Best place to buy laptop these days

[Ubiquitous2024]

Life experience has told me to avoid the likes of Curry's like the plague. Numerous computers over the years filled with bloatware and rubbish, making them almost unusable.

My kids need a laptop simply to do some homework and play things like Roblox and World of Tanks. Where's the best place to get this? I don't want to be given the hardshell over subscriptions to apps and software, but would like some decent ram and processing.

No real budget... 300 quid?

[Griffith4ever]

TBH - you can't really do much better than Currys IMHO - you get to actually look at and try their laptops, and there was zero "bloatware" on my HP Pavillion form there. Just say "no" to ALL the addons they try and sell you - then you won't have Norton etc installed on it. My HP laptop from them came sealed, new, with nothing from Currys on it. Same is if I'd gone direct to HP.

Not sure £300 will get you very far, maybe more like £450

[dontlookdown]

Haven't bought one for a few years, but ebuyer was always my go to for Windows laptops.

You might need to up the budget a bit, as noted above.

[Mr E]

Used provides significant value in my experience.

[Ubiquitous2024]

Interesting, my comments are from experiences that date back to around 2005 so guess things have changed. Not averse to trying Currys again.

Second hand always good, but less fall back. Where from - Ebay?

[Monsterlime]

Mr E said:

Used provides significant value in my experience.

Agreed, especially with a used business class device. Such as an HP Elitebook or Dell Latitude/XPS. £300 is possibly a bit low, but push it a touch more and something like this would likely be fine - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/126913457936 at least for Roblox.

WoT will play, but at low graphics. You probably want a dedicated GPU for that, and that increases the cost significantly.

This would play WoT without a problem - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/286287371129 but is a good bit over £300.

Edit - I am also selling a gaming laptop myself after upgrading, but it is not a business device and I want more than the XPS above, really.

Edited by Monsterlime on Saturday 8th February 10:54

[Mr E]

Ubiquitous2024 said:

Second hand always good, but less fall back. Where from - Ebay?

Lots of businesses specialising in it. Stick refurbished laptops in google, see what you find

[Phil.]

Dell Outlet have a good reputation:

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/dfh/lp/outlet?gclsrc=aw...

[Ubiquitous2024]

Ok will have a look at all those now. Meanwhile at Currys:

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/lenovo-ideapad-1...

[Mr Pointy]

Look for secondhand Lenovo T series. I know they are business machines but if it can survive on the road then it might have more chance surviving your kids. just watch the screens though - get a full HD 400 NIT version not the 300 NIT one. There's loads of vendors if you search ebay & the like. There's stuff like this out there:

https://www.pcrenewed.co.uk/refurbished-laptops/hi...

Yes it's an pretty slow 8th gen processor but it will run Windows 11 & has 16GB of RAM & a 512GB SSD. Only a 14" screen though. £279.

[Phil.]

16GB of RAM will help with longevity especially if they are playing games on it.

[motco]

Ubiquitous2024 said:

Interesting, my comments are from experiences that date back to around 2005 so guess things have changed. Not averse to trying Currys again.

Second hand always good, but less fall back. Where from - Ebay?

Refurbished items from the likes of Morgan seem good value if covered by a 12 month warranty. A refurbished unit might well have been through a more rigorous individual final inspection that a new one direct from China.

[OutInTheShed]

I don't think secondhand is as good as it used to be.

Businesses are not turning over laptops as much as they used to?

You have to decide whether you want windoze 11, or whether you're happy with a soon-to-be obsolete Win10.
Not many good used Win11 compatible laptops about at sensible prices.
Given that you've got a short warranty and you'll probably want a new battery within a year.

Personally I see some value in 'good name' laptops, like HP, Lenovo, Dell... because you can find people to fix them, or they retain some value when broken.

FWIW, late last year I bought an HP laptop for £300 from John Lewis, extra year guarantee compared with Currys.
Seems to do everything I want, which is fairly basic mostly. It isn't as quick for some CAD tasks as a £2k machine, quelle surprise...
That was a Black friday deal though.

[Captain_Morgan]

This is a interesting way to remove bloatware and keep it so.

https://youtu.be/1o-eO5doJrM?si=WeJ4932Ye5AkARDz

[Ubiquitous2024]

Thanks all, for ease I just bought new from Currys, HP with 8GB so I am hoping this will be sufficient for simple homework and gaming on apps like Roblox. At least if there are issues I can then take it down the road back to Curries without too much inconvenience.


https://www.currys.co.uk/products/hp-15sfq5585sa-1...

[Riley Blue]

Mr Pointy said:

Look for secondhand Lenovo T series. I know they are business machines but if it can survive on the road then it might have more chance surviving your kids. just watch the screens though - get a full HD 400 NIT version not the 300 NIT one. There's loads of vendors if you search ebay & the like. There's stuff like this out there:

https://www.pcrenewed.co.uk/refurbished-laptops/hi...

Yes it's an pretty slow 8th gen processor but it will run Windows 11 & has 16GB of RAM & a 512GB SSD. Only a 14" screen though. £279.

I bought a 15.6" ThinkPad from them a few months back, it's by far the best laptop I've owned.

[Ubiquitous2024]

Well, day 1 and already a problem. The X Box app will not load / run under any circumstances. Open it, the window opens and it tried to load, just hangs like that for ages until the "stranded" screen appears. Tried fixing, resetting, updating, all says done, but it won't load up at all. Any ideas before I take it back?

[vaud]

[quote=motco]

Refurbished items from the likes of Morgan seem good value if covered by a 12 month warranty.

I hadn't realised they were still going... amazing.

[barryrs]

Phil. said:

Dell Outlet have a good reputation:

https://www.dell.com/en-uk/dfh/lp/outlet?gclsrc=aw...

Agreed, I got a good spec laptop more than capable of running AutoCad for just £330

[driver67]

Ubiquitous2024 said:

Well, day 1 and already a problem. The X Box app will not load / run under any circumstances. Open it, the window opens and it tried to load, just hangs like that for ages until the "stranded" screen appears. Tried fixing, resetting, updating, all says done, but it won't load up at all. Any ideas before I take it back?

Looks like the machine you've bought is running Windows 11 S.

This limits apps / things you can download from outwith the Microsoft store. There are known problems running Xbox apps under windows 11S (they do external downloads etc).

You can switch out of Windows 11 S mode to Windows 11 Home, though you can't go back if you do this.

More info here :-
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/...

https://techcult.com/windows-11-s-mode-pros-cons-a...

Dougie.