Hello fellow cheapies,
Looking for recommendations to buy a decent laptop around $1000-$1500.
I would prefer 16 or 32 GB RAM and a solid CPU, I'm open to buy new/refurbished/used.
Use Case - No Video Editing or serious gaming, mostly using MYSQL/PowerBI and web surfing.
I'm not in a hurry but would like to buy within a month.
Please let me know if anyone has any recommendations.
Thanks :-)
Any other details that are important to you: Mac/Win, screen size, touch/non-touch, GPU?
Not really, I have always been a Win user but happy to jump to Mac.
Not bothered about - screen size, touch/non-touch, GPU
Use Case - No Video Editing or serious gaming, mostly using MYSQL/PowerBI and web surfing.
If you don't mind buying from Australia, then Dell Refurbished have great deals. But you can only ship to Australia.
So you need a contact to ship to, and they can either send on to you, or if you have a trip planned, you could collect it yourself.
I've bought my last two laptops from Dell Refurbished, really happy.
Current deal on Lenovo ThinkPad E14 for $1155.70 seems like a good deal just exploring other options.
You would need more ram if you are developing using BI
Thanks, I'm not an expert developer and appreciate the input.
Please suggest what is the least I should be aiming for? 32 GB RAM and CPU that's max a few years old should do the trick?
I'm inclined towards ThinkPads as they as known to be tanks but flexible to buy other brands/models.
That sounds like a great deal - where is that available please? I am wondering if this would be a good device for my son for high school next year
Your best bet is to browse Facebook Marketplace. Try looking for gaming handhelds as well, like MSI Claw 8 AI+. I got one a few months ago for around $1000, dirt cheap and runs modern games at high FPS without issues. Runs cool and quiet and I can easily connect it to a dock to use it as a PC. In a lot of cases, that has replaced my gaming laptop, I don't really carry laptops when I travel anymore.
You can also consider getting a good phone with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, like the Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra. I can run emulated PS3 and Steam games (not cloud streaming btw) at high FPS. I can run Linux on it and do a lot of my work just fine. Again, it's one of those devices that can replace my laptop if I really want to. Mobile CPU chips these days are so powerful, they rival the performance of some of the laptop chips, especially the ones that are installed in laptops for general office use. The only downside is that you can't get more than 16GB of RAM.
But if you really want a traditional laptop, I'd still recommend checking on Facebook or Trademe. You can find good deals for around $1000~$1500, with 32GB RAM and RTX 4070 or RTX 5060. I know because I've bought a few over the years, including this year.