How much do I need to spend on a basic Office laptop?

[d000hg]

My wife's old laptop is dying and I had a quick look at Currys... and was amazed what you can get at bottom-end prices these days. For £300 or even under I saw a proper CPU, 4Gb RAM, etc. Last time I bought a laptop that money would get you an Atom and 32Gb hard drive; whereas these seem like full-specced W10 machines - including Dells and other decent brands.

She basically just needs Office so I'm strongly tempted not to take the step up to £500 machines, since W8 or W7 machines would've considered these decent specs.

For this kind of use is that sort of spec OK? I don't mind spending more if it is worthwhile and I don't want to be bitten later by pinching pennies now but equally I see no point splashing cash for something that's not needed. The current laptop she has is some crappy 12" Acer that was low-end budget crap even when it was new several years ago (provided by her job) so anything is going to seem good in comparison!

[WTFH]

I tend to get them through John Lewis - you get a better warranty from them and if you have a JL credit card, points too.

e.g. https://www.johnlewis.com/hp-15-bw02...-grey/p3255233

But yes, if it's not mission critical, you don't need to spend north of £400

[d000hg]

Good tip - Currys was just my first "I wonder what laptops cost" research.

Thanks.

[sal]

The biggest pitfall with cheap laptops is the display resolution, most of them are tulipy 1366x768 this is abysmal even for web browsing.

CPU doesn't matter anything above Celeron (including) is fine. I'd suggest at least 8GB of RAM given the fact how many websites are eating 100s of MBs alone.

[d000hg]

Oh yeah resolution used to be a huge issue but I was pleased to see a lot (maybe even most) of the £3-400 ones now offer full HD resolution which is great.

I'd prefer 8Gb but that seems to be the differentiator where you jump the next price bracket. Presumably not because 4Gb RAM costs £120 but because that's where they up the spec generally.

Might just go for it, what's £100...

[sal]

Check if they have a SODIMM slot and put the extra memory yourself

[ladymuck]

With IPSE Rewards you get 8% off in Currys (but I'd still go to JL for their better customer service)

[TonyF]

With IPSE Rewards you get 8% off in Currys (but I'd still go to JL for their better customer service)

You can get 5% at John Lewis instead.

[woohoo]

My wife's old laptop is dying...

The current laptop she has is some crappy 12" Acer that was low-end budget crap even when it was new several years ago (provided by her job) so anything is going to seem good in comparison!

I was in a similar position, wanted to give an old laptop to the niece so she did not have to buy a new one. She only wanted it for surfing and mail.

I ended up installing Elementary (linux variation). The laptop is much faster now. I'm not a linux person really but the os looked good and the niece picked up how to use it straight away.

https://elementary.io/docs/installat...-elementary-os

I believe some of the free office alternatives for linux are pretty good. Is there a free online version of office now?

[ladymuck]

You can get 5% at John Lewis instead.

I can't see that on the perkbox site