Is this laptop a good buy?

robgilmo

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8551283

My daughter, 8 , wants a laptop from Santa, to do home work on , apparently. Anyhow she also wants it to be Pink. Its not the end of the world if she cant have a Pink one. Anyhow, the reviews say it cant update W10 because there isnt enough storage space, 32Gb? Im not believing that. Any opinions guys?

LuttiS

I'd say thats pretty poor for £200... 

Sure pc world were doing a pink hp one a little while ago that was better for around that price.. can't remember for certain.. I will look after bedtime

robgilmo

Also guys, 1.5GHz processor speed or 2.6GHz processor speed, does it make much of a difference?

robgilmo

There is this one, https://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-stream-14-intel-celeron-laptop-32-gb-emmc-white-10181482-pdt.html
For sub 200 quid Im not expecting much but I dont want something that will hang up on any apps that she might want to use, basic games like Asphalt 8 and roblox.

robgilmo

LuttiS said:

I'd say thats pretty poor for £200... 

Sure pc world were doing a pink hp one a little while ago that was better for around that price.. can't remember for certain.. I will look after bedtime

Thanks buddy, ive had a gander and cant find any Pink ones for under 225.

Danny1969

The 32Gb is SSD soldered on the board, owners of these machines run out of space very quickly as a basic install of Win 10 and the recover partition can be 15Gb or so 
Not recommended 

robgilmo

Danny1969 said:

The 32Gb is SSD soldered on the board, owners of these machines run out of space very quickly as a basic install of Win 10 and the recover partition can be 15Gb or so 
Not recommended 

So something like this would be a better bet?
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8665155

crunchman

It's a bit more money but this has an SSD (so much faster):

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/156-acer-aspire-3-a315-31-n4200-intel-quad-core-4gb-128gb-ssd-lan-wifi-bt-hdmi-win10-home-64bit

128GB isn't huge, but it's 4 times more than 32GB.  It would be useable, and it would be a huge amount faster than a PC with a 5400rpm conventional HD.  It's also a quad core processor rather than dual core.

The other option if you want cheap is to get a Chromebook rather than a Windows laptop.

Danny1969

robgilmo said:

Danny1969 said:

The 32Gb is SSD soldered on the board, owners of these machines run out of space very quickly as a basic install of Win 10 and the recover partition can be 15Gb or so 
Not recommended 

So something like this would be a better bet?
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8665155

If want something that will last a few years try to find an i3 Intel model with a normal harddrive or upgradable SSD ..... might be looking at £299 upwards though

robgilmo

I dont think I could push the boat out that far, Ive seen this one but I am not sure if the processor is man enough, reviews say its slow?
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8665155

crunchman

robgilmo said:

I dont think I could push the boat out that far, Ive seen this one but I am not sure if the processor is man enough, reviews say its slow?
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8665155

Anything with a 5400rpm conventional hard drive will be slow irrespective of the processor.  I suspect the HD is the bigger reason why it is slow.

SSD makes a huge difference, but at the budget end of the market, you are only getting 32GB, which isn't enough for Windows.

Like I said above, if you do want to stick close to £200, you may be better with a Chromebook.  The Chrome OS seems to be lighter than Windows.

https://www.ebuyer.com/823664-lenovo-100e-chromebook-for-education-81er0001uk

I'm pretty sure that games like Roblox are browser based, so you don't need Windows for them.  If she's 8, then MS Office probably isn't essential at this point in time, so you don't need Windows for that.

Alternatively, if you do want Windows, something like this might be better than the first one you linked to:

https://www.ebuyer.com/835638-lenovo-100e-winbook-81cy002muk

That one does have 64GB of storage rather than 32GB.  To my mind that's still not enough, but it's a lot better than 32GB.

Personally I'd spend slightly more and try to find something with a 128GB SSD though.

robgilmo

Is Chrome Android based? I want a windows machine because she uses them at school and I think if she is going to use a lap top and learn how to use it then windows would be better. She has an Android tablet and she figured it out quite quickly so we are looking for the next step up from that. I will keep looking for SSD with a decent storage capacity, I dont want to buy something that will be restrictive.

crunchman

That's fine if you want to go that way, but you may need to spend closer to £300 to get hardware that will work, and continue to work, with a more bloated OS like Windows.

It's a bit awkward timing because the changeover to SSDs is happening, but at the budget end of the market a lot of machines still have conventional hard drives - like the one you linked to above.

