These are my recommendations for great online buys this week for laptops.

Reviews Updated 4th Oct 2018

Since closing the retail shop in 2017, I no longer sell laptops. (I still build desktop computers and gaming machines).

I am regularly (every week) asked if there are any laptops that I’d recommend. So instead of saying “call me when you’re in Curry’s”, I thought it’d be easier for me to do the homework in advance and list current recommendations.

We’ll split these for now into 2 sections:

• Mid / high range: Ideal for professional use or if you don’t want a cheap laptop.
• Entry level: Ideal for the basics. General home use and school homework.

Mid Range Laptop Of The Week.

I have sourced this Lenovo V330-15IKB.

My review on this unit.

CPU

The 8th Generation i5 Quad Core processor is the starting point. Nice and fast for the majority of tasks. The family of processors is called Intel Kaby Lake. Not to be confused with older generation, slower, more power-hungry versions of the i5 range.

RAM

This machine has 8GB of memory. This is the newer DDR4 ram which is much, much faster than the old DDR3. The capacity and the speed of the RAM are two different things. This computer’s RAM can handle 2400MHz. The older DDR3 ran at 1333MHz speed.
4GB of the 8GB RAM is soldered. The other 4GB is up gradable.

SSD

Laptops must have Solid State Drives now. Forget the 1TB internal HDD storage selling point of years gone by. Having a solid state drive in any laptop is a must, and this unit offers a very generous 256GB.

Display

15.6 Screen with 1920×1080 Full HD LED. Standard for a unit in this range.

Brand

Lenovo. This is a brand that we can trust. This is the brand trading name of IBM. IBM invented the home computer. But amazingly many are still not familiar with the name Lenovo. This is a brand that we recommend within the trade.

Summary

Nice laptop. Ideal for professional use. This is a nice laptop. Boot times and operating will be nice and fast on this computer. From a brand that we know and trust.

For sale on Amazon at £529.98

Link to the Lenovo V330-15IKB

 

Entry Level – Home Use

OK I’ve sourced this Lenovo IdeaPad 320s 14.0″ HD Laptop (Grey) – (Intel Pentium 4415U (Gold) Processor, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD Storage, Windows 10) which is a great buy this week.

14″ is ideal size if you are looking for portability and plan to travel with this computer or take it to work.

CPU

Pentium which is standard on entry-level machines without dropping down to Celeron or the even lower low voltage, low performance chips found in some units.

SSD

Solid State Drive 128GB. This will give you the speed and power saving advantages of SSD. Capacity is fine as long as you don’t plan on storing a huge amount of films on it.

Link to view or purchase online.