Laptop recommendation

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MDWat
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Laptop recommendation

Post by MDWat » Sun Oct 25, 2020 10:05 am

Could someone please recommend an appropriate laptop for a family member. Should be something pretty straight-forward. They use it for:

- Internet browsing
- Emails (outlook, gmail) - appreciate its essentially the same as the above
- DVDs (watching)
- Story-writing (on Google documents)

They would like a decent amount of memory and play the odd game on it too, but no NextGen gaming or anything like that.

Budget - £500-£750.

Cheers.

Funkydrummer
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Re: Laptop recommendation

Post by Funkydrummer » Sun Oct 25, 2020 10:14 am

Lenovo every time for me.

ewanrob
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Re: Laptop recommendation

Post by ewanrob » Sun Oct 25, 2020 10:16 am

Make sure you get SSD Hard drive if possible.. much quicker than HDD
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CombatClaret
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Re: Laptop recommendation

Post by CombatClaret » Sun Oct 25, 2020 10:22 am

I increasingly buy my tech directly from China, have done this for my last phone and 2in1 tablet. Xiaomi & Chuwi respectively.
Far better value than traditional brands you would find on Amazon/Currys eg: Asus, Lenovo etc.

£460
CHUWI AeroBook Plus 15.6‘
15" 4k display - i5 (older but fine) with decent inbuilt graphics, you will likely not find good dedicated graphics on your budget.
256gb SSD with expansion for another SSD or M2
Lightweight

https://store.chuwi.com/products/chuwi-aerobook-plus
Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va8dlxK ... echTablets

I recommend the website of the above video https://techtablets.com/ who reviews eastern brands you won't find in traditional retail.
I've ordered through sites such as AliExpress and Gearbest before and not had any problems, only precautions I take is using a credit card to give me a little extra buyer protection but if you research the seller fine you should not need it.

To give an example of the saving possible, last Christmas I got my partner an e-scooter, a very common model you will see a lot of around. Timed right I got it for £360, it currently retails for £600 on Halfords.com arrived in 5 days from a warehouse in Spain.
Note, these kinds of saving will likely not be possible soon as it relies on the tariff free shipping within the EU, you will be slapped with a VAT and import Duty charge from Royal Mail or UPS like you would If you were buying from the US or other.
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Wellsy1882
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Re: Laptop recommendation

Post by Wellsy1882 » Sun Oct 25, 2020 12:43 pm

HP

Jambounchained
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Re: Laptop recommendation

Post by Jambounchained » Sun Oct 25, 2020 12:53 pm

I dont think many laptops come with a dvd drive these days, although they can be purchased seperatley obviously.

I'd second Lenovo, got a decent gaming one with an SSD drive.

Wouldn't discount a second hand MacBook Pro either though, my mrs has a 2014 model, picked up for around £400 a while back and it's absolutely rapid.

clarethomer
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Re: Laptop recommendation

Post by clarethomer » Sun Oct 25, 2020 1:28 pm

Jambounchained wrote:
Sun Oct 25, 2020 12:53 pm
I dont think many laptops come with a dvd drive these days, although they can be purchased seperatley obviously.

I'd second Lenovo, got a decent gaming one with an SSD drive.

Wouldn't discount a second hand MacBook Pro either though, my mrs has a 2014 model, picked up for around £400 a while back and it's absolutely rapid.
Rumours are that there is a new macbook coming out next month - event on 17th November so should ship by end of the year.

I can guarantee it won't have a DVD player as no mac laptops have them now and external is the way forward given its all about weight/portability and acceptance that most people these days just stream rather than watch DVDs and can download software rather than install via CD/DVD.

The price expected could be around the top end of the budget though. However, because of the new apple silicon, I am pretty confident it will be rapid and will also have access to all the games you can get on your iPad/iPhone app stores as they are looking to tie up their ecosystems in this way to attract the bigger game developers to their platform.

dpinsussex
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Re: Laptop recommendation

Post by dpinsussex » Sun Oct 25, 2020 1:56 pm

I bought a chuwi for the kids to use.
Great spec for a fraction of the price.
OK have to wait for shipment from China and possibly import tax (mine was about £40 tax)
Laptop was about £200

KateR
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Re: Laptop recommendation

Post by KateR » Sun Oct 25, 2020 3:10 pm

I do my research when buying laptops as I use and travel a lot, I have a 17" for work but also a 10" notebook for personal, both are MSI and I highly recommend but there are huge choices and it boils down to personal choice in the end, but would say they are worth looking at in whatever your price is.

MDWat
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Re: Laptop recommendation

Post by MDWat » Sun Oct 25, 2020 4:41 pm

CombatClaret wrote:
Sun Oct 25, 2020 10:22 am
I increasingly buy my tech directly from China, have done this for my last phone and 2in1 tablet. Xiaomi & Chuwi respectively.
Far better value than traditional brands you would find on Amazon/Currys eg: Asus, Lenovo etc.

£460
CHUWI AeroBook Plus 15.6‘
15" 4k display - i5 (older but fine) with decent inbuilt graphics, you will likely not find good dedicated graphics on your budget.
256gb SSD with expansion for another SSD or M2
Lightweight

https://store.chuwi.com/products/chuwi-aerobook-plus
Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va8dlxK ... echTablets
Thanks to everyone who has responded.

How good is the CHUWI Aerobook, Combat? I might upgrade my own looking at that!

dpinsussex
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Re: Laptop recommendation

Post by dpinsussex » Sun Oct 25, 2020 4:51 pm

MDWat wrote:
Sun Oct 25, 2020 4:41 pm
Thanks to everyone who has responded.

How good is the CHUWI Aerobook, Combat? I might upgrade my own looking at that!
The spec is excellent. Exceptional value for money.

CombatClaret
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Re: Laptop recommendation

Post by CombatClaret » Sun Oct 25, 2020 5:15 pm

MDWat wrote:
Sun Oct 25, 2020 4:41 pm
Thanks to everyone who has responded.
How good is the CHUWI Aerobook, Combat? I might upgrade my own looking at that!
Hey,
I can't speak to that exact model. Watch the review I posted and give a google for others.

I can speak to the quality of Chuwi products, I needed a portable windows device for travel and got a 2in1 windows tablet. It was basically a very good clone of a Microsoft Surface with a mobile Celeron processor as opposed to an i3 or i5.
Build quality was really good an performance for the price excellent.

Make sure it's the Plus not the Pro, here is the AliExpress listing from the official Chuwi store.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001035 ... ff52vtG2TL
£438 with the £4 coupon and it ships from Spain so no taxes

MDWat
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Re: Laptop recommendation

Post by MDWat » Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:40 am

Morning everyone.

Just wanted to bump this thread up as I've decided that I need to upgrade my own laptop now. The speakers on my HP Pavilion Notebook have blown and I find the size of the laptop a bit clunky now.

I know since I posted this thread that there have been loads of changes so I didn't want to jump in and look at the same websites as suggested last time in case I get batted with huge costs with delivery etc.

https://store.chuwi.com/products/herobook-plus

I had a look at the above which has some decent reviews online - £120 cheaper on the site above than it is on Amazon - and thought that was a decent starting point. Just wondered if anyone had any other recommendations or thoughts? I'd spend up to £750 if needed but I don't use it for much different than I'd originally stated in the original post.

Any thoughts welcome!

Cheers

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