Used Surface pro 2 128GB vs currently owned laptops?

[darklighthim]

I'm looking to replace my slightly old laptop with something a bit better and looking for advice.

 

The laptop I have is a 2015 Toshiba with Celeron N2830 CPU, and 4GB of ram which is currently running Ubuntu to try and get it running as best I can within the specs it has.

I also just got my sister's old Toshiba given to me, with an AMD Dual-Core E2-1800 APU and 6GB of ram running windows 10.

 

I was looking around at used stuff since I can't really afford a decent laptop, and came across a reasonably priced  Microsoft Surface Pro 2 128GB with Core i5-4300U, 4GB ram and 128GB of storage.

Is this a decent device to look at in 2018/19? Most new laptops around the same price are running Celeron chips like the N3060, N3350, N4000 with 2/4GB of ram, 16/32GB of eMMC storage with a few being Chromebooks and only one having a touchscreen.

 

My uses are web browsing, some basic office tasks, media consumption and the odd heavier task, but the two laptops I have are just feeling sluggish in use and even with an SSD they still don't seem to run that well.

 

Thanks

[AlTech]

4 minutes ago, darklighthim said:

I'm looking to replace my slightly old laptop with something a bit better and looking for advice.

 

The laptop I have is a 2015 Toshiba with Celeron N2830 CPU, and 4GB of ram which is currently running Ubuntu to try and get it running as best I can within the specs it has.

I also just got my sister's old Toshiba given to me, with an AMD Dual-Core E2-1800 APU and 6GB of ram running windows 10.

 

I was looking around at used stuff since I can't really afford a decent laptop, and came across a reasonably priced  Microsoft Surface Pro 2 128GB with Core i5-4300U, 4GB ram and 128GB of storage.

Is this a decent device to look at in 2018/19? Most new laptops around the same price are running Celeron chips like the N3060, N3350, N4000 with 2/4GB of ram, 16/32GB of eMMC storage with a few being Chromebooks and only one having a touchscreen.

 

My uses are web browsing, some basic office tasks, media consumption and the odd heavier task, but the two laptops I have are just feeling sluggish in use and even with an SSD they still don't seem to run that well.

 

Thanks

What's your budget?

[darklighthim]

I would say £300 max.

I'd love to spend more but I have an OK desktop for most things so don't "need" a portable to be high-powered/high spec. At the same time though I want to have something with reasonable power to do most everyday tasks well and not feel slow or feel cheap like my current Toshiba does (£200 new back in 2015).

 

 

 

 

[Ashleyyyy]

quote people, or else they won't get a notification. 

 

you can get something like a used thinkpad. most of those have quad-core cpu's. they are kinda big and hevay though. are you looking for a thin and light laptop or do you not care about size and weight?

 

 

 

@AluminiumTech there's your notification  

[darklighthim]

 

3 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

quote people, or else they won't get a notification. 

 

you can get something like a used thinkpad. most of those have quad-core cpu's. they are kinda big and hevay though. are you looking for a thin and light laptop or do you not care about size and weight?

 

 

 

@AluminiumTech there's your notification  

I'd love a thin and light, but TBH size is a non factor if the laptop is well spec'd and if I'm going used over new then I can't be too picky.

[AlTech]

8 minutes ago, darklighthim said:

I would say £300 max.

I'd love to spend more but I have an OK desktop for most things so don't "need" a portable to be high-powered/high spec. At the same time though I want to have something with reasonable power to do most everyday tasks well and not feel slow or feel cheap like my current Toshiba does (£200 new back in 2015).

 

 

 

 

In January this year I bought a Thinkpad X240 on eBay for £175 for someone and it's turned out quite okay. I haven't checked back recently but I think it's a bit harder to find something from that era for that price.

 

A Thinkpad from 2014/2015 for around £200-300 wouldn't be a bad choice and you'd be able to upgrade it later on to add more RAM or add an SSD if it doesn't have one.

[darklighthim]

On 11/7/2018 at 3:38 PM, AluminiumTech said:

In January this year I bought a Thinkpad X240 on eBay for £175 for someone and it's turned out quite okay. I haven't checked back recently but I think it's a bit harder to find something from that era for that price.

 

A Thinkpad from 2014/2015 for around £200-300 wouldn't be a bad choice and you'd be able to upgrade it later on to add more RAM or add an SSD if it doesn't have one.

Spotted a couple of decent spec'd machines on Ebay for decent price but I haven't kept up on laptop CPUs so what would be best here?

I am assuming it would be as expected to upgrade RAM using one of the 4GB sticks of DDR3/DDR3L in the laptops I have.

 

HP EliteBook 8470p  - Core i7-3520M @ 2.90GHz, 8GB RAM and 500GB HDD for £174 

Dell Latitude E7440 - Intel i5 4310U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD for £189

HP EliteBook 840 G1 - Intel i5-4300U, 4GB RAM, 180GB SSD for £229

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon touch screen model - i7-3667U, 240GB SSD, 8GB Ram for £269

Dell Latitude E7240 Core i5 4300U 8GB RAM 256GB SSD for £249

 

[AlTech]

2 hours ago, darklighthim said:

Spotted a couple of decent spec'd machines on Ebay for decent price but I haven't kept up on laptop CPUs so what would be best here?

I am assuming it would be as expected to upgrade RAM using one of the 4GB sticks of DDR3/DDR3L in the laptops I have.

 

HP EliteBook 8470p  - Core i7-3520M @ 2.90GHz, 8GB RAM and 500GB HDD for £174 

Dell Latitude E7440 - Intel i5 4310U, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD for £189

HP EliteBook 840 G1 - Intel i5-4300U, 4GB RAM, 180GB SSD for £229

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon touch screen model - i7-3667U, 240GB SSD, 8GB Ram for £269

Dell Latitude E7240 Core i5 4300U 8GB RAM 256GB SSD for £249

 

In that case if the EliteBook 840 G1 is upgradable I'd get that. And if you have money down the road (or if you want to now) you can get 8GB or 16GB.

[darklighthim]

On 11/8/2018 at 7:52 PM, AluminiumTech said:

In that case if the EliteBook 840 G1 is upgradable I'd get that. And if you have money down the road (or if you want to now) you can get 8GB or 16GB.

Just spotted a HP EliteBook 820 G1 which I can get for £244 which includes a Core i5-4300U, and I configured it with 16GB Ram plus 120GB SSD for that price.

An extra 12GB of ram over the 840 G1 for £15 seems like a decent price and I'm only losing 40GB in SSD size.

 

Depending on what SSD is in there I can either keep it as is or swap it for a 240GB I have which I was planning to use in my desktop.

Don't think 120GB of space is a problem so will be down to whether it's as good as my 240GB ADATA one or not?

[darklighthim]

just a quick update to this in case anyone wonders.

 

I decided to go with a £180 Dell Lattitude E7240 with an i5-4300U, 4GB ram, 128GB mSata SSD and a 12" screen.

The particular model of E7240 I got is 1080p touchscreen so I can live with the smaller size screen, plus I have added an extra 4GB stick of ram that was in my old laptop so it's now rocking 8GB.

 

If desired I can add a 2nd mSata drive, but I'm used to running Windows 10 on a 60GB SSD and not using that much space so can live with 128GB for now.