Laptop <£200

[Rockbox]

I'm the designated techie who finds friends and family laptops. I need 2 laptops, I assume for word docs and web browsing. The budget was originally £100. Getting them to £200 was a stretch. I found a nice Lenovo with Ryzen 5300u for £225, but even that's too much.

They're Apple's target audience. Buy phones/laptops/tablets for £100 and wonder why they're crap. "A phone's a phone, after all." Buy an £800 Macbook Air: "oh it's so fast."

Is it possible at £200? There was a Lenovo with IPS screen and Pentium Gold 7505 for £186.99 on HotUKDeals. I take it Tiger Lake U/Zen 4xxx at the minimum? I've used a tablet with Pentium/Celeron N, and it's currently gathering dust.

It's a surprise, so I can't ask the receivers what they want. The one requesting usually goes for large storage. I normally focus on CPUs, 128GB minimum to not cripple Windows and, after my last purchase, screens. The requester doesn't want me opening up a new laptop, so post-purchase upgrades are out.

While we're here, what's available at £100 that's not masochistic? Left up to them, they'd get whatever sponsored trash the rainforest showed them. I'd personally like to avoid the rainforest and auction site. Laptops on here start at £700, so out of budget.

Not fussy with brands, but over the years I keep coming back to Asus for cheap laptops. One of the HotUKDeals threads also ripped into Lenovo for their poor hinge design.

 

[throwaway4372]

I'd say 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD are a minimum, that's about £450.

Perfect opportunity to stop being the designated techy imo.

 

[Rockbox]

Eh, it's not so bad.

Their minimums are a lot lower than my minimums. Personally not a fan of laptops in general.

 

[lsg1r]

As much as I hate chromebooks.... it might be the way to go here
Something like a HP 11a-na0502sa 11.6" Chromebook - MediaTek MT8183, 32 GB eMMC, White (it's from the usual brick and mortar) goes for 139, it should be fine for word processing (at least via google stuff) and browsing...

Actually, bit shocked at this,... you can get some windows machines under £200 there too... celeron n4020, 4gb ram and emmc storage so won't blow your socks off on performance, and a I doubt battery life is above 5 hours, but it's all above minimum spec for windows 11.

I personally wouldn't want any less than 8GB ram (16 preferred), a proper ssd and a faster cpu but that is going to hit minimum of £450

In all honesty, if I had those requirements and was the 'designated techie' I'd have just said not a chance you'll get anything worth buying at those prices.... there's being 'budget minded' and unrealistic.


EDIT: don't forget to go to the manufacturer sites, some offer up student/teacher/medical/milatary/other discounts (which can usually be found from a google or you might have access to one)..

 

[Rockbox]

Are chromebooks really suitable for university students? I recommended them for a kid once. I have access to discounts, but the real price-savings seem to come from these random sales I hear about after they're finished.

 

[lsg1r]

Are chromebooks really suitable for university students? I recommended them for a kid once. I have access to discounts, but the real price-savings seem to come from these random sales I hear about after they're finished.

Honestly, I wouldn't exactly say ANY laptop around £200 is suitable for uni... chromebooks are being used in some uni's, especially in the US and would likely be enough for the bare essentials but not a lot else but then the windows laptops in that range would likely have similar issues imo.

But now you've mentioned university it does make the requirements a little more specific...If they want to use it on campus for note taking it will need a good battery life, will likely need a bit of 'branding' to not be an outcast and in all honesty if it's the only device they have on campus then it would also be for recreational use, so maybe a bit of gaming, netflix/amazon etc. There's also nothing to say that the uni course is only about word processing and the likes....

Can you honestly say that you could hit those requirements for £200 or less, I can't... that laptop at £225 (assuming good battery) is likely the best you're going to do for this type of budget but if they can't stretch to it then you're kind of a bit screwed.

EDIT:Can't actually give personal feedback but chuwi (rainforest) usually get good reviews and you can get the below for £159 with a £20 off voucher currently available to take it to £139. It does look to have a US keyboard though...

CHUWI Laptops HeroBook Air 11.6'' HD Screen, Intel Celeron N4020, 4 GB RAM 128GB SSD(TF 512GB) Windows 10 Laptops with Microsoft 365 Subscription, USB 3.0, 4800mAh Ultra Slim NoteBook​

 

[Rockbox]

will likely need a bit of 'branding' to not be an outcast

It's a shame that unis have become extensions of high school, what with the lack of guaranteed jobs and all. I imagine in a matter of years you'll have jocks studying sports science pushing nerds studying computer science into lockers.

Uni's not till September, so I'll probably wait for one of those £188 ips screen deals.

I'd obviously buy a proper laptop if buying for myself, and since I'm not paying, it doesn't matter if it becomes e-waste and the students get their own stuff. In an ideal world, you'd just give them the money and let them choose.

But I hate how laptops are outdated in a year, while an overclocked 2500k kicks on for a decade. They seem to depreciate in value faster than phones, and didn't come close to fulfilling their potential till M1/Ryzen 4th gen.

 

[triobot]

For £100, you're going to get junk that will become e-waste.

Even a laptop like this with £50 off is junk. You'd probably want to add more RAM and more storage which will add to the cost.

 

[Rockbox]

How important is RAM vs a CPU? Been a while since I used anything less than 16GB, but even then, a decent SSD should act as a pagefile. What good is saturating that RAM with cores weaker than my mobile phone?

