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Cheap laptop recommendation


ph5172
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I am in need of a cheap laptop for a course - I’m not tech savvy so will be used for word processing and internet. 

I have an asus 555L and it spends more time clonking about and takes forever to load - I actually had to walk away this evening before punching it. 

I can’t swap the hdd as it’s underneath the keyboard with no rear access 

any ideas on cheap and cheerful?

in a side not it’s just takes 5mins to boot and is still clunking away - I can type quicker than it can and I only use 1 finger!!

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On 31/08/2019 at 21:16, ph5172 said:

I am in need of a cheap laptop for a course - I’m not tech savvy so will be used for word processing and internet. 

I have an asus 555L and it spends more time clonking about and takes forever to load - I actually had to walk away this evening before punching it. 

I can’t swap the hdd as it’s underneath the keyboard with no rear access 

any ideas on cheap and cheerful?

in a side not it’s just takes 5mins to boot and is still clunking away - I can type quicker than it can and I only use 1 finger!!

Count yourself lucky - that is what my employer has given me where all my colleagues have nice Lenovo Thinkpads - mine is supposed to be coming but I ain't holding my breath for it!!!

 

Keep an eye out for the Ebay discount codes - there was some suface pro 5 for under £500 last time - refurbs but are a cracking machine

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Define `cheap` as you do get what you pay for.

My employer bought `cheap` Lenovo Ideapad laptops for £250 and they were rubbish.

For £350 we got some Lenovo G330 or similar and they work ok.

I haggled a bit more (I also look after the IT) and got a Lenovo E590 for £600 (from £750 with sale price and discount code). The best bit is a solid state drive (SSD) which boots up in 10 seconds and it's just so much quicker. Decent processor speed and RAM also help.

All laptops slow down after a while. It's a fact of life! They get clogged up with stuff and bloatware or other background programs.

I tend to increase the stock RAM from 4mb or 8mb to 16mb as it's rarely enough for the laptop to run what I need. Word, Excel, Email and about 30+ open tabs in Chrome. Add anti-virus and Dropbox in the background and 4mb RAM gets overwhelmed and slows things right down. 

Your ASUS looks like it should have a decent spec. How old is it? 

What's your budget? Arguaby, any new laptop will be fresher/faster, but if you buy too cheap, you'll end up punching that as well....

 

 

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3 minutes ago, hedge said:

Define `cheap` as you do get what you pay for.

My employer bought `cheap` Lenovo Ideapad laptops for £250 and they were rubbish.

For £350 we got some Lenovo G330 or similar and they work ok.

I haggled a bit more (I also look after the IT) and got a Lenovo E590 for £600 (from £750 with sale price and discount code). The best bit is a solid state drive (SSD) which boots up in 10 seconds and it's just so much quicker. Decent processor speed and RAM also help.

All laptops slow down after a while. It's a fact of life! They get clogged up with stuff and bloatware or other background programs.

I tend to increase the stock RAM from 4mb or 8mb to 16mb as it's rarely enough for the laptop to run what I need. Word, Excel, Email and about 30+ open tabs in Chrome. Add anti-virus and Dropbox in the background and 4mb RAM gets overwhelmed and slows things right down. 

Your ASUS looks like it should have a decent spec. How old is it? 

What's your budget? Arguaby, any new laptop will be fresher/faster, but if you buy too cheap, you'll end up punching that as well....

 

 

Probably 2 years or so - i have upgraded the RAM to 8gb but to swap the HDD requires the removal of the keyboard - a little to complex for me

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Just now, ph5172 said:

Probably 2 years or so - i have upgraded the RAM to 8gb but to swap the HDD requires the removal of the keyboard - a little to complex for me

A laptop that new shouldn't be that slow. What spec is it? (processor mainly).

Do you have much software on there that you really need (or don't mind re-installing?).

You could try a fresh install of Windows with the `keep my files` option. You'll lose any programs that aren't stock but you keep your data.

What version of Windows are you running?

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13 minutes ago, hedge said:

A laptop that new shouldn't be that slow. What spec is it? (processor mainly).

Do you have much software on there that you really need (or don't mind re-installing?).

You could try a fresh install of Windows with the `keep my files` option. You'll lose any programs that aren't stock but you keep your data.

What version of Windows are you running?

I will check when i get home as im not that tech savvy - Windows 10

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7 minutes ago, ph5172 said:

I will check when i get home as im not that tech savvy - Windows 10

No problem. Win 10 Home or Pro? It might have a sticker on it telling you that (or you can check in the settings).

What anti-virus are you running? 

I can talk you through a couple of things you can check once you've got access to it.

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Chromebook will do all you need and being cloud based you can access your docs on Google drive from any machine anywhere. 

