this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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just need it for school so nothing fancy

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[โ€“] NENathaniel@lemmy.ca 39 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are you saying you want it to charge with USB C, or it just has to have a USB C port?

Almost every laptop released recently has a USB C port so if that's all it needs, you have tons of options

Many budget ones don't charge with USB C tho

[โ€“] jackpot@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

charge usb c

[โ€“] monsterpiece42@reddthat.com 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Any older Thinkpad that's about 5-7 years old on eBay. You can get units that were high end when they came out (normal speed now) for $200-300 all day.

I know specifically the P50's have a thunderbolt port and you can get them with an i7 for around $250.

[โ€“] original_ish_name@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

This guy computes

[โ€“] TurnItOff_OnAgain@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Would a chromebook work? What budget are you working with?

[โ€“] foggy@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Yeah if specs, VMs, etc aren't an issue you can get a banger of a Chromebook for like $150-$250

[โ€“] ObiGynKenobi@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago

Dell Refurbished often sells refurbished business laptops for absurdly cheap with discount codes. The CPU is a bit older (8th/9th gen), but still very serviceable.

Here's an 8th gen i5/16GB/256GB laptop with a touch screen for $320.

https://www.dellrefurbished.com/item/dell-latitude-5300-touch-63228e4a/dell-latitude-5300-touch/1.html?child=dell-latitude-5300-touch-000005&p=1

[โ€“] djmarcone@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

Right now the best cheap laptop I know of with usb c charging etc is the t480 and t580. A refurb or renew with an i5 and 16gb ram is around 300 or less all day long. They are cheap to buy, cheap to fix, modify, or replace and will run great now and for years to come.

With the internal and external batteries, they can have 2 at once, they can run all day easily and then some.

Get the 1080 screen tho.

For $500 or less they can be had with i7 and bigger ram for more powerful duties.

They just don't disappoint.

[โ€“] Dudwithacake@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can get a cheap converter to USB C. If used doesn't bother you, you could get something cheap on govdeals.

[โ€“] jackpot@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

usb c for charging

[โ€“] vlad76@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

HP 840 G3 and G4. They're pretty cheap refurbished on amazon and they're very durable laptops. We used them for all of the remote workers during covid. And they have one USB-C port

[โ€“] agent_flounder@lemmy.one 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good call.

FWIW, We've been using HP EliteBooks for several years now. (Maybe 840s at one point).

Never had any issues with mine and performance has been decent. Can't think of my coworkers ever complaining either.

I think that's what I would get for a cheap laptop. I found out an apple MacBook charger (USB C) can power one of these. Kind of a nice fallback.

[โ€“] Damage@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 year ago

I don't know about other product lines, but we are issued HP Zbooks at work, their crappy performance and quality made sure to stop me from ever buying an HP computer for myself

[โ€“] people_are_cute@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Would you really suggest HP in general? Way too many horror stories about its scummy tactics around on many platforms.

[โ€“] dandroid@dandroid.app 3 points 1 year ago

There are going to be horror stories for any brand. I personally have had nothing but bad experiences with Dell computers. But if there's one that checks all your boxes, has great reviews, and meets your price point, I say go for it.

That said, I do feel like I hear the worst and most frequent stories about HP.

[โ€“] vlad76@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 year ago

I can't speak for the whole company, but their older business laptops have been good in my experience. I've worked for an airline, and a logistics company, and in both they had HP contracts. I know that Dell laptops felt more brittle, I saw more of them come back brokwn. Also getting them refurbished doesn't give them money, if you don't want to do that.

[โ€“] jackpot@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

is that a charging port

[โ€“] vlad76@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 year ago

It's has a normal charging port that take the small blue HP charger, and it's USBc port can also be used for charging. I recommend double checking the specs of whatever you're buying just to make sure I'm not imagining it.

[โ€“] riley0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 year ago

The last laptop I bought is a Dell Inspiron from 2013. I got it at a ReStore (Habitat for Humanity) thrift shop for $125 ~2 yrs ago. i5 processor; built like a tank. Had to replace wifi chip b/c original was very slow. Got that on ebay for $25 (pkg of 5, but that's the only way they came). When W10 goes away, I'll make it a chromebook, if I haven't first figured out how to install Linux on it. If I need a usb c port, I'll find an adapter, as that would put less strain on my budget.

[โ€“] Anomalocarididae@pawb.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Get yourself an old ThinkPad if you don't care about speed.

[โ€“] Anomalocarididae@pawb.social 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Older, used computers will be slow, but if you know how to give em a good refresh, you can get em running well.

[โ€“] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Translation: install Linux

[โ€“] agent_flounder@lemmy.one 6 points 1 year ago

Linux, SSD, 16G. Good to go.

With mitigations=off if you're feeling brave for a bit of extra speed boost

[โ€“] trimmerfrost@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[โ€“] Anomalocarididae@pawb.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That was my intent, yeah. But not everyone has the knowledge on how to install Linux and may be intimidated by its reputation of not being user friendly - not everyone knows how user friendly it can be.

[โ€“] ObiGynKenobi@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You don't have to buy a computer so old that it requires a lightweight Linux distro. You can find quad-core i5s with 16GB of RAM for around $300. That will run Windows 11 just fine.

[โ€“] Anomalocarididae@pawb.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can get a computer that good for that cheap nowadays? I must look in the wrong places for em...

[โ€“] ObiGynKenobi@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Keep an eye out for Dell Refurbished to run one of their 50% off deals. Recently they had 9th-gen i5s with those specs in that price range, and they're refurbished business laptops so generally higher build quality than consumer hardware.

[โ€“] aperson@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

I'm partial to the surfaces.

[โ€“] Defenceplox@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I currently use a refurbished dell Latitude 7390. You can find them relatively cheap.

cheapest in mrwhosetheboss video

[โ€“] LazaroFilm@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago

Android tablet?