuffed with it!

You might want to think of it like an ipad with a keyboard - great for websites, but thats about it!
 
Chromebooks stop receiving updates a few years after they are released ( usually 3yrs) So be careful which one you get. It's going to brick itself much like a phone ( it won't... but with no updates and a locked firmware.... Would you really use it?)

Lenovo ThinkPad's are good ; the T460p is a fair workhorse and is a 14" screen, if you want a smaller and more portable, then look at the x270. Either of these can be had for £300 or less with an i7 CPU/16gb ram and 256gb SSD . Avoid the touch screen options. All corporate ones would have sold with 3+ years of warranty, some will even have had 5. So shop around, you should be able to get a reasonable device that still has warranty for a year or so. Avoid all ThinkPad's from 2018+.

HP EliteBook are another good option, that were built exactly into the ThinkPad market. Avoid all EliteBook from 2017+

Or you could just buy the Lenovo IdeaPad 5 15" with the AMD ryzen 4800u CPU and 16gb of ram, brand new for £500 - it runs faster, cooler and longer than the £2500 macbooks and almost all the latest intel 10th gen i7 based laptops. Lenovo is out of stock all over Europe at the moment though, so it might be a few weeks before they start taking orders.

Most phones these days are pretty capable. Maybe just get a keyboard + mouse and a hdmi out for your phone?

Good thread this, good timing for me. Is there an equivalent model you could recommend from the Dell brand, I have a refurbished Dell Latitude E6400 and it's served me well but is starting to get a bit slow now. But I like the layout and the key pad buttons on it, I'd like to stick with Dell and you seem to know your stuff about the refurbished business laptops and which to avoid so if you could suggest a Dell model and which year on to avoid I'd be grateful. Or maybe you don't rate the later Dell's?
I'd be looking for the spec you mentioned od the Lenova's, Win10, SSD and 8-16Gb Ram I suppose. Currently I have Win7,old style Hd and 4gig Ram.
 
is starting to get a bit slow now
all that is fixable with some basic maintenance.Try downloading this for free an easy to use tool that every PC owner should have installed IMO.A good mate of mine has an old refurbished Dell Latitude that he uses for mobile sound recording & he wouldn't part with it for anything.
 
Get a usb memory stick save the important personal stuff then wipe it back to factory settings , do not allow updates after reinstall .
 
Good thread this, good timing for me. Is there an equivalent model you could recommend from the Dell brand, I have a refurbished Dell Latitude E6400 and it's served me well but is starting to get a bit slow now. But I like the layout and the key pad buttons on it, I'd like to stick with Dell and you seem to know your stuff about the refurbished business laptops and which to avoid so if you could suggest a Dell model and which year on to avoid I'd be grateful. Or maybe you don't rate the later Dell's?
I'd be looking for the spec you mentioned od the Lenova's, Win10, SSD and 8-16Gb Ram I suppose. Currently I have Win7,old style Hd and 4gig Ram.

The e6400's were quite a solid thing! The latitude 5480 and 5490 are direct descendant of the e6400 and seem to still have a similar keyboard. You should be able to get one of those, from Dell's own outlet store with an i5 CPU/16gb ram and a 255gb ssd for under £350.

Personally, the only dell brands I would buy are the latitude and precision series.
 
I have many years ago bought ASUS and ACER and both went at the cases by the hinges. My laptops get lots of serious (ab)use. Since then with the exception of 2 Samsungs, I have only bought older an often ex-corporate Lenovo Thinkpad X series and T series which are usually very tough reliable and the closest think to a Land Cruiser of the laptop world. I usually buy for a bit either side of a ton and get carefully selected ones off ebay. A tough used but high spec when new laptop has had a load of depreciation knocked off. I have bought ex-corp with barely any usage (hard drive had an hours counter) and some business types have stuff but barely use. Usually easy to get bits for too if you do manage to break it. I don't use windows although some of the people I buy for do. I have also considered HP Elitebooks which are also tough but only once bought one but then returned for refund as there was a fault and I replaced it with an X series Thinkpad. In the interest of disclosure the Panasonic Toughbooks are tougher but are more like an armoured personnel carrier than an Land Cruiser. If Chapel Gate goes for a T or X series depending on his requirements but gets it from a seller recommended in one of the other posts I would think that would be his best bet. New batteries can be replaced and are often not warrantied used but check prices online before buying to get an idea just in case as some models are much more than others. Also check specs as there are quite a lot of variations of Thinkpads of the same basic model number and some sellers don't tell it all as it is or give little info but if you can find the proper number from the base the details can usually be found online. X & T series have keyboards you can spill your drink over and they drain to protect the system (has happened to the one I am typing on now by someone else - virtually a pint - shameful waste). Also you can run a truck over them, remove your hard drive (assuming you have done a decent enough job with the truck to make sure the laptop is too smashed to use), bung it in another PC and take your data off (keep backups though in case it gets nicked or torched). There are videos online of people testing this. They are buit to MIL specs as are some HP Elitebooks. I use notebookcheck.net to get a bit of an idea of the weak spots.
 
