A new laptop for work stuff

[Im f 1]

HI, my almost four-year old laptop got another broken fan just today(again), so I decided to make a stationary PC out of it. Now I'm looking for a laptop to take with me. I want it to be cheap, preferably in range of 300$. However, when I searched for a laptop with my(I think humble enough) requirements, the cheapest model I found at a local shop was near 480$. So right now I'm looking for some advice, as I don't really know much about modern laptops. Maybe I'm being unreasonable and such machine does not exist? The requirements are

* at least 6 hours of battery life [more = better, this is top priority]

* good build quality, preferably no fans. I'm not planning to throw or drop it, but it should last for a long time and be comfortable to use in imperfect conditions(e.g. no table) [this is very important as well]

* weight: no more than 2kg

* screen size: 13+

* 6gb of memory(or at least upgradable ram)

* reasonable port selection. at least one usb type A would be nice. Ethernet and memory card slot are not required

* not bad wifi adapter

* at least "ok" level keyboard and trackpad

* some webcam

* performance: I'm going to use it for browsing, some light compiling, command line utilities. I want it to playback youtube videos at native resolution to watch ltt away from home.

* at least 128gb of total disk space(or upgradable slot)

* bootable ssd(or at least a slot for it)

* IPS 1080 screen would be de desirable, but if there's no other choice, it may go.

* preferably x86-64 architecture

* any keyboard backlight would be nice. but not really necessary

 

what I don't care about:

* speakers

* gaming(just on this laptop. gaming is fun)). Lack of dedicated gpu is probably a plus

* preinstalled OS(but I need an ability to install any OS i'd like later)

* windows hello or fingerprint sensor

[SEAL62]

Your expectations aren't that high but let me tell you from my own experience that low budget laptops usually suck from da one and need replacement within 1-2 years. So it is probably the better option to safe some more money and go for something better. Especially when you want (point 2 of your list) good quality.

[Im f 1]

1 minute ago, SEAL62 said:

Your expectations aren't that high but let me tell you from my own experience that low budget laptops usually suck from da one and need replacement within 1-2 years. So it is probably the better option to safe some more money and go for something better. Especially when you want (point 2 of your list) good quality.

In that case could you suggest some laptops that satisfy all the requirements(except price) and have truly good build quality?

[SEAL62]

generally the whole Dell XPS lineup is just overall great, it's light, great quality, long battery life and so on

[Im f 1]

2 minutes ago, SEAL62 said:

generally the whole Dell XPS lineup is just overall great, it's light, great quality, long battery life and so on

yes, but this is probably an overkill for me. (and cheapest cost more than 1000$, this is not really an option)

[SEAL62]

the HP 250 G7 isn't bad either. Not the very best quality but that is because of it's lower price.

[Im f 1]

7 minutes ago, SEAL62 said:

the HP 250 G7 isn't bad either. Not the very best quality but that is because of it's lower price.

thanks, I'll look into it

[jaslion]

So for 480$ you should be able able to get a ryzen 4000 lenovo flex possibly. The acer swift 3 with a ryzen 4500u should be 500$ and about as good as it gets.

 

300$ laptops are just kinda garbage. The best one there is is a ryzen laptop from walmart https://www.walmart.com/ip/MOTILE-14-Performance-Laptop-FHD-AMD-Ryzen-3-Radeon-Vega-Graphics-THX-Spatial-Audio-Tuned-display-4GB-RAM-128GB-SSD-HDMI-Front-720P-HD-IR-Camera-Rose/708573214

 

It's still pretty bad and not nice even for your usecase. Any pentium or celeron laptop is to be avoided as those have the performance of decade old laptops. 300$ is generally too low of a budget to not get a flat out bad new laptop. Sometimes you can get lucky and get a sorta ok one but not often.

[Im f 1]

6 minutes ago, jaslion said:

So for 480$ you should be able able to get a ryzen 4000 lenovo flex possibly. The acer swift 3 with a ryzen 4500u should be 500$ and about as good as it gets.

this seems ideal. If only I could find something similar, but with a bit less features and cheaper... I'd happily cut several hours of battery life, fingerprint sensor and a copy of win10.

[Im f 1]

19 minutes ago, jaslion said:

The best one there is is a ryzen laptop from walmart https://www.walmart.com/ip/MOTILE-14-Performance-Laptop-FHD-AMD-Ryzen-3-Radeon-Vega-Graphics-THX-Spatial-Audio-Tuned-display-4GB-RAM-128GB-SSD-HDMI-Front-720P-HD-IR-Camera-Rose/708573214

this one actually seems ok, if the build quality is acceptable. I couln't find any real problems(at this point I accepted 4gb of ram). But it's available only in USA, and I'm not there(sorry for not mentioning). I couldn't find it anywhere in my area. Is it available under some other branding?

[jaslion]

32 minutes ago, Im f 1 said:

this one actually seems ok, if the build quality is acceptable. I couln't find any real problems(at this point I accepted 4gb of ram). But it's available only in USA, and I'm not there(sorry for not mentioning). I couldn't find it anywhere in my area. Is it available under some other branding?

Well where are you then? The motiles build quality is well pretty crap. I mean you want a 300$ laptop and I'll flat out say it without a boatload of luck you are not getting even a ok quality laptop. Simply not happening at that price. Used you can get decent to even good devices for that price new forget it.

[jaslion]

48 minutes ago, Im f 1 said:

this seems ideal. If only I could find something similar, but with a bit less features and cheaper... I'd happily cut several hours of battery life, fingerprint sensor and a copy of win10.

That is not how it works. Batteries, windows and those small other things are really cheap to make or buy that and linux laptops have not caught on so windows will always be on it. So to cut down price they have to really lower the quality of either the components used or use a lower end cpu, gpu, ram,... It's why you CAN have those really cheap laptops with a decent cpu BUT you end up having a motherboard that is help together with tape so to say and those laptops DO NOT last.