My 2009 Acer finally died so a replacement is needed. I've been able to extract the hard drive, so all is not totally lost.

I'm wanting a Windows one, so not Mac, Chrome or Android.
15 inch Screen
Built in DVD (writer) drive.
Windows 7 would be nice (I'm used to Vista), however I'm guessing I'll only be able to get Win 10.
500GB or 1TB Hard Drive (Acer had 250 GB)
Decent Sound and Display
Good battery life, however not too bothered as will be mostly plugged into mains (Acer was).
I was thinking Intel Core I series chips, possibly i5 but not sure.
4GB Ram minimum (more would be nice for future-proofing). Acer had 4
Mostly used for surfing the web, (forums Youtube etc) watching DVDs, emails, office progs)
The Acer had buttons for volume and WiFi, which I found very useful, but I guess I can live without.

Budget £500 or less. (possibly in a Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals).

I've tried to look for group test reviews (PC advisor, Tech reviews etc) but most tests are for smaller screens, or if not ones without DVD Drives, so can anyone advice me and recommend what to buy.

Edited 23 November, 20169 yr by Jim H

Curry's had an Acer deal on TV earlier.

Yes it'll be Windows 10 now.

just bought a lenovo - very impressed, great keyboard. Mine was over £500 but it is an ultrabook so might be good deals out there for more desktop replacement type machines.

the Lenovo Thinkpad T460 (not S) is a bit of a bargain.

14" screen, 1.7kg, reasonable range of CPU/RAM to tweak depending on budget.

The RAM can be expanded by an extra slot if you're careful when you config the base system to use a single DIMM.

Solid, comes with W10, SSD

They can be had for just over your £500 budget up to closer to £1100 for the all singing super duper version.

Good battery life too.

Currently I am going down the thinkpad route for business laptops for employees, as they're a good balance of price, weight and performance in a very solid shell.

I wouldn't get hung up on internal DVD drive or large HDD in your spec also makes for thinner and lighter laptop. Built DVD drive use up power and slow down searches, a slim plug in one for when you need it can be had for £20. Look for an SSD rather than a large HDD as the speed will be a revelation compared to what you've had probably more than a faster processor.  Memory I would aim for 8GB over 4GB again as it speeds it along.

 

Slighty over £500 and with a 14" inch screen 

 

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/lenovo-ideapad-510s-14-laptop-red-10146134-pdt.html

 

Shop around and you'll probably get it cheaper

The idea pads are built to a budget, but they've got a holiday offer on the lenovo uk website currently.

The Yoga laptops are very good and can be used as large tablet. My wife is still using the original one from 2012 and never had an issue with it. 

 

If you can cope with a white laptop then this is good deal

Dell black friday deals might be worth a look.

 

i5 if you can, SSD if you can.

 

SSd makes the biggest difference.

TBH the use cases you are suggesting you really don't need a powerful laptop.

 

As said if you can avoid an internal DVD you'll get more battery life.

 

http://www.ebuyer.com/760636-hp-250-g5-laptop-x0q77es-x0q77es-abu

 

Not really up on laptops right now but above i5 with an SSD for under £500

Also check out hotukdeals for all the black Friday deals on laptops etc including any additional discount codes or cash back offers.

http://www.ebuyer.com/760637-hp-250-g5-i5-laptop-x0q78es-x0q78es-abu

 

i5 version for less, although frankly I'd avoid those ones if battery life is important.

If it's mainly a desk based machine that you can move around, then that's different.

On paper this seams to tick just about all the boxes.

 

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-15-ay167sa-15-6-laptop-with-latest-7th-gen-intel-core-i5-processor-silver-10151312-pdt.html

 

The only thing is it's the old style spinning Hard drive, but 1 TB is certainly big enough. Does an SSD really make a big difference? I have read you can buy some laptops with combo drives (Spinning+ SSD) which might be worth looking for.

SSD makes a huge difference, everything is almost instant with them. The hybrid drives are OK but not as fast due to the small amount of SSD storage on them. I really wouldn't get hung up on the storage capacity, plenty of cheap external HDD's available and if you've not used cloud storage it really is a sensible option now as worst case you get your laptop stolen then you've lost all your precious pictures and documents too. With cloud storage if the laptop is gone you can replace it, sign back into your storage and everything is still safe. 

Hard to overstate how big a difference an SSD makes, especially on a laptop. Laptop HDs tend to be slower to save power.

