New laptop - max budget €4-500

Speedsie

Hi, an older relative has asked me to take a look at his laptop - but I honestly think it's on it's last legs - it's over 10 years old and was originally Vista, but has since been upgraded by someone to Win 10. I think it has 4Gb of RAM, but given the issues he has outlined, including a dud battery and no longer being able to connect to his vodafone dongle, I think a replacement is a good idea.

He's a light enough user - browsing the web, email, some Word/Excel and that's about it.

He's not particularly fussed about the size of the laptop, but he doesn't travel much with it so I think he'd be better with a larger one!

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Speedy

probably a good candidate for replacement if the cpu is really poor and the usb ports and/or wifi are fecked but an ssd would speed things up considerably. given that you can get one for 20 euro these days it might be worth a shot

for a new one

this is very good value at £400 (less than 500 euro delivered). reliable site that delivers to Ireland

4-core i5 cpu
1080p ips screen 14 inch - plenty big enough imo (15.6 less popular as a screen size these days)
8gb ram
ssd

https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/81F400E9UK-Lenovo-IdeaPad-330s_2498826.html

only downside is that battery life is on the short side at probably 5 hours but if mainly home use doesn't matter much.

if you're set on a bigger 15.6 screen this is also decent for £30 less

a dual core i3 is probably more than enough for his uses.

hdd + optane not as fast as ssd but it's still a lot faster than just hdd on its own

https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/NX.H1MEK.003-Acer-Swift-3-SF15-52-30DU_2386653.html

but I'd go for the Lenovo tbh as it's offering 8gb ram, better cpu and ssd over this. 8gb ram needed for smooth operation of windows going fwd

Speedsie

Hi, thanks for that Glasso, I've given him the details, and I think he'll go for the first one.

Speeds

ClaptonBay

Hi glasso, is that Acer good for normal usage or could you recommend another 15.6 inch screen? Would be using excel and having the number pad on the right hand side is handy,otherwise i'd also be going for the 14inch you linked.

Morpork

ClaptonBay wrote: »

Hi glasso, is that Acer good for normal usage or could you recommend another 15.6 inch screen? Would be using excel and having the number pad on the right hand side is handy,otherwise i'd also be going for the 14inch you linked.

https://www.laptopsdirect.ie/hp-255-g7-adm-ryzen-3-2200u-8gb-1tb-hdd-15.6-inch-windows-10-home-laptop-6bn15ea/version.asp

Another 15.6 option.

CPU is about the same as the i3 8th gen.
8GB RAM
Upgrade it yourself to an SSD if you can. It's not that hard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6a6vMI1Lx8

You'll still be way under budget with a great laptop after the SSD upgrade.

ClaptonBay

ClaptonBay wrote: »

Hi glasso, is that Acer good for normal usage or could you recommend another 15.6 inch screen? Would be using excel and having the number pad on the right hand side is handy,otherwise i'd also be going for the 14inch you linked.

I'd go for the 14 with the i5 tbh. a lot more future proof. and 14 is fine as a screen size imo.

altho if you upgrade that 15.6 acer to 8gb it would be ok.

4gb doesn't really cut it for win 10 for comfortable running

I assume it's 1 ram slot (although google to check) then you could buy an 8gb stick and sell the 4gb for a few quid

being 15.6 there is a chance that there are 2 ram slots so it would be a cheap 4gb stick upgrade

looks like it has 2 ram slots

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/553773/ram-slots-in-acer-swift-sf315-52g

it's only about 25 euro for 4gb ddr4 so a cheap upgrade