New laptop recommendations/advice needed please

[SoftKittyWarmKitty]

I thought MN had a tech forum but couldn't find it, hence posting here. My laptop is dying and I need to buy a new one but I have no idea what brand, model or spec to go for. I have a business website to update and maintain so it needs to be fast enough to deal with that. I also use it for browsing, watching videos, typing documents and storage of photos/documents - the usual stuff really.

My current one is quite old and things have changed since I bought it. I've no idea what size RAM, amount of storage or processor type to go for. Are there any brands I should avoid, and any I should be looking for? Recommendations of where to buy from would be really helpful too. Budget up to around £400 ish. Thank you!

From your usage, it doesn't sound like you need a particularly high spec. Assuming you're a windows user, make sure it's Windows 10 as 7 is going out of support. 4 Gb of ram minimum, 8 Gb preferably. Processor - a core i5 will give you plenty power. For your budget you're probably looking at an i5-7200, doubt you'll get an i5-8xxxx without making sacrifices elsewhere. Hard disk, make sure it's an ssd as the performance over a traditional hard drive is significant. For your budget, probably a 250 gb drive which should be fine as you should be storing as much data on a cloud drive (google drive, microsoft OneDrive etc) as possible anyway. Other things to consider are screen size, battery life and whether you need a cd/dvd drive or not. You can always pick up an external cd/dvd drive if needs be, cost about 20 quid.

Something like this might be right for you and under budget: www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/hp-240-g6-core-i5-7200u-8gb-256gb-14-inch-windows-10-laptop-5jk05es/version.asp#/reviews

If you want a larger screen and can push the price a little, maybe this: www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/lenovo-v130-core-i5-7200u-4gb-256gb-ssd-dvd-rw-15.6-inch-windows-10-laptop-81hn00fauk/version.asp

Lenovo and HP are both good brands and my personal preference though I'd also consider Dell, Acer and Asus.

TooTrue Thank you so much , that's exactly the kind of info I needed! I'll check out those examples, thanks.