Advice on Buying a Budget Laptop

[Palador]

Hi, I wanted to ask some advice on buying a laptop for around $400 or cheaper.
I'm looking for something at least with a Ryzen 3 or i3. I'd probably wanted 8GB RAM and a SSD.
I'm not staying in the US, but I've found that I can get a better laptop for the price if I buy it there and ship it down than if I buy it here.
I'm limited to a few stores: Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg, and Ebay.
The best options I've located so far:
HP: Ryzen 3 3250u
Dell: Ryzen 5 2500u
Either one would take a little gimping. With the HP, I'd probably add a 500GB SATA SSD to replace the HDD, and with the Dell I would need another 4 GB of RAM and a 250GB NVMe SSD to go with the HDD, since it can have both.
Do you think the benefits of the Dell justify the higher price? Are there better options?

Something I find a bit annoying is that anything under at i5 or Ryzen 5 seems to come with Windows in S mode these days. With spotty internet connectivity (I've always had issues with the Windows Store), I'm worried that getting a computer in S mode would basically render it useless to me.
Any advice would be appreciated though.
Thanks in advance.

 

[Lutfij]

Could you shoot another link for the Dell laptop? Perhaps shoot the SKU or the model number to it? IMHO, if the Dell allows you to have both a mechanical drive(HDD) and an SSD in either an M.2 form factor or in a 2.5" form factor then yeah, I'd get the Dell. The HP looks like it only has one storage slot available and FYI, you're advised never to create partitions on an SSD if you intend to keep the SSD healthy and operating optimally.

 

[punkncat]

I own an Inspiron 5000 series with an i5. It also came with a hdd and only 8GB of ram. Pricing was about the same. Access to internals was easy in order upgrade similarly to what you have in mind. I recommend it.

 

[AndrewJohn]

I think the Dell at the higher cost is quiet justified because the specs with HP are not so impressive. Although HP will always have a better build quality than Dell but what matters more is the internal components and Dell seems to be better in the aspect.

 

[Palador]

Could you shoot another link for the Dell laptop? Perhaps shoot the SKU or the model number to it? IMHO, if the Dell allows you to have both a mechanical drive(HDD) and an SSD in either an M.2 form factor or in a 2.5" form factor then yeah, I'd get the Dell. The HP looks like it only has one storage slot available and FYI, you're advised never to create partitions on an SSD if you intend to keep the SSD healthy and operating optimally.

I've always found Amazon a bit difficult for this. They seem to often use different names for their products. I believe this is the same laptop at Walmart in which case the model number is:
i5575-A410BLU-PUS.
It seems to have both options, but once again Amazon is a bit vague and I have to base my assumption on the reviews which sometimes are on the wrong product. This would seem to be it as well on LaptopMedia.com
I certainly do like having the option for both the HDD and SSD, though I think I could get by with just the SSD if it were large enough. Thanks for the tip about not partitioning an SSD, I never have done so, I must have read about it somewhere before, but I had forgotten.

If I would go for the Dell, is there a way I can find out what RAM would be compatible with it? As I would want to add another 4 GB.