Best 'value' laptop....

[MarkDennehy]

Putting my computer engineer hat on - don't buy new.

Buy a second-hand (refurbished) thinkpad. Don't bother with other brands - the older IBM thinkpads were built like the proverbial outhouses (they were the industry standard for solid build quality for decades) and survived everything up to and including office fires that brought buildings down on them. And basically, unless you're doing protein folding or nuclear test modelling or lots and lots and lots of video work (or PC gaming)? Any machine made after 2006 or so has more horsepower than you'll ever be able to use. Pretty much anything up to about the W510 model were that solid, after that the line was being sold to Lenovo and the quality starts falling off, and the current ones are... well, I bought one ideapad. It didn't last. I wouldn't buy another.

Personally, I've bought off itsco.de and thelaptopcenter.co.uk and both were great. If I was buying for the OP, I'd probably go for a T410 or T420 like this or this.

 

[Mark A]

My previous laptop was a Lenovo Thinkpad Edge E530 with Windows 8.1. It lasted 30 months before the hard drive went kaput...

When I have more time I'll replace the HDD and install either Ubuntu or Mint.



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[MarkDennehy]

Ugh, the edge series. Lenovo born and bred. Stick with the R-series and the T-series, the W-series are okay to around 510, but I had no end of fun with my 520 trying to get it to work, and the X-series are *very* good for travelling with the laptop and working on it on the plane or wherever. But the edge's, those silly I'm-a-tablet-I'm-a-laptop-look-at-me-I-can't-do-either-very-well things, the ideapads - skip. Skip with a capital S.
Honestly, the T-420s and the like are better build quality than the work macbook pro I'm writing this on. If I was able to use a linux box at work, I'd have this thing in the garbage in favour of a T420 or an X series so damn fast...

 

[DiscoStu]

Ive bought around 2000 laptops (I was previously an IT Director) and would always buy Lenovo. The T and X series are very good but you pay for the lightweight components. I config'd a HP Pavilion note book thing that a mate of mine bought for £250 and thought it was very good and you could use it as a tablet.

Have you considered an iPad? I got one for my mum and I don't get any support calls about it!


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