Need a family laptop, any recommendations?

[Patio]

Had a work laptop almost all my life that I've used for doing whatever I needed

Daughter doing GCSE's next year and we've decided we need a "family" laptop for her to use for education and mrs to use for her self employed stuff(her ipad is coming to the end of its life), I'd probably just use for you tube but wouldn't be opposed to having a game on there I can drop onto now and again that would run at a decent speed

Looked in john lewis today and can pay anything between £250 to £2500

I've always had a dell and they've been great

Thanks

Budget probably up to £500

[wyson]

The game thing is going to be difficult at that budget. The rest of it isn’t.

Just get another Dell if you like them. Some sort of Inspiron for £500. You won’t go wrong.

Personally, I think around £1000, the quality improves rapidly.

In your shoes, I’d up the budget and get a base Apple Macbook Air with a M chip. Screen quality, keyboard quality, back light, build, battery life, all miles better than a £500 Windows machine. Not good for games though. But at this budget, you will be able to get a Windows laptop with dedicated graphics that will play games decently.

Decisions, decisions!

Also are you sure about the sharing thing, that would trigger massive arguments in my household!

Edited by wyson on Sunday 6th October 04:47

[Kermit power]

If you're going to share - and personally I think I'd rather share underwear than a laptop - why not go for a desktop?

Laptops tend to be something of a compromise on terms of both price and usability to make them mobile.

[witteringon]

Within the budget you are suggesting you could probably get 3 chromebooks/tablets. Nothing fancy obviously, but perfectly adequate for what you are outlining. Everybody wins.

[OutInTheShed]

A couple of second-user Lenovos?

[Klippie]

HP Elitebook...lots to choose from spec wise, mine is a i5 which I upgraded with a 1TB SSD and extra memory (super simple to do), nice screen and decent sound.

No fan noise or overheating...it just works.

[Riley Blue]

OutInTheShed said:

A couple of second-user Lenovos?

For three users I'd suggest something robust, specifically a Thinkpad. Mine, refurbished and bought a few months ago, is much more sturdily built than my consumer Lenovo was.

[grumbledoak]

OP, first work out what apps/applications your daughter and mrs will want to use. That is probably going to dictate your base choice between Windows, Apple, and Chromebook.

If you do go Windows, the big manufacturers (Lenovo, Dell, HP, Asus) are all much of a muchness at any given budget. They also all have "Outlet" stores where you can get discounts on returned/cancelled orders. Refurbished business machines can be a good way to get more for less too.

[ThingsBehindTheSun]

What sort of games do you want to play? If you want to play anything demanding you are looking at £1K really, plus gaming laptops tend to be bulkier and heavier due to cooling. My Lenovo Legion Pro for instance is 2.5KG, almost a KG heavier than a regular laptop.

I just bought my daughter one of these, I paid £299 (they are £329 now) in the recent sale. It will easily last a few years, is light, the screen is OK and it is cheap enough to easily replace when it inevitably gets broken. This is the third laptop I have had to buy in just over two years for my daughter.

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops-2-in-1-pcs...

[the-photographer]

Patio said:

Had a work laptop almost all my life that I've used for doing whatever I needed

Daughter doing GCSE's next year and we've decided we need a "family" laptop for her to use for education and mrs to use for her self employed stuff(her ipad is coming to the end of its life), I'd probably just use for you tube but wouldn't be opposed to having a game on there I can drop onto now and again that would run at a decent speed

Looked in john lewis today and can pay anything between £250 to £2500

I've always had a dell and they've been great

Thanks

Budget probably up to £500

One of these

https://www.dellrefurbished.co.uk/item/dell-latitu...

Or two of these to stop arguments

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/dell-latitude-739...

Both will only play very basic games like Minecraft

[ThingsBehindTheSun]

the-photographer said:

One of these

https://www.dellrefurbished.co.uk/item/dell-latitu...

Or two of these to stop arguments

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/dell-latitude-739...

Both will only play very basic games like Minecraft

The Dell i3 I linked is quicker than both of those and brand new for similar money.

[beko1987]

Something like this would tick every box bar gaming

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/267018123815?_skw=think...

Adding Gaming into the mix will greatly increase the cost, you could man-maths your way into a nice small form factor gaming PC for the same/less money than a laptop with a GPU of any falvour

[ThingsBehindTheSun]

beko1987 said:

Something like this would tick every box bar gaming

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/267018123815?_skw=think...

Adding Gaming into the mix will greatly increase the cost, you could man-maths your way into a nice small form factor gaming PC for the same/less money than a laptop with a GPU of any falvour

Although that is an i7 it is five generations old and isn't actually that powerful anymore. As I said above, the i3 I linked to is about 70% more powerful in benchmark tests.

[Steve_H80]

You need two laptops. Possibly 3.
The wife will go ballistic if daughter takes the laptop to school with all her work stuff on it, likewise daughter will have a strop if it isn't available and she needs it now.
The wife is used to Apple and it's a good guess the daughters educations stuff will be Windows.
Then even consider either of them losing or breaking the laptop and the inevitable loss of data (because one of them won't have backed up or used a cloud properly).
And all of this will be your fault! Save yourself some grief. Give daughter £500 to pick her own, let the wife sort herself out, and then go buy yourself a nice, new bike

[OutInTheShed]

Steve_H80 said:

You need two laptops. Possibly 3.
The wife will go ballistic if daughter takes the laptop to school with all her work stuff on it, likewise daughter will have a strop if it isn't available and she needs it now.
The wife is used to Apple and it's a good guess the daughters educations stuff will be Windows.
Then even consider either of them losing or breaking the laptop and the inevitable loss of data (because one of them won't have backed up or used a cloud properly).
And all of this will be your fault! Save yourself some grief. Give daughter £500 to pick her own, let the wife sort herself out, and then go buy yourself a nice, new bike

Laptop is a PC.

The P stands for 'personal'.

Depending on the nature of 'the Wife's self employed stuff', moving from an ipad to a laptop may be easy and benefial or a total pain.
My wife would not want to be without the ipad as well as a laptop or PC. To me, ipads often just overlap with phone or computer, I don't really need all 3, but I do have tablet for navigation on the boat, and an old ipad I use for a few things.

'Games' is an open-ended world of spending.

[Craikeybaby]

My first thought was that having a shared "family" laptop would be a bit of a nightmare, then I remembered that we have one ourselves. It only works because nobody uses it though. The kids both have their own devices, I have other laptops and my wife has a work laptop, so it only really gets used when the kids want to do something laptop specific.

My suggestion would be to replace the wife's laptop, get your daughter a suitable laptop and then a chromecast/Apple TV etc to watch YouTube on your TV.