I use a Windows laptop and have had Chromebooks too since 2012 it's all my wife uses now. Even my son a avid Mac Pro user, has now started using the old Chromebook for internet streaming of video and music outside of his room.

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6 hours ago, hedge said:

No problem. Win 10 Home or Pro? It might have a sticker on it telling you that (or you can check in the settings).

What anti-virus are you running? 

I can talk you through a couple of things you can check once you've got access to it.

Right. 

Win 10 Home

intel i3 1.7ghz

8gb RAM

avira anti virus

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12 hours ago, ph5172 said:

Right. 

Win 10 Home

intel i3 1.7ghz

8gb RAM

avira anti virus

Ok - doesn't look too old.

Do you have other `background` programs added? Usually it's other stuff that can make it slow to start up. Even a massive Outlook email .pst folder (if you use it) can slow it down.

As Kalahari said, you can run some diagnostic type programs to try to clear out some rubbish and see if that helps but if the PC isn't that old, it may make little difference.

What sort of stuff do you store on it?

Do you use it very often? If you're infrequent user, then it might be downloading Windows and/or Anti-virus updates - that can really make them slow to start.

One thing you can do is turn it on  - see how long it takes. Once it's all up and running you can open the Task Manager.

Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE.

When the screen pops up, select Task Manager.

The Processes tab shows what background programs and any Apps (things like internet, email etc) or currently running on the machine and how much resource they are using.

On my laptop, you can see that Chrome uses a lot of my RAM. That is because I have about 20 tabs open (each tab is a different web page) and that uses a lot of memory. Having programs like Word, Excel, Email etc all use RAM, even if they are open but not being used.

My laptop has 16GB RAM and as you can, 8GB of that is being used (it says that 50% of memory is in use). Ideally, you want 50% free (as I do) to allow the PC to function fairly well. Oobviously, on start up, none of these Apps (Programs) are open, so the RAM use is usually lower, but other `background` activity can suck the life out of it. The point is, that to have the laptop functioning well, 50% of free RAM is a sort of benchmark. If my laptop had only 8GB RAM (as it did when I bought it), then it would already be struggling to cope with day to day use. I knew that and that was why I put 16GB in it.

For you - it would be interesting to see what resources you are using when the laptop is on, with no programs open. Then open up the stuff you want to use like Word and Internet and see what the RAM %'age is.

That will not fix your problem but it would be nice to know the stats and see if the slow to start happens all of the time. 

You should then see a screen like this once you have opened the Task Manager.

 

 

Task manager.png

Edited by hedge
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21 minutes ago, hedge said:

Ok - doesn't look too old.

Do you have other `background` programs added? Usually it's other stuff that can make it slow to start up. Even a massive Outlook email .pst folder (if you use it) can slow it down.

As Kalahari said, you can run some diagnostic type programs to try to clear out some rubbish and see if that helps but if the PC isn't that old, it may make little difference.

What sort of stuff do you store on it?

Do you use it very often? If you're infrequent user, then it might be downloading Windows and/or Anti-virus updates - that can really make them slow to start.

One thing you can do is turn it on  - see how long it takes. Once it's all up and running you can open the Task Manager.

Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE.

When the screen pops up, select Task Manager.

The Processes tab shows what background programs and any Apps (things like internet, email etc) or currently running on the machine and how much resource they are using.

On my laptop, you can see that Chrome uses a lot of my RAM. That is because I have about 20 tabs open (each tab is a different web page) and that uses a lot of memory. Having programs like Word, Excel, Email etc all use RAM, even if they are open but not being used.

My laptop has 16GB RAM and as you can, 8GB of that is being used (it says that 50% of memory is in use). Ideally, you want 50% free (as I do) to allow the PC to function fairly well. Oobviously, on start up, none of these Apps (Programs) are open, so the RAM use is usually lower, but other `background` activity can suck the life out of it. The point is, that to have the laptop functioning well, 50% of free RAM is a sort of benchmark. If my laptop had only 8GB RAM (as it did when I bought it), then it would already be struggling to cope with day to day use. I knew that and that was why I put 16GB in it.

For you - it would be interesting to see what resources you are using when the laptop is on, with no programs open. Then open up the stuff you want to use like Word and Internet and see what the RAM %'age is.

That will not fix your problem but it would be nice to know the stats and see if the slow to start happens all of the time. 

You should then see a screen like this once you have opened the Task Manager.

 

 

Task manager.png

Brill - i will have a look when i get home

Last night i changed windows update to the longest time setting before searching as it was set very low and i also put the antivirus updates to every couple of days instead of every day.

Many thanks for your help and i will get onto it as soon as i get in

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If I was in the market for a new laptop I would want to limit the amount of money going to China. Many of the parts are from there but some are also assembled there. Good to spread the love and not buy stuff made and assembled there. Lenovo for example. 

Not everyones viewpoint.

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