Buying a sub $800 laptop. Help, please.

[Kipper is King]

I'm trying to help my uncle as he needs a new laptop. His budget is $800 but less is better, and he just wants a laptop for basic home use. No gaming or photo/video editing.

I'm trying to find him some reasonable options with more than 8GB Ram and esppecially more than 256gb storage. About the only reasonable option I've seen is the Dell Inspiron 15, but I'm wondering if anyone has other suggestions.

[Fuzz]

Would a Chromebook cover his needs?

[Kipper is King]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Would a Chromebook cover his needs?

Oh, that's a good question. I'm a bit unfamiliar with them myself. Is everything on them dependant upon a browser? Are you able to do some things like word processing offline?

[Galakanokis]

I am slowly becoming a chromebook fan especially in certain situations.

They are mainly based on the browser but there are offline modes for Google Docs , sheets etc. My kids and wife both use them and my wife does all of her paperwork on them. There are a tonne of these things out there right now but ASUS flip can be a really nice laptop.

[GirlySports]

Can it be refurbished? Best buy has good prices.

[nfotiu]

My wife and I have been using Chromebooks for personal use for years. I always have a windows work laptop available, but there isn't anything non-work related that doesn't work well on a Chromebook for me. You get a much more satisfying user experience/performance in the price range you are looking at.

I'm currently using the Pixelbook Go. Not sure if the Canadian price comes under your budget, but it is 650 here. The build quality is fantastic, and it runs a lot cooler than other fanl-less Chromebooks I've had in the past.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Kipper is King

esppecially more than 256gb storage.

The question I'd ask here is why? Cloud storage is cheap, and far more secure for things like photos. Once you get past 256 GB you are either saying no to an SSD, or getting a lot more expensive.

An SSD has to be the single most important feature in a laptop.

[Boreal]

https://www.laptopcloseout.ca/

This place has some good deals, but... no warranty.

I’ve bottom a couple computers from this place, they’ve held up, but I bought them in store.

They usually get refurbs from banks and other companies in Toronto.

[bizaro86]

I've bought a couple of cheap laptops at shoppers drug mart. The buying process is you go in store and ask about the laptops. They find whoever has the key, and bring a bunch out on a little cart. You can look at the specs on the box and ask for pricing. Sometimes its negotiable if the specific one you're looking at has been slow to sell.

Its inconvenient but I've definitely gotten some deals.

[jwslam]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I've bought a couple of cheap laptops at shoppers drug mart. The buying process is you go in store and ask about the laptops. They find whoever has the key, and bring a bunch out on a little cart. You can look at the specs on the box and ask for pricing. Sometimes its negotiable if the specific one you're looking at has been slow to sell.

Its inconvenient but I've definitely gotten some deals.

How do you negotiate pricing with a minimum wage cashier....?
Any specific locations you recommend trying this at?

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by jwslam

How do you negotiate pricing with a minimum wage cashier....?
Any specific locations you recommend trying this at?

I'm assuming "whoever has the key" is actually a manager, not the minimum wage cashier?

After reading the Shoppers Drug Mart suggestion, I guess waiting for the bonus points redemption thing at Shoppers/Superstore might help to get a laptop at a really nice discount as per OP's requirement of sub $800? I have no idea when the next one is though and whether someone actually has that much in points squirreled away.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

I'm assuming "whoever has the key" is actually a manager, not the minimum wage cashier?

After reading the Shoppers Drug Mart suggestion, I guess waiting for the bonus points redemption thing at Shoppers/Superstore might help to get a laptop at a really nice discount as per OP's requirement of sub $800? I have no idea when the next one is though and whether someone actually has that much in points squirreled away.

Even if you were to go in with a 20x the points offer, on a $800 laptop you’d get about $250 back in points. They don’t have a huge selection but for anything I’m looking to buy that they do carry Shoppers has been my go to for any electronics, especially for video games. You pay the same price you would anywhere else and get 30% back.

[BloodFetish]

Originally Posted by ken0042

The question I'd ask here is why? Cloud storage is cheap, and far more secure for things like photos. Once you get past 256 GB you are either saying no to an SSD, or getting a lot more expensive.

An SSD has to be the single most important feature in a laptop.

HDDs can be swapped out, so for me the most important feature of a laptop is the screen. Nothing worse than a 1366 x 768 screen on an otherwise good-specced laptop.

