Question Is this a good HP laptop or should I get something different, help me decide ?

[srze.game]

Hi guys, I'm looking for an average student's laptop that I'm going to use for college, browsing the internet, watching youtube, movies, some programming, and maybe light gaming (not much, maybe War Thunder, but I have a desktop at home aswell, and it's probably worse than these laptops that I'm looking at ).
The prices went sky-high in my country, but I found some laptops that I can afford, so you basically have to help me decide which one to choose and are these ones good.

First one is a HP 15s-eq1023nm with:
Ryzen 5 4500u / 8 GB of RAM / 256GB M.2 / Vega GPU
(This one I like the most, what do you think about it?)

Second one is HP 15s-eq2069nm with:
Ryzen 3 5300u / 8 GB of RAM / 512GB M.2 / Vega

Third one - HP 255 G8 with:
Ryzen 5 3500u / 8 GB of RAM / 256GB M.2 / Vega

4th - Acer Extensa EX215-53G-38EE with:
Intel i3-1005g1 / 8 GB of RAM / 256GB M.2 / and an interesting Nvidia MX 330 GPU
(the CPU is probably not great in this one but it has a nice GPU)

All of these laptops have approximately the same price (30-40$ up or down), and I don't really care about display or touchpad that much, I'm buying a budget laptop .
There are some other laptops in this price range (like maybe the ASUS M515, but it only has a R3/3250u CPU)

So, how good are these HP 15s laptops, and what do you think?

P.S. Storage isn't that important too, and most of them have upgradable SATA slot?

 

[Lutfij]

The prices went sky-high in my country
Where are you located?

and most of them have upgradable SATA slot?
Not exactly, they might be limited to M.2 on some models of laptops to keep the slim form factor.

Might want to parse a link to all the laptops you've found/listed above, chances are that they all have one M.2 slot that's already occupied so you can't add a secondary storage(meaning you can increase the capacity of the SSD but you can't add another SSD), you could add more ram, but that will vary on the SKU you're looking since the manual is vague, the Ryzen CPU's on the mobile platform apart from the Ryzen 3's all run hot, so please keep that in mind. Couple that with a slim form factor, you're going to have some warm/hot laps.

 

[srze.game]

The prices went sky-high in my country
Where are you located?

and most of them have upgradable SATA slot?
Not exactly, they might be limited to M.2 on some models of laptops to keep the slim form factor.

Might want to parse a link to all the laptops you've found/listed above, chances are that they all have one M.2 slot that's already occupied so you can't add a secondary storage(meaning you can increase the capacity of the SSD but you can't add another SSD), you could add more ram, but that will vary on the SKU you're looking since the manual is vague, the Ryzen CPU's on the mobile platform apart from the Ryzen 3's all run hot, so please keep that in mind. Couple that with a slim form factor, you're going to have some warm/hot laps.

As I said, I don't really care about storage or RAM, 256GB is fine, and I've got an external HDD for stuff if I really need more space. 8 GB of RAM is enough, (first two are upgradable in terms of it, not sure about the other two, I did not check).

Basically my main question was: How good are HP laptops in general, and what can you say about the first one with Ryzen 5 4500u (I'm probably going to buy that one)

I'm not that demanding, I don't really need a fancy display, keyboard, touch, aluminium case or something deluxe . I just want a basic bog-standard laptop that won't crap on itself after a year of usage.
(I've always used desktop pcs, and I only used two laptops, an old Fujitsu with i3-2320 which still works fine, but it's not mine, and an old Compaq Presario which I've used to watch YT, so, I'm sure laptops that I'm looking at rn will probably be fine)

Edit// All of them are 15.6 standard Laptops, and I live in South-Eastern Europe where the prices went up like crazy since last year. (the ones that were maybe 350$, are now 450$ and more )

 

[Grobe]

. . . and I've got an external HDD for stuff if I really need more space.

In a study situation, that can be a disaster if you store important data/projects on that drive if you have no backup. Just a friendly advice

 

[srze.game]

In a study situation, that can be a disaster if you store important data/projects on that drive if you have no backup. Just a friendly advice

I'm pretty sure those 200GB of free space will be more than enough for my tasks and files, ext. HDD or a 32GB USB will be there just for backup, they haven't failed me before.

The main concern that I have is with the laptop itself (HP), how well do they perform and how "durable" they are.

 

[Grobe]

The main concern that I have is with the laptop itself (HP), how well do they perform and how "durable" they are.

I know that is your concern, but is also in general the hardest to answer. One has to predict the durability to computers without being able to do a real life test.

There are some factors that in theory should have some impact of its ability to handle wear and use:

• The expense of the box and if manufactorer say something about guarantee period (an expensive one where the manufacturer claim 5 yrs guarantee probably last longer than one with shorter guarantee period).
• The heat that is generated from PSU/GPU. More power normally equals more heat that also wear more on the components inside.

So in theory one can make a conclusion that if two laptop cost the same, the most powerful one probably last shorter. But if that is a rule, it sure have many many exceptions too.