The cheapest laptops what to look for, where to look including new, second user and refurb laptops.

If someone mentions the cheapest laptops what do you immediately think?

Stolen? Ultra slow? Low specification? Poor build quality?

Of course if you expect to spend $30 you will end up with something worse than above.

But how about new, second user or refurb laptops which can actually run faster than many more expensive machines.

If you look around you’ll see new laptops with prices starting at around $200 and going into thousands.

Who’s going to win?
Newest may not always be fastest

Laptops processor

The processor is the brain of any computer, different processors run at different speeds, generally the faster the better, newer processors usually called dual core in effect have two processors built into the same chip, this does make the processor faster as each core can separately deal with tasks, but if your only using email, internet and general applications this does not really require a dual core processor.

There are two main processor manufacturers around Intel and AMD, I have found AMD to be a little cheaper than Intel, but still offering comparative performance.
Operating System

Newer operating systems such as Windows 7 and Vista really do need a laptop with a dual core processor to get the most from them as they are both pretty resource intensive pieces of software.

Windows XP on the other hand will run very happily on some of the oldest cheapest laptops , and if you think Windows XP is now too old think again, many individuals and large companies still use this as a company standard, including the company I work for that globally employs around 100,000 people.

The main problem with Windows XP is newer hardware may not be totally compatible, but in this case we have other options such as using UBUNTU which is a totally free UNIX based operating system, this has the same roots as Apple’s operating system and is very similar to Windows, it’s also very fast even on older computers.

Laptop Make

If we take two computers, identical hardware specs and yet one cost 50% more than the other, what can cause this?

It’s simply the make, certain makes carry a premium due to the name, think they are better built or have different components?

Think again, many even the cheapest laptops share the same components; it’s pretty rare to find a laptop manufacturer that manufacturers their own hardware components.

Makes such as Acer, HP, Compaq, and Toshiba offer great value for money.

What can you get for your money?

One thing that amazes me is how one company or shop can advertise a laptop much cheaper than another; shops such as Amazon have lot of suppliers so it’s easy to compare prices and find the cheapest laptops this way.

A good way to save is to look for refurb laptops , this is generally laptops that have been sold and returned after a few days, the laptops are checked for faults, scratches etc, and are as good as new in every sense, but cannot be sold as new, you still get the same warranty with refurb laptops as new machines, but at a reduced price.

Pretty much all computer shops get this type of return and usually have a complete range of refurb laptops, you just need to check the website carefully to find them, usually under a separate refurb laptops section

After checking around you’ll see that refurb laptops makes cost effective sense.

Generally for about $250 you will get a new low spec Netbook, a Netbook is small very low spec laptop that’s got good battery life, but usually they have low amounts of RAM, no CD/DVD drive, although you can buy an external USB type, which of course is another cost.

If you’re prepared to spend $300-$400 you should be able to get a very nice refurb laptop.

If you want to save even more around $150 to $200 will get you a decent second user computer running Windows XP from sites such as eBay, just make sure you read our guide on this beforehand.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a laptop for general use if you find one with Windows XP a single core processor such as an AMD Turion, AMD Athlon or Intel’s Centrino, or Pentium M will be fine (best to not go for Celeron though, as the processors cache is very small)

If going for Windows 7 or Vista going for a single core processor can make it painfully slow, so ideally an AMD Athlon 64×2, AMD Turion 64×2, or Intel’s Core Duo, Core 2 Duo will do the job.

I’ve noticed very little difference on the whole between newer laptops running Windows Vista or 7, compared to some of the oldest cheapest laptops running XP or UBUNTU, which in many cases seem to actually run faster simply due to the operating system.

It’s not surprising when we look at the recommended disk space of each operating system.

• Windows 7 – 16gb
• Windows Vista 15gb
• Windows XP – 1.5gb
• UBUNTU – 5gb

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