[jwslam]

Originally Posted by BloodFetish

HDDs can be swapped out, so for me the most important feature of a laptop is the screen. Nothing worse than a 1366 x 768 screen on an otherwise good-specced laptop.

1366x768 is bad.
odd ones like 1600x900 are bad
and don't get me started on poorly lit ones that you can barely see at all even on the brightest setting that someone eats the machine down to a 90min battery life.

+1 agree HDD can be upgraded
so can RAM, assuming not soldered.

[Galakanokis]

I have a UHD OLED screen in my laptop. Lord tunderin is it nice.

[blankall]

An $800 budget is totally reasonable.

Will he be storing a lot of files on the laptop. If he's not, I'd go with a laptop with a solid state hard drive (SDD) and at least 8gb of ram. Also try to find a processor that is less than 2 years old.

If he is storing lots of files, you might want to also get a computer with both a SDD and a regular hard drive. Put the system files on the SDD and the storage onto the standard hard drive.

Costco and Visions will both likely have good options. Lenovo will also commonly have pretty good sales on their website.

[craftfun]

Looks at this deal
Acer Aspire 5 15.6" Laptop - Silver (Intel Ci5-1035G1/256GB SSD/8GB RAM/Windows 10)

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product...ws-10/14655794

[transplant99]

Wasn't sure where to drop this but its somewhat relevant if customer service is part of the buying process.

So the back story is.....Late April we had a fire break out in my bedroom at 4 AM. Woke up to mostly smoke but some flames about a foot from my head. No injuries other than minor burns on my hands after scooping up bedding that was on fire and running it all into the tub to be doused.

About 10 grand in damages and clean up and it was determined that my laptop which was on the table beside my bed had caught fire while charging overnight. And although I had never heard of such, apparently t isnt completely rare. That fire then set my boxspring on fire which spread to the linens etc.

So fast forward to replacing the laptop. I just needed someting for surfing/emails/etc much like the requirements of the OP. COVID protocols were still heavily in force so i wanted to avoid the bigger box stores etc and with Memory Express about 4 minutes from me, decided to go with them.

So it was early May I called them and told them which model etc i wanted, they had to get one from another store but would have it within a day or 2. Great. Well a day or 2 turned into 4 and i was getting antsy as i had a lot of correspondence to do with the fire claim etc, plus i am addicted to my laptop for a bunch of reading and other actvities (Bodog) so i was on them. Day 5 i got the call to come and get it, which i did.

3 months into ownership i turn it on one day and although it fires up right away, nothing else works. I tried troubleshooting it using my samsung pad to google possible reasons. When i couldnt figure it, i then took it back too them. This was August 4. In the mean time i had secured another laptop from a female friend who had bought one for work and turns out did not need it. On August 17th i called to see what was going on and was told that they needed to replace the keyboard. OK, a phone call would have been nice but sure...how much longer? 10 days or so. Cool.

Well, 10 days turned into 30. So I called again and was not in the most pleasant mood about this stuff. When i was told they were still waiting for the parts but could not tell me when it would arrive, I simply stated, i need it replaced and nothing else would suffice. I think its only fair since thy had now had the thing almost 7 weeks.

They actually agreed after a couple more days. I then asked then to do 2 simple things before i cme to get it. Transfer all data etc they could from the old one to the new one and then wipe out the old hard drive from any personal info. Yes they said...they could do that.....for a fee.

I was stunned. This thing wa 3 months old when they got it, under an extended warranty, they had it for alost 2 months and they wanted to charge me?

Yeah that wasnt going to fly. So after another couple days of waiting for them to agree to no fees etc, they called and said i could come and get it...which i will be doing tomorrow. I will be asking to talk to the manager and go over the experience and ask him/her if they think that it is acceptable considering all factors. I know I certainly don't.

Long story short? Memory Express customer service completely and entirely sucks.

[JeanLucPicard]

Try to stay away from Dell. Their adapters are very unreliable and in the next year or two you'll have to get another adapter. And then the replacement adapter will fail in 6 months.

Do you have Costco membership? They have the best prices, warranty and concierge service.

Get an ASUS Laptop from them.

[DionTheDman]

I have bought a few computers from this place - https://www.bauersystems.com/price-list/

They're based out of Ontario and sell refurb and overstock items. I would suggest a previous generation flagship item. It will be the best quality money can buy, but at a fraction of the price since it's a couple of years old. They typically have light use. I would suggest a Lenovo X1 Carbon off this list. One of the highest qualify laptops money can buy. Bought one for my wife off this site four years ago and it's still going strong.