Laptops for under £200?

[CookieDoughNice]

Hi, I need some recommendations of laptops (or perhaps chrome/cloudbooks, though I’ve heard they’re worse) for under around £200? My primary aged DC needs one. (Home educated)
It will be used for zoom meetings/ classes, Microsoft office and educational games.

I got an Asus one for under £200. Does what I need it to. Just beat in mind you'll also need to pay annually for a Microsoft package.

When I was on that kind of budget I found CEX was the best place to go. They do secondhand ones so you could pick up a decent model from a couple of years ago rather than a brand new one that's designed to be as cheap as possible. The last big tech I bought from them was our iPad Mini last year and it's been great (and half the price of a new one) as it was a 2018 model. If you do your research anything half decent from about 2016 onwards should be fine for what you need it for.

If you need specs to look at, an Intel i5 or i7 processor and 4-8GB of RAM would probably be enough for you (from any brand of Windows laptop).

Chromebooks are limited in their functionality but might be ok for primary needs. Look for one with a fast processor though. I highly recommend CEX for second hand stuff. You'll get a much higher spec for a lot less.

Also if you can't afford Microsoft Office look at Open Office as a free alternative if you don't use advanced features like pivot tables or inline comments (but you need to make sure you save file types so they'll work for people using Microsoft Office if you're handing in school work etc). Open Office will open all Microsoft file formats. I wrote my first two books on it, on a £150 mini netbook from CEX, and didn't get Microsoft Office or a newer machine until I had some royalties to pay for it, so it's very functional if you're on a tight budget.

Just be careful with Chromebooks. Can’t comment on others as definitively not technically gifted. 😂

I bough a Lenovo one last year for under £200. Lovely laptop to use but found out that it isn’t compatible with my HP printer so very rarely used now. ☹️

Open office sounds great! The one I was looking at came with 12 months free Microsoft office(HP Stream 11), so I’ll either switch to it or use open office right off the bat if whatever I get doesn’t come with it.
I’m not keen on buying from cex, I’ve had a few bad experiences. But open to buying from a secondhand/ refurbished laptop specialist if anyone can recommend one? About to search for ASUS and Lenovo now. Would the HP Stream 11 be suitable for us?
I really don’t know much about computers!

I also have an Asus that does all I need it to. Bought from amazon for £180.

This.

I took advantage of a Black Friday sale for a £600 laptop at around £200. No bells and whistles, bought a cheap antivirus and Business MS 365.

That’s a great deal, unfortunately I can’t wait until Black Friday in hopes I get a similar deal!
After looking at refurbished laptops, I’ve found a site called Back Market that has good reviews on trustpilot.
Would this one be a sensible buy? Or should I get something newer?

Dells are great laptops. Every company I've ever worked for uses Dell.

This will be much better than a HP Steam!

I really appreciate the help, thank you! It seems a refurbished dell is the way to go!
Last question, after browsing back market, I’ve seen another dell one for less. But it has a Celeron N4120, is this going to be okay or do I need a i5?

Chromebooks are ok to a point. They look like a laptop, but have the functionality of an Android phone, I think that is a fair analogue. So you can surf online, do basic office documents, and use apps off the Play Store. A laptop would probably prove to be the better option in the long run. I would personally recommend Dell. There are quite a few stores 9nline that sell used laptops with warranties that would be in your price range.

Thank you, I’m pretty much sold on a refurbished dell now! I’m debating between two.
One cheaper one with a Celeron N4120 and another a bit more with an i5 processor. Both in budget but obviously the less it costs all the better! I really have no idea what sort of processor will cut it.

I'd go for the i5

Chromebooks can be great. I use mine for writing documents (on Google docs), watching Netflix and films, editing photos, surfing the net etc. The only limitation would be playing video games that need a fast processor. You just need to remember to store docs etc to the cloud or on removable drives. Chromebooks in my experience are great for retaining speed and performance when traditional laptops slow down and go laggy after a year or so. I'm a Chromebook convert.

Do NOT buy this one.
You need to look at the number after i5 or i7, for this laptop it says 6, that means 6th generation. This will not run Windows 11, which needs 8th generation or later, the latest is 12th gen
Windows 10 is no longer supported after March 2025, this means no security patches or bug fixes, which is serious.
I'm not as knowledgeable about and processors, but Google compaability with Windows 11
that should say AMD or Celeron processors

Thank you!!
Luckily I got caught up with something else earlier as I was about to check out. 🙈 So was postponed till after bedtime!
Do you have any suggestions as to which model(s) to get? It’s a bit overwhelming with the amount available and not really sure which to get!

HP and Dell are very good makes but they do cost more because of the name.
Lenovo are a good workhorse and have been for a few years.
I looked at CEX and they have some Lenovo i5 8th gen, which should last you a few years.
All 8th gen should be compatible, but get it confirmed before you buy.
You may also need to install all the windows 10 updates first

There’s decent advice already on choosing a laptop, and particularly with @TheThreeHeadedBeast on being cautious about something that could be of a much older generation resulting in impacting on what you can run

For Office there are free alternatives, but it is a matter of trying what works - they will be compatible but will have their own slight differences - as you’re home educating then that can be less of an issue as you won’t have the conflict of them being shown MS Office versions in class whilst using a similar but different compatible free alternative.

An option is to create a Microsoft account for free, then you can also use the free web app versions of Word, Excel etc and have a level of cloud space in OneDrive)

If you buy/subscribe/get a ‘free’ year with Office365 then you get the ‘full’ application and integrated web apps. This makes it easy to use whichever is convenient
Without Office 365 you can still use free web apps but they won’t work without an active internet connection and aren’t always that easy to integrate with a downloaded document - you may need to upload it later discover multiple copies

Before the Office 365 subscription model was created I had a full Office licence, so when the web apps first came out I used my existing full applications on my laptop and free Office apps on my phone. As time moved on and I wanted the updates I moved to an Office 365 subscription which integrates better
But in practice I also use Google Sheets on some spreadsheets shared with me from others who use that.

Try your options and see what works best for you

I’ve had too many bad experiences from cex, won’t shop there any more.

Is the Microsoft Surface Laptop SE any good? Is there a reason it’s for sale on Curry’s business and not curry’s? It’s a little above budget but not much.

Or I’m just going to try and get something more expensive on finance. Does anyone have any suggestions around the £500 mark? Or as little above it as possible.

Chromebooks are awful. We
Pretty quickly upgraded Dts to dells in homeschool.

I've never had an issue with CEX

I really appreciate all the help I’ve had so far, thank you everyone. This is budget and a half, but will this do? I don’t recognise the processor names but windows 11. Seems all the other cheaper dells are chromebooks. 😔

You can get some cracking refurbished Lenovos on Amazon for that kind of money. They're good workhorses. We've had several over the years. Just make sure you get one that comes with Windows 11 or at least comes with Windows 10 and is compatible with Win 11 for futureproofing.

I used Back Market when my laptop unexpectedly died and I was really impressed. I got a Lenovo Think Pad for £250 and I can't tell that it was refurbished. Had I purchased new it would have been £1000+

I don't think I will buy a laptop from new again tbh