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3 Reasons to NOT Buy a $400 Laptop

AlexTheGreatish

True story: I use a $400 laptop when I head out to troubleshoot other people's computer problems. It's not a dell, but it does what I need it to.

"The only thing that matters right now is that you're here, and you're safe."

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budget laptops are starting to get better but I think they still arent worth it. I have always had cheap computers and they just aggravate me

 

The only cheap laptops I think are kind of worth it are chromebooks, for office and school purposes only though,

The only reason I'm here is that I have homework that I don't want to do

 

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It took me half an hour to find where to change my signature :(

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I don't get these TINY TINY laptops, who wants to look at a 11-13" screen when for the same money (except the 200 dollar model) you can get 15" screens with more POWERFUL processers if you give up the point less touchscreen convertible crap.

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Hence why I always recommend going with a used business laptop, instead of a 400$ budget laptop.

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I purchased a ~250 dollar 1080p laptop from amazon a few years back. Ended up switching out the hard drive for a SSD and it works wonderfully for 14inches 1080p youtube :P I also use it to remote into my desktop at home... so I essentially have the "power" of my main gaming rig with a little latency. Doesn't work for actual gaming but for games that aren't competitive it's fine.

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With laptops, you're better off getting a $200 one or an $800 laptop.

 

A $400 laptop is either a bulked up $200 laptop or a severely compromised $800 laptop.

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4 minutes ago, kk027 said:

This is a review I found of a $400 Dell laptop on the Walmart website: "This Is My first laptop and I don't know if just my internet but so far browsing has been extremely slow and download speeds and extremely slow it says its gunna take 12+ hours to download a 171 MB file so I let it download then about halfway through it crashes. at this point I'm not sure whether* to return it and get my money back or get better internet." I mean, it's a $400 laptop. What did you expect?

Here is another one: "Got this laptop because we have another Dell, good speed , needed another for school. Got this laptop after several attempts with Walmart online,after having the sale rejected numerous times. Got the laptop on time only to have something that looked like oil spilled on the box. Associate opened the box to verify the inner box wasn't damaged. Took it home, took 3 hours to update everything, and the more I used it , the slower it got, and finally locked up.Taking it back tomorrow. Surely this laptop must've been returned before and got shipped out again. I think it's best to not order electronics online. Hard to tell what they go through during shipping." The other Dell probably had a higher price.

 

 

What I said is in bold. The reviews are in italics *I fixed that spelling mistake. (They spelled whether wheter.

In fairness, the $400 laptop could pretty easily download a 171Mb file on our internet and I had no problems with crashing, feel like it was their fault

 

For the second one, they probably just ran out of RAM haha, if you aren't closing tabs and applications it basically kills itself, got to love Windows 10 on low end hardware.

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I've a Thinkpad x201 as my secondary (privat & work - mix use) one.

x201 - 220€

120GB SSD - 60€

new battery - 50€

8GB RAM - 65€

Docking Station 20€

But why?

I give back my smartphone to use a Laptop - mouse and keyboard is my favorit.

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2gb ram in 2017, does it even make sense to release this? woulnd't like 20$ make 4gb possible? Both the red and blue look nice tho, if that kind of thing matters.

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mfw a macbook air is roughly the same price used

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Just buy a refurbushed thinkpad, for 400$ (or less) you get fast and reliable machines.

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I really enjoyed this review. It was direct, to the point, but I did not some of the humor. I do agree with Linus, not worth the extra 200 for the $400 model. Most users looking to buy the 200 aren't going to fill the 500gb HDD with Instagram photos and FB memes.

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I have a dell inspiron 2in1 15-5568 it is about a generation old and has the same specs as the 800 one except for a 6200u (and it has a fifteen-inch screen I don't remember what screen size the 800 dollar one was.) It works great and I bought it new for only 550 on sale at microcenter

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See guys, this is actually a really good video. Please do more of this and less painting $200 motherboards then LOL'ing at us unsponsored peasants when they don't work anymore.

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So I was browsing a new laptop from Newegg...

 

cheaplp.PNG.5ec28cb77cae8ef01accb372e8e6115b.PNG

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I still think the best laptop to buy on a budget is a used Macbook of some variety.

 

they have fantastic build quality and last forever, realistically a Core 2 Duo processor is going to be no worse than that $200 Dell for day to day use, and you can pick an older MacBook Pro 13 inch up for that kind of money.

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Also I know most of these product showcases are basically just commercials, but this really felt like a Dell commercial.

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Curryflurry said:

Why not got to a 600 dollar instead ?

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01LD4MGY4/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

good question. This looks a bit better in specs (just the addition of a 940mx which is kinda shit) but for average consumers the better portability, aesthetics, build quality, and windows hello(which is amazing the 95 percent of the time I don't have my glasses off) may push the dell up their list. Also, all the other laptops were Dells so it kinda fits the theme

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23 minutes ago, Curryflurry said:

Why not got to a 600 dollar instead ?

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01LD4MGY4/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

Mostly because we asked for the single $200 laptop but instead got three Dells in the mail so we compared those ones.  Asus also has some good laptops in that price range too and we aren't married to the Dells we showcased.

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I'm curious: in the review you said that the 200 $ storage is not upgradable, which makes sense because it's an emmc, but what about the 400$ one? Since it has a normal (I suppose) 2.5'' HDD shouldn't it be able to get a upgrade ? What is the internal upgradability of the 400$ one compared to the 200$ ?

 

I'm looking to buy one and this would be very helpful, thanks!

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13 minutes ago, pesta01694 said:

I'm curious: in the review you said that the 200 $ storage is not upgradable, which makes sense because it's an emmc, but what about the 400$ one? Since it has a normal (I suppose) 2.5'' HDD shouldn't it be able to get a upgrade ? What is the internal upgradability of the 400$ one compared to the 200$ ?

 

I'm looking to buy one and this would be very helpful, thanks!

You can upgrade both the storage and the RAM on the $400 machine.  I was really hoping to be able to put more RAM or there be an empty SATA slot in the $200 one but alas what you buy is what you get.

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3 hours ago, shadowbyte said:

mfw a macbook air is roughly the same price used

Oh I wish... I've seen first generation ones going for 500 here... 

 

On a side note, is it just my audio set up or is there this low frequency buzz every so often throughout the video?

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