Looking for a cheap laptop to watch videos on, battery life irrelevant

1) What is your budget?

The minimum amount subject to my requirements.

2) What size notebook would you prefer?

Either of the following are fine:

c. Thin and Light; 13" - 14" screen
d. Mainstream; 15" - 16" screen

3) Where will you buying this notebook? You can select the flag of your country as an indicator.

Australia

4) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?

No.

5) Would you consider laptops that are refurbished/redistributed?

Sure.

6) What are the primary tasks will you be performing with this notebook?

Email, document creation, watching online lectures, YouTube, browsing the world wide web, viewing pdf files.

It needs to be able to do these tasks with little to no sluggishness or noticeable slowness. Viewing pdf files should be pretty fast and painless.

7) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places, leaving it on your desk or both?

Both.

8) Will you be playing games on your notebook? If so, please state which games or types of games?

Wish I had time for games - but the answer is 'no'

9) How many hours of battery life do you need?

0 hours

10) Would you prefer to see the notebooks you're considering before purchasing it or buying a notebook on-line without seeing it is OK?

Buying on-line is okay

11) What OS do you prefer? Windows (Windows 7 / 8), Mac OS, Linux, Chrome OS, etc.

Linux. (I like to have both Windows and Linux installed on the one machine, but I can make do with Linux alone.)

Screen Specifics

12) From the choices below, what screen resolution(s) would you prefer?

Standard or Midrange is fine.

13) Do you want a glossy/reflective screen or a matte/non-glossy screen? (Scroll down to see explanations.)

Matte/non-glossy is preferred, but I'm not fussed either way. Whatever is cheaper really.

Build Quality and Design

14) Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you?

No, my smooth words and gentle appearance are style enough...

15) When are you buying this laptop?

In the next few weeks, before my wife divorces me for being overly stingy

16) How long do you want this laptop to last?

Longer than my last marriage, 3-4 years at least

Notebook Components

17) How much hard drive space do you need? Do you want a SSD drive?

At least 100GB SSD, for all the notepad files in which my ex-wife explains my various flaws

18) Do you need an optical drive? If yes, a DVD Burner, Blu-ray Reader or Blu-Ray Burner?

No thank you, DVD burner temperatures can get quite high, and as for blue-ray, isn't that used by the Empire to destroy entire planets? I don't think wifey would really approve

 

You've been a bit stingy with the details, so you may wish to consider the FAQ stuck at the top of this forum and post back. That would help us sharpen your focus. Good luck and welcome to NBR.

 

Thanks, I've edited with further information and/or some quality humor

 

Anyone who wants to pay more than required please raise their hand?


I don't know the Australian market well, but how about the ThinkPad T470? It's a well built business class notebook and seems to check a lot of your boxes. The T470 looked to be less expensive than similar HP or Dell offerings I could find in Australia. ThinkPads typically do Linux well too.

 

There's no humor in it. Without a budget, we can't give a proper recommendation. Obviously everyone wants to pay the least amount they can, it's not like we are personally trying to sell something and rip you off.

 

I respectfully disagree. I have specific requirements, and wish to purchase something of minimum cost that satisfies these requirements. This is a well-posed problem with a unique solution, and it is incorrect to say that a proper recommendation. Indeed, I can even prove it a mathematically. The theorem of interest is: "Given a non-empty finite set X and a function f : X --> R, there exists x in X such that for all y in X, we have that f(x) is less than or equal to f(y)." Here R is the real line. One can prove this by induction on the cardinality of X, for example.

 

I'm quite not sure what all of that theoretical mumbo-jumbo is about, but I would look for something with the specs you want in a nice second-hand product if minimum cost is an important factor. Or, a display model or open-box return from a local electronics store like Microcenter, Fry's or Best Buy, Dell Outlet, etc. It is not clear what level of CPU or graphics performance you need, or display resolution you are looking for. Standard resolution might be the horrible 1366x768 or 1600x900 display junk and mid-range might mean 1920x1080, depending on who you ask. If all you really care about is web/email/YouTube and simple word processing capabilities, systems with 13" to 16" screens and a minimum of 100GB HDD gives you lots of low cost options from around $200 and up.