Best value budget laptop... AMD or Intel?

[TwitchAGA]

I have a decent amount of knowledge about building Gaming PCs and the hardware that goes with them but when it comes to budget laptops and mobile cpus.... no idea lol  I have never actually put my hands on a budget laptop in several years.  Trying to find my wife a replacement.  She is on a cheap 6-7 year old Chromebook right now.  She does NOT want another Chromebook.  Unfortunately with everything going on in the world right now I can't exactly run up to Best Buy and play around with the laptops they have in store.  I have been trying to look at comparisons between the Ryzen 3/5 and the Intel Core i3/i5 online but coming up with mixed opinions in articles.  I would love to stay under $500usd.  SSD storage and expandable memory is a must.  She only surfs the internet (multiple tabs open usually), email, and basic office.  Sometimes will stream video.  Any help I can get would be great.  Memorial day weekend is here and trying to find the best deal/value with Memorial Day sales going on.  Let me know what you guys suggest!  Thank you!  

 

... I know there is lots of budget friendly laptops out there so if you could give me your opinions on which CPU to go (Ryzen or Intel) with that would be helpful as well.  Thanks again!  

 

 

[boggy77]

cheapest 4 cores / 8 threads you can find will do the trick. you want 8gb of ram and a ssd as well.

i would recommend this:

https://www.newegg.com/iron-gray-lenovo-v14-are-82dq000pus-mainstream/p/2WC-000J-00DS6?Item=9SIA2F8BCA2912

[SupaKomputa]

Under 500 you won't getting an extra GPU, so with the build GPU in mind, Ryzen is better.

4 cored Ryzen 3200u or 3500u is good enough.

If you can wait long enough, maybe the low end 4300u or 4500u laptops will be available.

Coming from a chromebook a 3200u maybe just good enough for her. The price starting from 320$.

[TwitchAGA]

Yeah that vivobook with the 3200u that was posted recently looks appealing.  She currently has an asus c300m... i attached her specs (i think those are the correct specs).  Pretty much anything on the market right now would be an improvement lol

[SupaKomputa]

ouch, a celeron. 3200u will be light years ahead.

Most of the laptop will have a ssd installed. Do research if it has a empty hdd for you to plug.

Get another 4gb ddr (for 8gb) and you're done.

IPS screen is desirable make sure it's 1080p, as 720p is common in these budget laptop.

[TwitchAGA]

Ended up with this one...Best buy had it on sale 

[TwitchAGA]

HP usually has a decent amount of bloatware so will prob do a fresh install of win10

[Jtrizzy]

5 hours ago, TwitchAGA said:

HP usually has a decent amount of bloatware so will prob do a fresh install of win10

HP literally loads massive amounts of bloatware on their devices, what is with them? Every client that brings in a laptop for us to setup thats HP I immediately reimage it with win 10.

[SupaKomputa]

On 5/24/2020 at 4:39 AM, Jtrizzy said:

HP literally loads massive amounts of bloatware on their devices, what is with them? Every client that brings in a laptop for us to setup thats HP I immediately reimage it with win 10.

Regular people needs customer support a click away. In a business where hardware differentiation is non-existance, bloatware adds "value".