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Question

Help buying Laptop

by Apr 29, 2018 10:03AM PDT

Hi, I'm trying to find a laptop for my girlfriend that she needs for school/work. She's the one buying it and won't let me help her with money for it at all I've already tried so with that being said it needs to be around $300 max. maybe pushing $400. my real issue is I need something for her that won't crash or feel slow. her current laptop has a Celeron processor from I don't know how many years ago but it's more than 4. if I can get exact specs I will update. since I don't know much, all I have to go off of is my laptop which has a U series 4th gen i7 I found a 4th gen i7 for her at $421 Dell - Latitude 14" Refurbished Laptop - Intel Core i7 - 8GB Memory - 256GB Solid State Drive. . still trying to get something at a lower price point though. so i also found a 5th gen i5 at $415 Dell - Latitude 12.5" Laptop - Intel Core i5 - 8GB Memory - 256GB Solid State Drive . my first question is if these are even good picks. also, can someone maybe help me find something better or is this as good as it gets? I don't know that much I just don't want to fail her and have her take her stuff to class one day only to have it freeze up or take forever to start up making her miss information or lose it all together.

Post was last edited on April 29, 2018 10:05 AM PDT

Discussion is locked

4 Posts
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Answer
see if you can get something
by Apr 29, 2018 10:44AM PDT

with an Intel i-5 at least in it. As for the older laptop, install a current Linux on it later for her to also use. Favorites are Mint, Ubuntu MATE, ZorinOS

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Answer
There are problems here.
by Forum moderator Apr 29, 2018 11:04AM PDT

Since you are shopping refurbs all bets are off what you will get for the price.

I have to mention my brother and I picked up a lot of refurbs on Groupon for very cheap. For speed we changed a few from HDD to SSD.

So an i5 (or better), 8GB RAM (or better) and SSD can make for a very nice experience HOWEVER if the user is lax and clicks on everything or better yet falls for those fake support calls (read https://www.cnet.com/forums/discussions/tech-support-scams/ ) then it won't matter what they get.

https://www.groupon.com/deals/gs-hp-6560b-refurbished for example is what we picked up. Now these were obtained while Microsoft had the free W10 upgrade and all are now on W10 PRO. For my unit I changed it to SSD so for not very much I have a very nice travel laptop. I can leave my over 1K machine in the safe and travel with a machine I don't worry too much about.

Hope this helps.

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Found this on Newegg what do you think?
by 82Noodles Apr 29, 2018 11:51AM PDT

Dell Latitude E7440 Notebook - Core i5 (4310U) Dual Core 2.0GHz CPU - 256GB SSD - 8GB RAM - Webcam - Windows 10 Pro Installed

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It's the usual boring (is good) machine.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Apr 29, 2018 12:13PM PDT

Remember that good specs won't keep the owner from doing odd/bad things. But it's a good start.

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