Good cheap laptop

[Doingreat]

Dear mumsnetters. I'm posting here for traffic.
I've recently become a single mum after the breakdown of my marriage. I've just started working as self employed after a long break and money hasn't really started to come in yet. I need a good cheap laptop for emails and word documents etc so i can work from home. Can anyone please recommend a good cheap one? I don't know much about how much a good cheap one might be but can't really afford anything too fancy. About 200 would be my budget. Might stretch to 300.

Thanks in advance.

Get a refurbished model. It may not be the slimmest or prettiest number but A sub £300 brand new one from PC World ect will have crap specs and be a false economy.

This is a tenner over budget, but has great specs.

m.ebay.co.uk/itm/DELL-LAPTOP-1TB-8GB-WIN-10-POWERFUL-CORE-i5-REFURBISHED-LATITUDE-WEBCAM-DVD-HDMI/172792512813?hash=item283b3c812d:g:R~wAAOSwRZRZdfi~

Yes, refurbished, if you're happy with a small one
www.tier1online.com/728-4290fc1-b/refurbished-thinkpad-x220-i5-2520m-12-5-grade-b-webcam
is a great machine well under budget.

But a refurbished 5 year old machine, especially if you upgrade to an SSD, will likely outperform any new machine at that price point.

I bought a HP from currys about two years ago it was about £250.
It runs on windows 10 .
easy to use reliable and battery last about 4 hours when it is been used |( so screen contently lit ) and music playing ( spotify most times ) .
It has a forward facing camera which is ok quality but not wonderful.
sorry I can not remember what the RAM or model number is but it is a popular laptop and was is still been sold, or at least it was about 4 months ago .
its easy to spot , it is one of the few purple ones on the market
It also links up with the HP wireless printer very easily .

I have been using mine for work since I bought it with no issues .

are refurb machines reliable? Never bought one, but I am considering a refurb desktop.

yes, SSDs make things way faster (hard drive access is greatly sped up).

Thanks all for the great advice.

@sirfred what does SSD mean? How do you upgrade to that? Would i ask for a laptop with SSD?

Apologies. Am really clueless at this.

SSD = solid state drive. This refers to storage (i.e. where you keep all the information), as opposed to RAM (where the computer keeps temporary information to do computation).

Older drives (5 years old) were essentially spinning disks and read like old time records (a simplification), but basically information could only be accessed when spun to the right place.

in contrast, SSDs have no moving parts, and act more like ram (or think flash drives), so information can be accessed at anytime. So they are faster, more resistant to physical shocks (since nothing is spinning), and, unfortunately, more expensive. But you do get a good speed boost.

Unless you have huge storage requirements (i.e. you aren't doing video editing or big data storage) a smaller SSD would be better than a bigger HDD (older spinning drive).

Oh, how do you get it? Yes, you ask for it.

you could also look into getting a chromebook. These are pretty cheap, but everything is google and cloud dependent (so if Microsoft word is a must, this is no good. But if any old word processor would do, this would be fine). I have never owned (or even touched) a chromebook, but apparently they are good bang for your money.

Well to be honestyou don’t really need a powerful device for word processing/emails, it’s quite light usage in terms of ram etc so a cheaper model suits your needs. I would just get something like a Lenovo Ideapad?

What sort of wifi connection do you have? (2G, 5G etc). Make sure your device will support your fastest wifi connection

Do you need a CD drive?

Are you familiar with cloud storage (onedrive, icloud drive etc?)? If so you might not need a massive amount of storage so can ‘cheap out’ on this aspect

As you say you’ll be using it for work, will you need things constantly plugged into usb ports such as an external mouse and printer simultaneously? This is something that can help narrow down your searcg

Ah do forgive all the grammatical errors!

Thanks so much @machin. That help to make things clearer.

indeed. email and word processing doesn't need a ton of speed. Or storage.

Sorry meant @marchin

@angie.. is this the laptop you have?

are refurb machines reliable?

yes, refurb'd serious machines are generally at least as reliable as modern ones, and because they were originally higher end machines you get other things that help with the robustness. The thinkpad I linked to above for example has a fully metal frame to help with being dropped.

To get an SSD, will purely depend on who where you're buying it from, for example the site I linked to above you just select SSD when ordering (and pay a fair bit more)

I'm also looking at this price point, and clueless, so following...

Ohhhh this is a fab thread. I am looking too but more for online useage but I tend to end up with lots of tabs on the go at the same time.

Plus kids homework - online school games such as mymaths etc.

Would the ones recommended above be good for me? I litrally have no clue so have been putting this off for about 2 years

are refurb machines reliable?

cool. I am a bit wary of refurb laptops, but that just prejudiced. that price is damn good.

sentence came out garbled. I blame my laptop.

@ihastingsmua.... Thanks so much for the detailed info. I will use this as a checklist when I make the purchase.