I thought a Tiger Lake or Zen 2 core would be more important, even if it's 2C4T. But I heard that Ryzen laptops also dedicate 2GB to graphics, so is that something I have to worry about?

 

[throwaway4372]

You can't skimp on either. Seriously don't waste £200 on a laptop. Save until you have £450. Mow some lawns or whatever to get the cash.

 

[lsg1r]

It's a shame that unis have become extensions of high school, what with the lack of guaranteed jobs and all. I imagine in a matter of years you'll have jocks studying sports science pushing nerds studying computer science into lockers.

There's always been an element of this, even when I was back at uni (20+ years ago), there was the 'trendy' stuff to have etc.... and that was before the joys of instagram etc.

But I hate how laptops are outdated in a year, while an overclocked 2500k kicks on for a decade. They seem to depreciate in value faster than phones, and didn't come close to fulfilling their potential till M1/Ryzen 4th gen.

To be fair laptops aren't going to be outdated in a year, a 9-10th gen intel will still be good enough etc.... the issue is their all in one nature mean they come across more 'disposable', with it being even worse at the budget end of the market as they have to cut corners to keep prices down.

How important is RAM vs a CPU? Been a while since I used anything less than 16GB, but even then, a decent SSD should act as a pagefile. What good is saturating that RAM with cores weaker than my mobile phone?

I thought a Tiger Lake or Zen 2 core would be more important, even if it's 2C4T. But I heard that Ryzen laptops also dedicate 2GB to graphics, so is that something I have to worry about?

Personally, even though windows 10/11 can be installed on 4GB I wouldn't want less than 8GB (16GB really), especially if it's using integrated graphics. Both Intel and AMD will take some of that ram for the gpu.

As to which is more important, in an ideal world, they're both important although after 4C/8T the cpus become less of an issue imo. You also need a minimum of 120GB range storage, I'm sure you remember the 'pleasure' of 32GB netbooks trying to be updated (MS says 64GB storage min now)

 

[Rroff]

TBH at £200 you are looking at like J4125 based devices with 8GB RAM and 128GB eMMC, 256GB if you are lucky - they'll do at a pinch for web-browsing and casual app use - in fact surprisingly well for most casual users - but won't stand up to any real gaming or heavier weight productivity tasks. If you look around there are some solid construction quality wise brands even at that price point for those devices, and some truly terrible ones...

 

[Rockbox]

TBH at £200 you are looking at like J4125 based devices with 8GB RAM and 128GB eMMC, 256GB if you are lucky - they'll do at a pinch for web-browsing and casual app use - in fact surprisingly well for most casual users - but won't stand up to any real gaming or heavier weight productivity tasks. If you look around there are some solid construction quality wise brands even at that price point for those devices, and some truly terrible ones...

That doesn't sound half bad tbh. 4 core, and eMMC's image got some rehab with the low-end Steam Deck. Which brands do you recommend?

I'm still looking out for those freak deals. Like the 8/256 Samsung laptop that apparently went on sale at Argos for £200. Maybe Prime Day will have some good deals too, although like I said, I don't like to pad Bezos' pockets.

 

[StarShock]

Just want to add, a lot of low end laptops have soldered ram and no additional slots. So beware if you're looking at a 4gb one and hoping to upgrade the ram. Its not always possible to do so.

 

[Fluffybob]

Chromebook is a good option, used in a few of our schools and come in around your budget.

 

[Hawk Tuah]

Anyone still using a ~2015 Macbook Air?

I had one for work back in ~2015-16 and it was a brilliant bit of kit. Everything worked slick and speedy, and the battery was unlike anything in the windows world (10+ hours use totally possible).

I'm tempted to get my son one as his class seem to use Google Classroom / Google Docs. However my experience with Apple makes me thing they've likely nerfed the machine with software updates.

 

[tom_nieto]

Anyone still using a ~2015 Macbook Air?

I had one for work back in ~2015-16 and it was a brilliant bit of kit. Everything worked slick and speedy, and the battery was unlike anything in the windows world (10+ hours use totally possible).

I'm tempted to get my son one as his class seem to use Google Classroom / Google Docs. However my experience with Apple makes me thing they've likely nerfed the machine with software updates.

Was going to post in the thread anyway as we’re looking for a laptop for our daughter. We have a terrible netbook which was pretty much out of date when it was bought in 2014. This will be scrapped. There is also a 2015 13” rMBP with a broken screen backlight (quoted £600 to repair, triggered the purchase of a newer model) which I think we’ll get another quote to fix. The reason I mention that, is that I’m still using my 15” 2015 rMBP happily and it might make sense to fix the broken one and pass that on to our daughter instead of buying another bottom of the range machine new. I find the latest Mac software hasn’t slowed my progress on the 2015 machine and it still seems sharp and snappy. The 16Gb RAM upgrade has probably helped this.

EDIT - if the price of repair is still >£500 then I’ll be looking at a new windows machine. Any good Black Friday deals? <£300 ideally and only for web browsing and school work.

 

[hornetstinger]

Yeah worth paying a bit more. I already have desktops for demanding roles, so laptop would most be lighter tasks
However since laptops can't be upgraded, or if they are means losing money on existing ram/ssd, it's worth spending a bit more.

Don't need to go over the top in spec, but 4gb ram windows laptop will be borderline

Means the purchase will last years without needing a upgrade, and it's always fast and responsive, rather than sluggish and regretting not getting quad core, hex, or octo core CPU instead of dual the most basic dual core