Why Is Everyone Buying this Laptop?

[LMGcommunity]

It is the best selling laptop on Amazon, but why?  Price? Performance? Build? Well.. given the best seller is just $169 I think you can guess.

 

 

[manikyath]

if anyone wonders why HP makes cheap shyte laptops: because for some people the cheapest thing that at least gets their foot in the door, gets their foot in the door. half way the video i was a bit worried where the point of the video was gonna go, but i strongly agree with the notion that "if you have more, buy properly more, but if you dont, the lowest end stuff will make do". there's a lot of mid-garbage tier stuff that has no reason to exist, because of how close to the lowest end garbage it is, so you may as well pay less.

 

on that note,

the reason the cheapo HP has a bunch of unpopulated stuff on the motherboard, is because they dont spin a new board for their low end stuff. they just omit things from a higher spec thing. that's also likely how it ends up with an "okay" keyboard - it was whatever keyboard came with the mold for the chassis top already.

[OhYou_]

I think its all people who should just buy a used thinkpad instead like idk here https://www.ebay.com/itm/226327066816
 

plenty not too old for that price

[Agall]

39 minutes ago, manikyath said:

if anyone wonders why HP makes cheap shyte laptops: because for some people the cheapest thing that at least gets their foot in the door, gets their foot in the door. half way the video i was a bit worried where the point of the video was gonna go, but i strongly agree with the notion that "if you have more, buy properly more, but if you dont, the lowest end stuff will make do". there's a lot of mid-garbage tier stuff that has no reason to exist, because of how close to the lowest end garbage it is, so you may as well pay less.

 

on that note,

the reason the cheapo HP has a bunch of unpopulated stuff on the motherboard, is because they dont spin a new board for their low end stuff. they just omit things from a higher spec thing. that's also likely how it ends up with an "okay" keyboard - it was whatever keyboard came with the mold for the chassis top already.

I feel like this argument has changed in the last few years. Back 5-10 years ago, the bottom end was basically unusable with 1-2GB of system RAM, especially ones that came with HDDs and super low end 32bit silicon. The low end of silicon available now is far more capable than people give it credit for, especially with 4GB being the minimum.

 

Coupled with all the 2nd hand mid-high end builds available for cheap that can keep up with basic tasks in 2025, the barrier to entry on a basic computer is hilariously low. Videos like the '$69 gaming PC' being an easy example of this.

[Sir_Alex]

Not sure how Amazon best seller laptops work. But Amazon.com is showing way different selection compared to the video.

#2 seems a very good spec wise laptop. AMD Ryzen quadCore, 8GB RAM (soldered) and NVME SSD

 

[manikyath]

5 minutes ago, Agall said:

I feel like this argument has changed in the last few years. Back 5-10 years ago, the bottom end was basically unusable with 1-2GB of system RAM, especially ones that came with HDDs and super low end 32bit silicon. The low end of silicon available now is far more capable than people give it credit for, especially with 4GB being the minimum.

 

Coupled with all the 2nd hand mid-high end builds available for cheap that can keep up with basic tasks in 2025, the barrier to entry on a basic computer is hilariously low. Videos like the '$69 gaming PC' being an easy example of this.

but for botching your own extremely cheap setup together, you require some technical knowledge to get it going. the second hand market is also not as developed everywhere.

[Elazar Rosenthal]

Cheap laptops are good if you need a real screen keyboard and mouse to get something done and don't want to worry about it.

 

 

I took my expensive laptop on a trip and cracked the screen (still worked just broke touch)

 

 

For my next trip I picked up something cheap so I could get into work and left my good laptop at home 

 

As a 2nd or 3rd device it should be fine (Chromebook running Windows)

[Brian McKee]

Companies in reality should be shipping Linux and bumping the specs up a bit more and maintain these prices. Windows 11 with these dogs of computers makes no sense.

[UnawareBlaire]

I got a Thinkpad T480 on Ebay for $160 that included 16 GB of RAM and an i5-8250U. Outstanding keyboard, doesn't lag when opening youtube videos, I can also stream 1080p60fps games from my gaming pc to it no problem with Moonlight.

 

Obviously ebay hunting isn't a viable option for everyone but it is worth a consideration for some.

[Brian McKee]

9 minutes ago, UnawareBlaire said:

I got a Thinkpad T480 on Ebay for $160 that included 16 GB of RAM and an i5-8250U. Outstanding keyboard, doesn't lag when opening youtube videos, I can also stream 1080p60fps games from my gaming pc to it no problem with Moonlight.

 

Obviously ebay hunting isn't a viable option for everyone but it is worth a consideration for some.