Get a usb memory stick save the important personal stuff then wipe it back to factory settings , do not allow updates after reinstall .
You have to allow updates though, unless you're never going to put it near the internet! Updates are a pain but they're absolutely necessary for security!
 
Lenovo Thinkpad X series and T series which are usually very tough reliable and the closest think to a Land Cruiser of the laptop world.
I agree. Perfect way to put it!
 
all that is fixable with some basic maintenance.Try downloading this for free an easy to use tool that every PC owner should have installed IMO.A good mate of mine has an old refurbished Dell Latitude that he uses for mobile sound recording & he wouldn't part with it for anything.

Cheers, I downloaded that Cc Cleaner and ran it, I actually used to use that years and years ago when I used to use free anti-virus software programs too. However, I got Bullguard anti-virus free with a new desktop computer a few years ago and decided to renew it on special offer every 3 yrs for 3 devices and since using bullguard I never bothered with Avg or CC cleaner since as I thought the Bullguard would be doing similar. Does it not?

CcCleaner cleared a good bit of stuff and fixed a load of registry errors apparently so I'll see if it improves. The main problem my Latitude is having is that after 20-30 mins of use, just browsing the internet with either browser Chrome or Explorer (I use Chrome mainly) the cpu shoots up to 100%, the fan stays on strong and won't go back down below 100% so basically becomes unuseable and I have to switch it off and back on again. I tried ending tasks via Task Manager in Ctrl/Alt/Del and if I end all Chrome processes (there's like 30) it will go below 100% eventually but as soon as I open chrome again its straight back up to 100% and unuseable. I remember one time I ended every process including chrome except for literally about 5 windows ones and it still wouldn't drop down from 100%.

IE seems to do similar, after a while shoots up.
Is there a way to uninstall chrome and reinstall it, wouldn't mind trying that if it still happens after using CC cleaner.
 
We used to have Panasonic Toughbooks at work and they were, indeed, very robust, almost like a small armoured attache case and able to shrug off the knocks and bangs of everyday field use compared to the desktop type of laptop that we eventually ended up with due to cost I believe. My last one was a Lenovo with some version of Windows (can‘t remember which one) and ran pretty well but you had to be much more careful with it when using it “in the field”, much lighter and quite fragile compared to the Toughbook.
 
CcCleaner cleared a good bit of stuff and fixed a load of registry errors apparently so I'll see if it improves. The main problem my Latitude is having is that after 20-30 mins of use, just browsing the internet with either browser Chrome or Explorer (I use Chrome mainly) the cpu shoots up to 100%, the fan stays on strong and won't go back down below 100% so basically becomes unuseable and I have to switch it off and back on again.ner.

How much memory (RAM) is on your computer, and how much is being used when this happens? If its a chrome/browser process thats taking up the CPU, that might well be due to a website you are visiting. Each browser tab can have its own process, and if you visit a few and theyre all doing stuff in the background, that can kill your computer. Next time it happens, kill off tabs one by one and see if you can identify the website thats killing it.
 
We used to have Panasonic Toughbooks at work and they were, indeed, very robust, almost like a small armoured attache case and able to shrug off the knocks and bangs of everyday field use compared to the desktop type of laptop that we eventually ended up with due to cost I believe. My last one was a Lenovo with some version of Windows (can‘t remember which one) and ran pretty well but you had to be much more careful with it when using it “in the field”, much lighter and quite fragile compared to the Toughbook.

I got a toughbook for about £100 off fleabay and use it to run Techstream!
 
I've been running Lenovo Laptops for the last 7 years - prior to that I had a Dell for 5 years.

I tend to buy corporate spec ones (currently Lenovo Thinkpad) as you can get a bit of customisation with them.

I get as much RAM as I can shove into them, and my current preference is an SSD of about 500Gb - 1Tb - although I do have a lot cloud stored using various platforms.

After that, I look for a decent processor chip (doesn't need to be the fastest, but ideally the most recent) and then after that, go!
 
You have to allow updates though, unless you're never going to put it near the internet! Updates are a pain but they're absolutely necessary for security!

XP could run all day doing everything someone like me needs on about 250 eggs (memory) , win10 needs 250,000 eggs or it cant start up . If its old and it works turn updates off . Has nobody noticed every "upgrade" from windows sees the release of new laptops with typically much larger memory capacity so they can run all the shit nobody wants .
 
Back
Top