discussion Want to Buy Looking for laptop $500 range

[Nodscene]

Looking for a friend who basically has no budget and anything new in that range is severely lacking in the cpu and hd department. I'm hoping someone has an older i5 with an SSD (or even nvme) that they are willing to part with. Onboard graphics are fine, Win 10 pro and 8gb of ram is preferable. As for size she'd like a 17" but I know those are rare so a 15" is the second best option.

It's a shame I'm not buying a new one as I have an older MSI gaming series with an i5, nvme, 1tb HD and 8gb of ram with a 17" screen but it's still doing everything I need and I don't have the budget for a new one.

As I mentioned the budget is $500 and thats close to max since it will probably need to be shipped unless you are in the Ottawa area. I know I have posted on HWC for a few years now but I'm doing this for a friend who's also a struggling farmer as a lot of small farms are these days.

Please let me know what you have or if there is something new out there that I missed because I'm not finding anything even decent in that price range.

Thanks much

 

[FreeKnight]

Can they get by with a chrome book? They'll get a lot more out of a $500 for a CB than a full fledged laptop. No 17" at $500 is going to be any good. At that price range, their only options will be a refurb or a couple bottom end models.

There's an asus vivobook at memex with Windows 10, but I know nearly nothing about the performance of the A9

Asus VivoBook 15 X540BA-RB94 w/ AMD A9-9425, 8GB, 1TB, 15.6in HD, Radeon R5, Windows 10 Home - Laptops / Notebooks - Memory Express Inc.

www.memoryexpress.com

 

[sswilson]

Yeah... the 17" is going to be the fly in the ointment. Lots of 15" business class refurbs that a person could just slap an SSD into, but I suspect finding a 17" one will be problematic.

edit:

There's an asus vivobook at memex with Windows 10, but I know nearly nothing about the performance of the A9

Asus VivoBook 15 X540BA-RB94 w/ AMD A9-9425, 8GB, 1TB, 15.6in HD, Radeon R5, Windows 10 Home - Laptops / Notebooks - Memory Express Inc.

www.memoryexpress.com

Dual core previous gen entry level AMD notebook processor????? Hell NO!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Nodscene]

Thanks for everyone's reply. I think. Chromebook may be out of the question. While she doesn't do much with it I know she uses Books (online accounting) and QuickTime or whatever their app is called now to listen to and buy music.

I realize 17" is unrealistic but thought I'd throw it out there just in case.

I have an old HP 17" laptop but not sure if it's working and if it will be better than what she is using. It does have 2 hard drive slots so at least I can fit 2 drives but don't think it supports sata so there goes the SSD option which I think will be critical.

I've gotten a couple messages so will reply to those but not sure they will work (on is 14" which is to small).

She isn't tech savvy at all so while I'm avoiding anything new as there won't be anything in her price range. Even an older with an i5, and space for 2 hard drives (one being SSD) would be ideal. Just not sure when it became more popular for 15" laptops to have space for 2 drives.

Nvme would be great but there is no way I could fit that in the price range.

I'm hoping maybe some of you who have a bunch of stuff laying around (like I used to have) may have something that would work or could work if an SSD was added to it.

Thanks

Edit: just wants to add that she needs the num pad which is non-negotiable