Yeah, used corpo machines are the obvious play for the frugal minded tech nerd. Feel great, run great. My daily driver for school is a 2013 quadcore thinkpad with 16 gigs of ram.

[Ha-Satan]

Buying a new Windows laptop in the sub-$500 range is dumb in most cases. Windows is such a pointlessly heavy operating system.

 

If all you need is a cheap laptop for web browsing and office work...just get a Chromebook and use cloud-based services. Or, if you don't mind a little bit of extra work and learning, get a used laptop and put Linux on it.

[dogwitch]

13 minutes ago, Ha-Satan said:

Buying a new Windows laptop in the sub-$500 range is dumb in most cases. Windows is such a pointlessly heavy operating system.

 

If all you need is a cheap laptop for web browsing and office work...just get a Chromebook and use cloud-based services. Or, if you don't mind a little bit of extra work and learning, get a used laptop and put Linux on it.

yeah it has issue with running 8gb of ram. past that you really need 16gb for win 11 on a laptop.

sub 500 ones use to be decent to get the job down(nothing really heavy) but  now...

i had a hell of a time finding one and one  i found was a hp 17 inch soc model with 8gb of ram.

[UnawareBlaire]

Another option if you don't want to fuss with ebay is purchasing a renewed laptop on Amazon.

 

Here is what I found by filtering to <$200 and 16GB RAM: 

[Elazar Rosenthal]

14 hours ago, Elazar Rosenthal said:

Cheap laptops are good if you need a real screen keyboard and mouse to get something done and don't want to worry about it.

 

 

I took my expensive laptop on a trip and cracked the screen (still worked just broke touch)

 

 

For my next trip I picked up something cheap so I could get into work and left my good laptop at home 

 

As a 2nd or 3rd device it should be fine (Chromebook running Windows)

Additional info 

 

I do put Linux on almost all my laptops just keep Windows for when needed (I was on unix before Windows and Linux existed) also the cheap laptop I bought was used and a little better than this but there is a point to the reliability of getting new right away (need it tomorrow no time for any going wrong)

[UNIXNETWORK]

UK bestseller is so weird. The best from all in screenshot is AMD laptop.

 

[powertoys]

As someone who loves ThinkPads: people who like to recommend used ThinkPads / business laptops are well intentioned, but there is a HUGE asterisk: you need to do a LOT of research on computers, specs, the laptops themselves, and so much more.. it's clearly not the same audience that is buying brand-new Celerons.

 

About the "IPS-Level" bit: the listing's description is wrong. Usually manufacturers use terms like WVA / IPS-Level to describe a screen that uses a technology similar to IPS (AHVA, PLS, AAS, ADS, etc) to achieve the same results. They do this because IPS is an LG trademark. That screen is just straight up TN.

[AndrewAsd]

If you must have new and you have a really low budget, honestly just get a chromebook. It'll be a much smoother experience, and for most people it'll do everything they need, as opposed to buying a Windows laptop with similar specs that stutters just thinking about running windows.

[swimtome]

My recommendation for people is just go to costco's website and pick something around $500.  Costco generally isn't selling absolute crap, and you have 90 days to return it if it doesn't fit your needs versus 30 days at Amazon.

[Ha-Satan]

3 hours ago, powertoys said:

As someone who loves ThinkPads: people who like to recommend used ThinkPads / business laptops are well intentioned, but there is a HUGE asterisk: you need to do a LOT of research on computers, specs, the laptops themselves, and so much more.. it's clearly not the same audience that is buying brand-new Celerons.

Yeah, this is basically why my opinion is if you're not a very tech-savvy person, get a Chromebook. If you are a tech-savvy person, a used business laptop is probably the way to go.

 

A new cheap Windows laptop is pretty much the worst of all worlds.

[Brian McKee]

5 hours ago, powertoys said:

As someone who loves ThinkPads: people who like to recommend used ThinkPads / business laptops are well intentioned, but there is a HUGE asterisk: you need to do a LOT of research on computers, specs, the laptops themselves, and so much more.. it's clearly not the same audience that is buying brand-new Celerons.

While I agree research does help you get the best deal, a blind purchase of a good condition thinkpad from the last decade will probably trounce either of the low cost offerings in the video lol.

[powertoys]

5 hours ago, Brian McKee said:

While I agree research does help you get the best deal, a blind purchase of a good condition thinkpad from the last decade will probably trounce either of the low cost offerings in the video lol.

I just typed "ThinkPad" in eBay search and the first result was a T460 with i5-6300U, 16 GB RAM, which is indeed better than the brand new crap. Performance-wise it's not THAT far off though...

 

7 hours ago, Ha-Satan said:

A new cheap Windows laptop is pretty much the worst of all worlds.

