Question What is the best budget used laptop? [UK]

[Zenith_]

My budget is £300. £350 max if the extra cost is worth it.

I'm going to use the laptop for university and music production.

I've built my own PC before so I can happily upgrade the laptop if necessary.

If you didn't see it in the title, I am looking for a laptop in the second hand market as this would give best value.

At the moment I'm looking at the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon, but I would like to hear your suggestions and thoughts.

I don't really care about aesthetics or weight ect of the device, I only really care about the performance.

Thank you!

 

[sizzling]

Do you know what software you will be using? Have the university given you any recommended specs if using software they recommend? I know my sister in law was given specific minimum requirements from her uni.

Generally with laptops you can only upgrade drives and RAM so it’s important to get sufficient cpu and gpu for your needs.

 

[Zenith_]

Do you know what software you will be using? Have the university given you any recommended specs if using software they recommend? I know my sister in law was given specific minimum requirements from her uni.

Generally with laptops you can only upgrade drives and RAM so it’s important to get sufficient cpu and gpu for your needs.

I'm doing a business degree so it won't be anything that intensive.

I do music production on the side, so will need a good cpu for that. I go to studio with different artists so will need something that can keep up.

If needed I can always upgrade the ram, since ram is cheap at the moment.

 

[sizzling]

Ok. I would suggest keeping an eye on a website called hotukdeals, it often has good laptop deals and you can setup alerts. Currently I could not find anything worth considering within budget.

I found this https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/-82c70010uk/version.asp

Within budget, best cpu I could find and has 8gb RAM. It’s just not even worth looking at 4gb, Windows alone will run poorly on 4gb before you do anything else. It’s still a low end cpu so don’t expect too much but I didn’t find better in budget. It does not come with Windows but you can install Windows 10 without activating it and there are very few limitations.

Here is a cpu comparison to the next laptop from the same site https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ryzen-3-3200U-vs-AMD-A9-9425-APU-2016-MSR/m771805vsm496441