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Laptop advice

I bought two Lenovo S340s in the summer for kids.

The spec was OK for the money but the build quality is not great and both managed to break the screens through carelessness (I replaced them myself for £45 a pop).

Why not post a rough budget and links to anything you are considering here and we can advise?
 
I bought two Lenovo S340s in the summer for kids.

The spec was OK for the money but the build quality is not great and both managed to break the screens through carelessness (I replaced them myself for £45 a pop).

Why not post a rough budget and links to anything you are considering here and we can advise?

Lenovo are a Chinese company that bought out IBM. My desktop (that I'm using at the moment) is a relatively early Lenovo and the build quality is very good. However, I suspect over the years they've reduce the quality to save money.
 
Guys, you're all talking about things which mean nothing to me - couldn't even tell you the difference between a chrome book and a laptop!



No idea - do you need any of that for Zoom - everything I've used before (phones and ipads/tablets) seems to have had sufficient stuff inbuilt.

You might want to use an external mic. for headphones if Zoom ever freezes -it does occasionally on our laptop.
 
I bought two Lenovo S340s in the summer for kids.

The spec was OK for the money but the build quality is not great and both managed to break the screens through carelessness (I replaced them myself for £45 a pop).

Why not post a rough budget and links to anything you are considering here and we can advise?

Ok, so I don't really want to spend more than about £500.....
 
These are what my daughter suggested, we can get the Dell cheaper - I'm worried the screen size might be too small though:


 
Ok, so I don't really want to spend more than about £500.....

You don't need to spend anywhere near that.

A fair few years ago my mother-in-law wanted a new laptop so she asked her son (my wife's elder brother who has more money than sense) to sort it out for her. He spoke to "his IT guy" who he trusts for everything. This guy suggested a Sony which would have cost her about £700. I took one look at the spec, pointed out that she will only use it for email and the odd excursion on-line, and suggested a laptop that cost her £250. That was about 7-8 years ago She's still using it, and has never needed an upgrade.

Prices will have gone up since then, but you should be Ok, especially if you don't buy a branded machine, and ring one of those build-your-own jobbies.
 
Laptops have increased in price over the past year.

I would recommend 8GB of memory in order to future proof your purchase. Sounds like you won't need a massive hard drive - 256GB should be ample.
 
These are what my daughter suggested, we can get the Dell cheaper - I'm worried the screen size might be too small though:


14 inches will be fine. Any larger and the laptop will be pretty heavy. You can pick up a standalone monitor for <£100 if you plan to use it as a desk in the future. A second screen is really helpful (I have three!)

Those laptops you've picked out look fine.
 
14 inches will be fine. Any larger and the laptop will be pretty heavy. You can pick up a standalone monitor for <£100 if you plan to use it as a desk in the future. A second screen is really helpful (I have three!)

Those laptops you've picked out look fine.

My son has the Lenovo - it is a decent machine unless you are a careless 12 year old but by that criteria no laptops like being dropped no matter how expensive.
 
I guess it's what you're used to - all my paperwork related to the Shrimpers Trust and Junior Blues is in word or excel. I definitely need word if I am going to be doing anything for work.
Kay
Don”t get a chrome book- they are excellent, but They are not as easy to use for a non pc expert (we have a chrome book and laptop)
Don’t buy Microsoft office from a shop, you can buy it from eBay of various online shops for a fraction of the price AND you can buy a forever license , not a 12 month licence. ( have done this many times)
Do buy one with SSD not HDD memory- pc will boot up quicker
Depending on how you use the laptop a illuminated keyboard is a very nice feature
Again depending on how you intend to use it I agree with a previous poster on having a separate screen keyboard and mouse- it’s a game changer for working from home. This also might influence what size screen you get. Screen size is IMO the first decision you need to make.

Laptops direct is a great online shop, very good prices, next day delivery

I bought myself an acre laptop 18 months ago and then bought my daughter the same one as we were so impressed. I was really lucky in that I got a great price and then Acer were doing a £80”trade in”. For the trade in I used my old acer chromebool, weirdly they call it trade in, but you keep the old kit.
For my daughters trade in I looked at acer chrome books on eBay and found a photo of one for sale showing the serial number, so I photographed the laptop for sale and used it for my trade in. Maybe a little naughty but I love to beat the system ?
 
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Thank you all, you've given a lot of useful advice. Pay day today so hopefully making a decision over the weekend!
 
It's not going to be predominantly for work, it'll mainly be for personal use, I still have the log in link to access our whole work system on my pc, which I'm not replacing, but just want it to have the capability if needed.

We might use it for ifollow and stuff like that if (fingers crossed!) we're away.

My daughter seems to think that you can still purchase office as a one off payment, which isn't a problem.

So 10% work and 90% SZ / ifollow ?✌️
 
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