[UK] New Laptops for Grandparents..

[SNorman]

Oh joy, Grandad wants a new laptop so I need some help!

Price Bracket; Upt to £350 

 

He uses his computer two-three times a day for maybe half an hour each time, to check emails, do banking and mainly keep his 30GB of pictures up to date. He is always complaining his current 2007 PC is too slow and he would possible like a laptop?

 

So I'm looking for laptops or possibly desktops (if you can find booth then brilliant)

 

My thoughts so far(feel free to suggest differently)

- Intel i3 or above

- 4GB RAM or above 

- 128GB SSD

- Win 10

 

Am looking to buy from somewhere like PC World, Argos, Tesco etc

 

Please help!

[GrayFox1991]

My Dad needed a laptop recently for basically the same sort of tasks. In the end he picked up a Chromebook that he liked the look of, and hasn't looked back.

 

Just for him something like that is easier to maintain. Basically all the tasks you listed above can be done through a web browser, and keeping all files in the cloud (Google Drive/Dropbox/One Drive) means no need to keep backups etc. No requirements for anti-virus, and because you are not really installing anything, no managing disk space, or slowdown to worry about. It is super simple to use too.

 

As you are not paying for an OS on top of the hardware you are getting more hardware for the money (or saving yourself a bunch). Worth checking out if you think it would do everything you need.

 

You can get these everywhere at the moment, best thing to do would be to pop into a local PC world, and see what suits (even if you then end up buying it cheaper on Amazon).

[SNorman]

@GrayFox1991 I think I don't want to have to do is upload 30GB of pictures to google drive!

 

However I know that is probably the best thing to do with them

[GrayFox1991]

Just drop the photos into Google Photos, they will sync upload over a few days automatically, and once it is done, it is done. Backed up forever.

After that you will only be adding a few photos at a time, and now they are super easy to share with friends and family.

 

I can see the initial pain in it though, especially if your internet is not excellent.

[SCHISCHKA]

get a pre-built unless you want to be the warranty

[SNorman]

5 minutes ago, GrayFox1991 said:

Just drop the photos into Google Photos, they will sync upload over a few days automatically, and once it is done, it is done. Backed up forever.

After that you will only be adding a few photos at a time, and now they are super easy to share with friends and family.

 

I can see the initial pain in it though, especially if your internet is not excellent.

Like 0.5 mbps upload

[demonix00]

Unfortunately, all you can get in that price bracket is an i3 6006U, 4-8GB RAM (manufacturer dependant) and a 1TB HDD

 

Matching that minimum spec exactly requires another £80 for this (it does at least have a slightly better battery life over the £350 laptops).