 

I've a Tb SSD in my desktop and the machine boots in about 10sec. I've an old 60Gb SSD in an even older laptop (~10yr old HP) it's running linux and also boot in about 10sec.

At the beginning of this year I replaced a 13 year old Packard Bell (Still working but  just couldn't cope with graphics intensive modern internet) with an HP Pavillion I5 + hard disk + ATi Radeon graphics (Non touch screen, but touch pad - better IMHO, no sticky mits on screen) + W10, Home edition.

 

Works a treat. easily handles the modern internet. All Microsoft Office suite programs (2010) work perfectly. And compatible flight sims work OK. Well designed case and well manufactured Nice offset, slightly recessed touchpad (Avoiding the pitfalls of the inadvertent touch), good sound system,  good speed. Only weak point, as with all these devices, is the sticky-out power-in connector (Jack plug) - somebody could make a fortune from designing  recessed connector that wasn't susceptible to being knocked.

 

And HP are offering electronic vouchers with 15% off from the 25th-28th November.

 

 

Once the warranties expired, if necessary, I can swap the HD for an SSD. That's what i did with the Packard Bell when its HD went phut. Even though it was only an IDE interface SSD (As opposed to the current SATA), the improvement in retrieval performance was marked.

 

When i was buying the HP, I didn't go for the laptops which offered an SSD, because that meant selecting an I7 processor (Which was over-the-top for my requirements) and involved a touch screen as well, as well as £200 on the purchase price. Too much extra money just for an SSD.

 

 

N

 

 

I just replaced an HP pavilion with a 1Tb hybrid drive and the new machine is a lenovo thinkpad 13, £600 ish for a 13 inch ultrabook, i5 processor 8gb of ram and a 256mb SSD, the keyboard is fabulous compared with the HP, the screen is one of th best I have seen on a laptop and the speed with the SSD is as fast as using a chromebook. Very seriously impressed with it. And it's only 1.4kg so very portable.

I just replaced an HP pavilion with a 1Tb hybrid drive and the new machine is a lenovo thinkpad 13, £600 ish for a 13 inch ultrabook, i5 processor 8gb of ram and a 256mb SSD, the keyboard is fabulous compared with the HP, the screen is one of th best I have seen on a laptop and the speed with the SSD is as fast as using a chromebook. Very seriously impressed with it. And it's only 1.4kg so very portable.

Where abouts did you buy this? Looking for a new Laptop myself.

K:)

Where abouts did you buy this? Looking for a new Laptop myself.

K:)

 

 

bought it from lenovo direct, took 9 days to arrive from China but very very impressed with it

Where abouts did you buy this? Looking for a new Laptop myself.

K:)

 

hmm the deals in Ireland don't look quite so good, I found the prices kept changing, one HP I was about to buy went up £100 overnight makingit more expensive than the lenovo. Inthe end though the keyboard and screen on the lenovo 13 are miles better than they were on my old HP.

hmm the deals in Ireland don't look quite so good, I found the prices kept changing, one HP I was about to buy went up £100 overnight makingit more expensive than the lenovo. Inthe end though the keyboard and screen on the lenovo 13 are miles better than they were on my old HP.

Thanks for that, I'll go on their website and have a wee shuffty

Thanks for that, I'll go on their website and have a wee shuffty

Don't forget cashback too

https://www.topcashback.co.uk/lenovo/

Don't forget cashback too

https://www.topcashback.co.uk/lenovo/

 

he's in Dublin so topcashback might not work for him (or it might) :-)

he's in Dublin so topcashback might not work for him (or it might) :-)

Don't even know how to use topcashback!!

These two would certainly meet your needs Jim and are way under budget. Both only have 128GB SSD but an external HD is dirt cheap.

 

The Dell only has 4GB RAM but Win 7 downgrade option too.

http://www.ebuyer.com/749941-dell-vostro-3558-laptop-97wv5

 

Acer:

http://www.ebuyer.com/757791-acer-aspire-es-15-laptop-nx-gceek-034

Edited 30 November, 20169 yr by softscoop

A 1TB portable hard drive is only £47.99

 

http://www.ebuyer.com/664373-1tb-toshiba-canvio-basics-portable-hard-drive-blk-hdtb310ek3aa

Don't even know how to use topcashback!!

Register for an account, search their site for the retailer you want to use, click on the cashback/voucher code button which takes you to the retailer site. You then get cashback on your purchase - Lenovo says 15% of the transaction value.

Dell, HP, Curry's etc are all on there too.

This year I've gotten over £200 cashback via topcashback.co.uk.