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New laptop

Progster

Progster

Grown sideways to the sun
V.I.P Member
My laptop has finally given up the ghost - can't really complain as it was 9 years old and had a lot of use. So I need to replace it. I've been looking at my options online, I'm looking to buy a midrange laptop, perhaps a refurbished or 'open box' one, or second hand but still in good condition with good battery life a year or two old, from a reputable seller on Ebay or Amazon, as I really can't afford to buy a new one. I can go up to 600 euros, perhaps a bit more if I can find a good deal, but no more than 700.

I need it for work, so I need it to multitask (I often have several tabs and apps running when I'm working, and I use video chat, so a business computer or a computer for light gaming would suit my needs, though I'm not a gamer. I've been frantically researching over the last couple of days, but there are a bewildering number of models from various manufacturers - Dell, Lenovo, HP, Asus, Acer and others, all with varying reviews so it's really hard to know which one to choose and I've been agonizing over this. I just can't come to a decision or which review to trust.

I've found a couple on Ebay that are of interest. This one
Dell Inspiron 5000 Cheap Laptop Windows 10, Core i5-6200u, 8GB ram, 500gb SSHD | eBay
Ad this one
Dell Inspiron 15 5570 Laptop, i7 8550U, 256GB SSD, 8GB, 1080P, DVD+/-RW | eBay

Here are the specs I'm aiming for:

CPU Intel i5 or i7, at least 6th generation or up.
RAM at least 8GB
Hard drive SSD or SSHD, at least 200 GB
Built in webcam/microphone, DVD drive.

Any advice or guidance you could give me would be appreciated :)
 
I have an acer laptop that was purchased within the amount you say you can pay. I could not tell you off by heart, the details, but I find it does work well and I use it constantly!

The only downsides to my one, is where it is plugged in; so inconvient and the mouse is the same colour as the keyboard and there are no defining marks, to denote the left and right click.

I only answered, because I noticed no one else has, so hope that another can give you a more indepth answer than I can.
 
Dell - I have been pretty happy with. Have bought four laptops overall.

Had the Dell latitude, now have a dell precision.

Things going wrong :
Helpline was reasonably good.

The one thing I found was that the battery didn't last long. A couple of years before it needed to be replaced- did have a lot of use though.
It's set up that the laptop doesn't work if the battery is dodgy, you can't just plug it into the mains.
The smaller SSD -250gb - would mean, after all the windows 10 and other hardware, there's about 100-150gb usable.
I would tend towards the 500gb drive.
 
Suzanne said:
I only answered, because I noticed no one else has, so hope that another can give you a more indepth answer than I can.
Click to expand...

Me too :D
Laptop spec’s are an equivalent of binary code, nuclear physics, politics and understanding some people,
All rolled into the same sentence, for me.

Give me pen and ink any day,
In fact give me a slate, I’d settle for a slate and abacus :)

Best of luck with your search :)
 
I would give HP (Hewlett Packard) consideration too. I've had a couple over the years and found them extremely reliable and a decent spec for the price.
 
I have a Surface with a detachable keyboard which is a few years old now, but runs and performs like a dream. You probably want to go for a laptop with a more recent CPU chipset as your baseline and adequate RAM. So based on the two choices you gave, the second Dell appears to be better. SSD is generally also faster than a SSHD. So while the second Dell has less space, it should technically perform better. If you're versed in opening laptops, SSD's can be replaced, though if I remember right Dell are a bit difficult to manipulate in such a way. External hard drives also can be plugged in and these days can be very small.

But I'm not really someone who understands too much about computer hardware, I just go off what my partner tells me as he's much more of an expert on these things. Sorry it wasn't much help.
 
Last edited:
Fridgemagnetman said:
Dell - I have been pretty happy with. Have bought four laptops overall.

Had the Dell latitude, now have a dell precision.

Things going wrong :
Helpline was reasonably good.

The one thing I found was that the battery didn't last long. A couple of years before it needed to be replaced- did have a lot of use though.
It's set up that the laptop doesn't work if the battery is dodgy, you can't just plug it into the mains.
The smaller SSD -250gb - would mean, after all the windows 10 and other hardware, there's about 100-150gb usable.
I would tend towards the 500gb drive.
Click to expand...
Storage space is not a huge issue for me, as I have my music stored in external hard drives (backups) and my desktop hard drive - it's mainly for travelling or if I want to work away from my desktop or when I work away from home when travelling. 100 GB storage would be enough, but certainly no less than that. For me, the main things are processing speed, battery life, reliability. It wouldn't get used every day, so hopefully the battery would last a bit longer than a couple of years.
Autistamatic said:
I would give HP (Hewlett Packard) consideration too. I've had a couple over the years and found them extremely reliable and a decent spec for the price.
Click to expand...
My previous one was HP - it lasted almost 10 years, but not without problems. It had a tendency to overheat and I had to replace the hard disk once in its lifetime. I've read that more recent HPs don't have this issue.
Monachopia said:
I have a Surface with a detachable keyboard
Click to expand...
What model is this?
 
@Progster It's a 2015 Surface Pro 4 : Intel i5-6300U CPU / 4GB RAM // 116GB internal storage

So not quite what you're looking for, but it's served me quite well over the last few years. The keyboard cover does come separately. It really depends on what you intend to do on the laptop, I mostly used it for software development, writing essays and watching the occasional film. It can do gaming too, but probably not of the new generation graphic heavy games as the graphics card isn't designed for that. It does have a nice touch-screen which admittedly I'm still not used to.
 
Progster said:
00 GB storage would be enough, but certainly no less than that. For me, the main things are processing speed, battery life, reliability. It wouldn't get used every day, so hopefully the battery would last a bit longer than a couple of years.
Click to expand...

70-100 euros to replace. Yes, I may have been unlucky with the battery.

For me, the hard drive works a lot better when there is enough space left on it.
I have a detachable hard drive too.

Gracey said:
Give me pen and ink any day,
In fact give me a slate, I’d settle for a slate and abacus
Click to expand...

I imagine you looking at a blank slate a lot.

How do you turn it on?
 
I think the 2nd eBay listing would do fine; the CPU's the 2nd latest generation (Coffee Lake), so it'll last a little longer, plus, it's an i7 which fits part of your criteria; and everything about it all fits your criteria.

And since it's got a SSD, you'll get faster boot times compared to a Mechanical Hard Drive, and you can always upgrade it if you don't think you have enough Storage Space.

Same with the RAM; you can always upgrade it to 16GB if you find you're running out of RAM constantly (which shouldn't happen, unless you tend to run lots of RAM intensive programs at the same time ( Cough Google Chrome Cough)
 
Progster said:
Dell Inspiron 15 5570 Laptop, i7 8550U, 256GB SSD, 8GB, 1080P, DVD+/-RW | eBay
Click to expand...

I just purchased a Dell Inspiron 5570 a month or so ago, and I really like it. I regularly use Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator. All three of these open FAST on this computer, and I can even have more than one open at a time.

With my old computer (my son is using it right now, or I'd tell you the specs on it), all of those programs lagged. They were even slow to save and close the program, and having two big programs open at once would NOT work.

Overall, I'm very happy with this purchase.
 
Thanks to everyone who posted on this thread. I'm going to go for the Dell Inspiration 5570, it's a bit more that I was planning to spend, but I think it will be worth it and if I get a later model, I'll get more years out of it plus a faster computer. I'll see if I can get the same model but with more storage capacity, that would be ideal :)
 
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