An SSD does make a big difference.  I put an SSD in a desktop with an old Core 2 Duo CPU, and it was like a different machine.  That machine has a different motherboard and CPU in now, but it's still only a second generation i3 (they are now on the 9th generation of i series processors).  My daughters use that and it runs fine for things like Roblox.  That machine is significantly faster for most things than my wife's laptop, which is only 3 years old, but has a conventional HD.

revsorg

It's really easy to upgrade a laptop from a traditional hard drive to an SSD (I'd go for this Samsung), whereas upgrading any of the other components ranges between hard and never-going-to-happen.  So you could get something like the HP from Argos and upgrade it in future.

But I've only ever bought Intel processors, although I'm sure AMD are okay, just personal bias.

robgilmo

What do you think of these specs?

• Inspiron 15 - 3552
• Processor: Intel® Celeron® N3060 (2 Core, 2M cache, up to  2.48 GHz,6W)
• Windows 10 Home (64bit)
• 4 GB DDR3 (1x4GB) 1600MHz
• 500 GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
• Tray load DVD Drive (Reads and Writes to DVD/CD)
• Software
• Dell Wireless 1707 Card (802.11BGN + Bluetooth 4.0, 2.4 GHz)
• LCD Cover Black
• 40 WHr, 4-Cell Battery (removable)
• 15.6inch HD (1366 x 768) Truelife LED-Backlit Display
• Internal UK/Irish (QWERTY) Keyboard

I know its not an SSD but Ive bought Dell computers before and found them quite reliable. 

TTony

robgilmo said:

My daughter, 8 , wants a laptop from Santa, to do home work on ,  

When you work out what she *really* wants it for, you’ll be better able to spec it.

Unless she’s one of those slightly-advanced-for-her-age 8yos who are heading off to Uni next year, you might be able to steer away from the costs and fragility of laptops and the complexities of Win10, altogether...

robgilmo

She will be playing games on it, watching movies, you tube, internet, Skype, photos, the odd photo editing and maybe as far as basic home movie editing. It has to be windows as thats what she uses in school and our home network is Windows based. I dont want to get something that she might find restrictive. What we ideally want for her is to use computers productively rather than just play games and watch video, right now she has a tablet and its Roblox and you tube and not much else, so something that she can grow into rather than grow out of. The Dell machine spec listed in my last post is for sale refurbished at a very good price compared to new. Are refurbished computers worth a punt?

shrinkwrap

I'm in a similar boat, my daughter is 18 but still wants the laptop in the right colour - silver being the choice.

So to all you experts: is SSD more important then i3 vs i5?

I've read that not all laptops are post install SSD friendly - how would you know till you try?

I'm sure it was simpler choosing laptops a few years ago - so many subvariants of each machine means you can't compare across sellers or reviews. Tnen there's AMD back in the game.. gaaahhh...

menamestom

shrinkwrap said:

I'm in a similar boat, my daughter is 18 but still wants the laptop in the right colour - silver being the choice.

So to all you experts: is SSD more important then i3 vs i5?

Depends what it is being used for.  Number crunching with large spreadsheets for example you might want the processing power.  To have multiple programs open at the same time processing power and RAM.

For light office duties, web browsing and email on the move, potentially you'd want the fast boot time of an SSD.

Also note i3 vs i5 isn't very technical, some i3's may be faster than some i5's I would imagine, depends on the generation and tech, or at least very close.  Try to find the exact models and compare them on a benchmarking site.

MattBanshee

robgilmo said:

She will be playing games on it, watching movies, you tube, internet, Skype, photos, the odd photo editing and maybe as far as basic home movie editing. It has to be windows as thats what she uses in school and our home network is Windows based. I dont want to get something that she might find restrictive. What we ideally want for her is to use computers productively rather than just play games and watch video, right now she has a tablet and its Roblox and you tube and not much else, so something that she can grow into rather than grow out of. The Dell machine spec listed in my last post is for sale refurbished at a very good price compared to new. Are refurbished computers worth a punt?

That refurb's processor and RAM probably won't run anything except the most basic games, and almost certainly won't do video editing. If you want unrestrictive, proactive use, then a £200 laptop is not going to offer that at all. You'll probably need to double your budget, at least.

LuttiS

If your going down the refurb route.. laptop i use atm is a refurb, i7 quad core, 8gb ram, 500gb hdd, was about £200. Budget in a can of pink spray paint and you're onto a winner!

I do photo & video editing on it and it's fine.