To ask if I can buy a decent laptop for £400-500?

[theabysswithin]

Not strictly an AIBU but just could do with a steer as haven't bought a computer for years. I want to buy a new laptop (mainly for writing but also some powerpoint/web use). Want a reasonably decent processor and as much memory as I can afford and one which will last me a few years. What sort of spec should I look for as a minimum and can I get a decent one for this price? Any recommendations would be great.

I'm looking as well, decent ones are more like £600-800. You can probably get an okish one for £500, wouldn't go any lower than that though.

Would recommend getting one with a solid state drive if you can. Super quick 👍👍

@Singlebutmarried tends to have less storage though. I was looking at one with an SSD but it only had 256GB, and a chunk of that is going to get taken up with Windows, Office and other software.

I recently got a lenovo idea pad 320 with 128Gb SSD and Intel i3 processor. I'm happy with it so far. You can get the same model with a faster i5 processor for £389 in Curry's. I love the faster SSD but it's not big enough to hold all my photos and music, however you can get an external drive for about £50, or use USB stick drives. Or wait till a model with a bigger SSD becomes affordable.

I reckon you can if you shop around for sure!

One tip to extend the life of a laptop, BTW, is never to use it on the battery unless you absolutely have to. If you're by a plug, remove the battery and plug in. Charge it when it's turned off and you'll always have it as a back up option. Battery life will last much longer this way.

Yes to solid state drive if you can get one too, but dependent on how much you plan to store. An external hard drive for storage will be more economical in terms of preserving the life of the laptop, but more annoying to carry around. Cloud storage is another option.

Slightly more but this

thanks all!

You can also sometimes get a smallish SSD that you basically use for Windows and main apps and a normal hard disk for actual storage.

You can buy a refurbished machine cheaply - a refurbished macbook with 240GB SSD and 8GB ram can be had for under 500.

I'd not bother with a macbook though, for example, this 8g ram, 240gb SSD, good screen 419
www.tier1online.com/728-20a8-s00c00-screen/lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon-2nd-gen-i7-4600u-8gb-240gb-ssd-grade-b-screen-1600x900

But I'd probably not bother spending more than 300 on an ultra-portable X230 / X220 or similar.