Looking for a cheap, small, laptop

[DWalt]

Our “new” iPads are 8th Gen. Have not used them for anything beyond browsing, email, and texting, and likely never will. Not much need for any other capabilities, as we each have laptops for word processing, spreadsheets, photo editing, printing, etc., use. Wife uses the iPad’s camera quite a bit, I do not.

 

[oink]

I also like Lenovo and have a 14", but mine is fairly old now although running Win 11. The operating system was upgraded twice. I did upgrade the hard drive and add memory. Most new ones are not upgradable so I recommend getting more than the minimum RAM as windows is constantly wanting more. Lenovo is the brand I like best but it's not IBM anymore and hasn't been for years now. It's a Chinese company which makes me reluctant to by another one but I don't really like any alternatives. I've never been impressed with Dell. I did have an HP I liked years ago but it started as Win 3.1 so ...

In case I missed it, just what is your budget?

 

[LVSteve]

One thing I have discovered is that many vendors sell very few low-end computers with Office installed. That's OK. 365 with it's yearly fee is a bad joke. I'd sooner get a copy of Office Home 2024 for $150 that is ours forever and forgo Outlook. You can get a package with Outlook, but it costs $250.

 

[LVSteve]

I also like Lenovo and have a 14", but mine is fairly old now although running Win 11. The operating system was upgraded twice. I did upgrade the hard drive and add memory. Most new ones are not upgradable so I recommend getting more than the minimum RAM as windows is constantly wanting more. Lenovo is the brand I like best but it's not IBM anymore and hasn't been for years now. It's a Chinese company which makes me reluctant to by another one but I don't really like any alternatives. I've never been impressed with Dell. I did have an HP I liked years ago but it started as Win 3.1 so ...

In case I missed it, just what is your budget?

We would like to come in under $500. 100% on the RAM requirements. Thanks to OS bloat 4 GB barely gets you two browser tabs and a Word document. I'm using an old HP Win 7 box that I upgraded to 8 GB with a SSD. Thing is it is only 800 MHz memory. The modern stuff is four/six times as fast!!!

 

[oldbrownhat]

...I'm using an old HP Win 7 box that I upgraded to 8 GB with a SSD. Thing is it is only 800 MHz memory. The modern stuff is four/six times as fast!!!

Yikes!! Many years ago I got an HP Netbook- a really feeble Win 7 mini-laptop and even it had 1GB of memory. I eventually installed Ubuntu Linux on it and it was marginally better. It still runs, but it's glacially slow.

Being primarily a Mac guy I'm not sure about Windows but it used to be that some manufacturers filled their machines with bloatware; I think HP was notorious for this. If you get a Windows laptop you can probably reduce unnecessary load on the CPU by turning off or deleting some programs.

 

[FivePews]

If you have a Windows 365 subscription that includes web-access to the apps (and OneDrive web storage), and more importantly...have some understanding of how to use Office apps in a web browser, buy a light and cheap Chromebook. Though there will be a learning curve. Running a Chromebook is really simple and fairly reliable. I set one up for my 70-year old dad and he's been doing all the Internet stuff he wants to with it for years.

A Chromebook is pretty much a "laptop with a web browser", and not much else. A Chromebook will not allow you to download and install any programs, games, Microsoft Office, or any other x86/64 apps/programs that you might use currently on a PC. Google owns Chromebook. Google is HUGE. They have a lot of their own productivity apps and software that will work on a Chromebook. If you are willing to switch from M365 to Google Workspace, you can learn to do much of the same stuff for little to no money.

However, if you do not really enjoy technology and simply want to use it like a tool without learning new tricks, I'd suggest any Windows laptop. Dell XPS laptops can be had in small, lightweight sizes and they have very "mac-like" trackpads. Very good trackpads for a PC. The keyboards aren't bad either. I'm sure you could find a used XPS laptop in the $500 range. But, Windows 10 is going to be "end-of-life" in a few months. This means that Windows 10 will no longer receive security or reliability updates. Lots of people use version of Windows for years after they are EOL. But, doing so is not a wise decision.

Another option for you to consider.

 

[Rudi2]

BackMarket has some good deals on refurbished laptops, and phones. Bought my last iPhone from them.
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https://www.backmarket.com/en-us/l/laptops-under-300/86267196-c81f-4b87-8121-870d4b9df73d

 

[Sarge9]

Micro Warehouse has refurbished as well, w/3day return.

 

[PittsburghJon67]

I am using an old, old HP Pavilion laptop to type this. It will not update to Windows 11. My youngest Grandson told my wife that I needed a new laptop. So they went to Best Buy and bought me a new HP laptop with Windows 11 for $399.00.

Got the same laptop with Win11 for under $400 with tax last month at STAPLES. Windows11 is a huge problem with a steep learning curve, however, and this laptop was intended to replace a Dell Latitude in Win7 that is getting slow and iffy after many years. Windows10 still the best bet for us, very stable, but not supported by Micro$oft as you know. This Dell Latitude has been an excellent refurbished laptop through Amazon quite a few years ago. I would have preferred to upgrade that one but meh, nobody wants to touch a Win7 business grade laptop for reasonable money.