O/T Techno help

Surface is hugely expensive, you could get a great laptop for far less. I would set a budget of about £300. If you really need Office you'll have to pay, although there may be student deals. Open Office is compatible and is free.

 

https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/micro.../xx-criteria.html?srcid=198&cmpid=ppc~gg~1011 (DTP) Windows Tablets - Microsoft - Surface~Surface (E)~Exact&mctag=gg_goog_7904&kwid=GOOGLE&device=m&ds_kids=43700039402607930&tgtid=1011 (DTP) Windows Tablets - Microsoft - Surface&&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIz-WS7MPR5QIVQbDtCh2FUgjMEAAYASAAEgL_SPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

Attendance at most schools and places of higher education would qualify her for free MS Office 365. This has all the features of Office Pro (or whatever the current latest all singing all dancing version is) but requires re-registering annually.

 

The Surface Pro is a fab bit of kit but a lot of cash, the Surface Go might be enough for her?

be aware that most cheap laptops are utterly crap, when I was last looking for a new laptop I was frustrated that PC World etc are full of £400 rubbish or MacBooks with nothing in between.

you’ll be better off online, look at HP, Lenovo, Dell.
Avoid anything beginning with A from PC world.

 

Couldn’t disagree with this more; £300 laptops have terrible screens, awful keyboards and are built down to a price that means they’ll be useless in 3 years.
If you value your general well-being, a decent screen and comfortable input devices are what makes the difference.

 

I've used laptops in that price range for years, professionally and privately. Each to their own I suppose.

 

I swear by Dell Inspiron myself. Inspiron 3000 series starts at £249 and the 5000 series from £448. You can check the specs out on their website.

 

Always worth a look on the Dell Outlet website too, I have had some bargains from there.

 

Don’t listen to this guy- a laptop at £300 will be trash and unsuitable for the purpose requested, particularly if she’s hoping for a surface. It will age quickly and poorly and the battery will be useless for taking to lectures/ classes.
Furthermore, office is free for students.

 

Ha ha I'm typing this message on my HP laptop now, purchased in 2016 for under £300. The one before that I used professionally (I ran a technology company in Barnsley for 32 years), it lasted about 5 years. The keyboards and displays are never the problem, the usual issue is that the things just slow down because of ever expanding software, so they need more memory.

Fired can spend whatever money she wants on a laptop, and obviously you get more for £2000 than you do for £300. It's like advising someone not to buy a Fiesta for £10000, go for a Range Rover at £80000 instead. It makes perfect sense, apart from one tiny flaw.

 

The keyboards and screens are not a maintenance problem, they’re a quality problem.

If you want a stress free user experience then you need to look after your eyes and your wrists.

if it’s not important to you, that’s fine, but it can be life changing for others.

 

I'm only trying to help and save other people's hard-earned, by relating to my experience with using Windows based computers since about 1986, firstly with desktops eventually laptops, when they appeared. I've lost count of the number of laptops I've purchased in that time. The last one was for our cricket club for £180 - it's now 4 years old and works perfectly in a non-demanding application, although it is now slowing down somewhat because of the usual "bloated software" problem. In fact, that latter issue is actually the reason why I prefer low-cost laptops - after 3 or 4 years they will become too slow for professional use, so we just replace them. For me/us, it makes financial sense.

It's difficult to comment further without knowing what budget you would recommend, which I'd be interested to hear.

 

In all seriousness... have a look in Costco.

 

I wouldn't go for a Surface just because they are unreliable from past experience. Last business I worked in we had nothing but issues with Surface's. Go for a Dell or HP, ideally in Curry's, ideally something with SSD and some decent RAM in it that should be easy enough for things like browsing the web, YouTube, Office etc. My other half got herself a HP Pavilion a couple of weeks back from Curry's £450 think it was, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, fairly cheap price and good spec for what she needs it for.

I'd also recommend whichever you get, remove the Windows 10 apps because I can bet 99% of them you won't ever use.

That's coming from someone with a £1,100 gaming PC

 

Go online. Type in www.offeroftheday.co.uk search for laptops and it will show you loads of deals. I have used it frequently and saved every time.
I would look for something with an i3 or. i5 Intel processor with an ssd hard drive. HP is my personal preference as they did B&o sound I don't know if they still do.
I got a lifetime word programme off ebay. It works perfectly.