When did laptops get so expensive?

[grubadubdub]

In October 2015 I bought a laptop with 8GB RAM and 1TB storage for £260. Today I'm looking at a laptop of the same make, with the same specification, and it's £480! I've checked other makes and the story is the same. What happened? Please tell me it's just the wrong time of year ... maybe all the students-to-be are pushing up prices?

Look at what's happened to the pound over the last 3 years.

£1 = $1.60 back in 2015
£1 = $1.25 today

That's got to have had an impact on prices.

Windows laptops are poor, regardless of the price. I went through 5 in 10 years and they were all crap.

Bought a MacBook Air in 2014 and it works as perfectly now as it did them. In was £999 but real value for money.

i have to pay for the know how on an laptop i have, it is so worth it

Whitedust, browsing on JL, and bought previous one there, but usually cross reference prices elsewhere.

I had a MacBook for years and when it crapped out last year I bought a Windows laptop to save cash. Ugh. It was a decent spec but just... garbage. I traded it in for cash at Cex seven months after I bought it and bought a 2017 model MacBook Pro.

Lesson learned.

I've noticed laptops in John Lewis seem more expensive than for currys / Argos and for similar specs but don't know enough about the memory (ssd?) or processors to make a decision on which to buy. It's such a hard decision.

There are still cheap ones about but they tend to be HDD rather than SDD - the old, heavy technology. With SDD you get less storage and it's more expensive 🤪 but the laptop itself will be lighter and have a better battery life.

Basically because they're gearing laptops to how people use them - running around using them in Starbucks means you need it to be light and go a long time without charging and people tend to use things onedrive for storage so that's less important.

I love how people have made it all about Brexit though

Both laptops I've bought from John Lewis were faulty, and I had to go through their stupid "free repairs" process with them before I got refunded. The dishwasher I ordered from them also arrived dented and I was offered a few pounds off it or to reject it. I rejected it. I wonder if its their local delivery service that's at fault actually, but I would never buy electronic goods from them again.

Window laptops are shit. You have to replace them all the time and dont get me started on viruses. MacBook all the way for me. You get what you pay for

Found the same thing OP.
I just don't understand it. Bought a couple for under £400 many years ago. Both work fine. Now need to get one for Ds1 and can't find anything comparable.

My DD has an HP Ryzen 3 8GB of RAM, 128GB SSD light fast and reliable, £450 from Argos, 365 cloud storage means she doesn't need a huge HDD

Also, remember that an Intel I3 processor of 5 years ago is a much slower cpu than its latest incarnation RAM also speeds up, we ve also Win10 instead of Win 7... these improvements have to be paid for.

The $ depreciation has had an affect and also a great excuse to put up prices.... its a taste of things to come.

Get one with a decent touch pad, and SSD (silent hard drive). It makes a huge difference.