 

Just don't spend TOO little. Brand new laptops in the 300-500 price range are perfectly fine. This laptop below slam-dunks both of the popular offerings from LTT's video:

 

 

[Euchre]

As someone who sells low end laptops every week, I can tell you nobody that looks at a $169 laptop is thinking "but I could just throw down 5 times that much and have a MacBook Air with a smaller screen". What they do is look at a model a couple of spots over that's $279 with double the RAM, double or triple the storage, and at least 2 more cores/threads and an inch bigger screen and say "I can afford that".

 

The reality is people who buy those laptops are not playing serious games, they're not editing videos with extensive titles and effects, and they're not editing pictures in camera raw. They're browsing, emailing, surfing social media, watching videos, and maybe some light office productivity. The $169 laptop can do that... slowly, and miserably, but it can. A $279 laptop can do that comfortably.

 

Linus should think about doing a video of the best NEW laptop you can get for $300, and another for $500. Most people spending beyond that know what they're doing when looking for a laptop.

[Brian McKee]

9 hours ago, powertoys said:

Performance-wise it's not THAT far off though...

Ah ha... no. Even casual comparison between the CPUs would show you that the thinkpad would obliterate either laptop. They are extremely low TDP chips with low clocks, are dual cores with NO hyperthreading, the IGPUs are underclocked, among other failings. These Celerons are doomed to feel absolutely sluggish. While the Skylake i5 won't be a spry chicken anymore, it won't be unbearable for normal tasks and web browsing, and will have a good sturdy build with an excellent keyboard.

 

The HP in particular is bad because of the wombo combo of 4 gigs of ram WITH extremely slow EMMC storage. You'd be better off with a well spec'd Core 2 DUO machine in windows 10 at that point. That system is an absolute atrocity. It's a chromebook ewaste spec machine running windows 11.

[Kisai]

On 3/19/2025 at 11:18 AM, Agall said:

I feel like this argument has changed in the last few years. Back 5-10 years ago, the bottom end was basically unusable with 1-2GB of system RAM, especially ones that came with HDDs and super low end 32bit silicon. The low end of silicon available now is far more capable than people give it credit for, especially with 4GB being the minimum.

 

Coupled with all the 2nd hand mid-high end builds available for cheap that can keep up with basic tasks in 2025, the barrier to entry on a basic computer is hilariously low. Videos like the '$69 gaming PC' being an easy example of this.

Nah, the goal posts constantly move with OS updates.

 

If you 'need' a computer, it's best to buy what you 'need' and not necessarily what you 'want' until you actually have a need that meets the want.

 

Like people buy these garbage laptops because they are intended to be used at school, so if the laptop gets lost or wrecked, replacing it is not as big of a deal. But people (including people on this forum) always ask this question in the context of "I want to game on it" which moves the goal posts much much further away for the price point they wanted.

 

That POS sub-$500 laptop, will last you a few months and then you'll just get fed up with it when it doesn't do what you want it to do. It's not an iPad where everything on the store WILL run on the iPad no questions asked, and will continue to work on that same iPad *(assuming you bought it new) for the next 7 years. If you want the same from a laptop, you would be told to buy a $500 desktop and buy a nicer monitor, keyboard and mouse that you then keep for 20 years (not really, but my K70's are both old enough (can't be older than 12 years) to have worn into the 'C', 'V', 'N' and 'M' keycaps.)

 

At $169, the build quality has to be so poor that it's not expected to be used for more than a single school year. So if you look up that part:

14-dq0040nr

 

All the hallmarks of a disposable chromebook.

 

I'm sorry, but if this is on amazon, it's definitely NOS (New, old stock), 4 year old to be exact.

 

And what are you going to do with this piece of junk? This is not even capable of playing Youtube videos at anything but 720p or using Office 365, it would be absolutely miserable to use.

 

 

[powertoys]

4 hours ago, Brian McKee said:

Even casual comparison between the CPUs would show you that the thinkpad would obliterate either laptop. They are extremely low TDP chips with low clocks, are dual cores with NO hyperthreading, the IGPUs are underclocked, among other failings. These Celerons are doomed to feel absolutely sluggish. While the Skylake i5 won't be a spry chicken anymore, it won't be unbearable for normal tasks and web browsing, and will have a good sturdy build with an excellent keyboard.

 

I had a skylake i3. It's really not that far off. Very sluggish in 2024/5.

 

Btw, raw performance is only one factor. The N4500's iGPU also has support for VP9 decoding, the most widely used codec in YouTube right now + some more hardware acceleration stuff.

 

In both cases, you can spend $300 MUCH more wisely. I really cannot recommend anyone to buy any computer with a CPU below 8th gen unless they are extremely budget constrained. There are much better laptops for ~$250: