Budget £400 laptop

joelk2 · 14 Aug 2017 at 12:48

so wife is starting uni this year. Open university jobby.

As she will need computer access I think I need to buy her a laptop (she’s not taking over my pc all the time)

No gaming at all will be done on it. Just internet, Facebook, uni work(office suite), webcam seminar jobbies.

My budget is around £400. Maybe an extra £50 but don’t really wanna go over that.

Anyone seen any good deals about?

I found an ASUS ZenBook UX305CA (manufacturer refurb)which seems to get good reviews.

Specs are
Core M3-6Y30
128gb ssd
8gb ram

Would prefer new but honestly don’t think I’ll get anything near in my budget.

Anyone have any alternatives?

Robzere31 · 14 Aug 2017 at 14:16

I've recently purchased 2x Lenovo v110 laptops.
One for the father in law & one for the wife.

Similar specs apart from one has an i3 & the other an i5.

The i5 specs are
I5 6200u
4gb ddr4
128gb SSD
15" screen
Dvd drive
Windows 10

I paid £340 & £380 respectively but I see the prices have risen in the passed couple of weeks.

Even so, for the money they are nice machines to work with. Certainly worth a look.

joelk2 · 14 Aug 2017 at 14:20

Cheers. I have seen them advertised actually.

The i5 one did appeal but I couldn’t find anything mentioning battery life.

Also the ram, can it be upgraded to 8gb? Does it have m.2 slot?

Sorry for all questions

Robzere31 · 14 Aug 2017 at 14:23

I'm sure you can ask for an 8gb version when ordering.
Battery life seems good, on a full charge just browsing net & emails etc I would say 4 hours. When I first unplugged it reports 8 hours+

I don't think there's an m2 slot & there are only 2 USB ports.

joelk2 · 14 Aug 2017 at 19:16

cheers. Sounds like a good contender. Like the idea of an i5 above the core m but then MacBooks use core m and they seem to last a while (I know it’s os related too though)

Think it would be cheaper to upgrade myself over getting them to upgrade on purchase

joelk2 · 28 Aug 2017 at 14:33

Still looking out for a laptop and really can’t decide on one.

Would you think that this

HP Pavilion 14-bk052sa
I3-7100u
8gb ram
128gb ssd

Is worth £150 more than

LENOVO Ideapad 320s-14IKB
Pentium 4415u
4gb ram
128gb ssd

Will only be used for ms word, Skype, internet.

I think the thing putting me off is that to get any sort of battery life the resolution is 1366x768

Is that really a bad thing?