LPT: Company grade laptops and pcs that ran properly on home windows 7 will nonetheless run first rate on home windows 10 and are filth low-cost now.
Previous elitebooks, thinkpads, Dell latitudes, all of them ought to nonetheless maintain up first rate. I used a Pavillion HPE as a low finish gaming machine and dare I say, it labored simply fantastic. If all you want is searching and apps and stuff, most laptops with 3+ ghz max clock (a 3.4 ghz cpu may be labelled as 2.5 however can really go as much as 3.4 so solely base off the max clock) and 4 gb+ of ram will get the job achieved, they usually’re straightforward to improve additional, as most have been designed for lengthy helpful life. And better of all, they’re at that age the place all of them head for the recycle, so when you have a recycler close by, you may get a few of them for affordable and even free. I bought my EliteBook, which I take advantage of day by day, for simply 5 {dollars}.
Once more, not heavy gaming machines, however they’ll deal with a good workload. Simply bear in mind to wipe the drive and cargo home windows 10 on it. Home windows 10 does not even want a key to work, so in concept if you happen to can dwell with the watermark, you possibly can have a full laptop for like 10 bucks.
Professional strat.
Reclaim these outdated laptops! Simply make sure that they work first, and are X64 or 64 bit. Hope I can avoid wasting people some cash! Inform me if this helps you.
EDIT: utilizing a particular ISO writing device named Rufus and a home windows 11 iso, you possibly can bypass all the necessities for home windows 11 set up, which means you may also improve them to 11
Oh and bear in mind to alter out the thermal paste. That may barely enhance efficiency, and it will not run as sizzling. Tubes of corsair paste are solely 8 bucks at Walmart, and on the older laptops altering the paste is simple
Additionally improve the ram to eight gb please. 4 gb is like low goal minimal for get that factor
Additionally sure, you possibly can set up Linux on them, however the grand majority does not need Linu, and subsequently this information is predicated on home windows. If you’d like Linux this can be a good information to get you a laptop computer after which you possibly can choose your favourite model.
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Where does one buy these laptops?
They’ll run even better with Ubuntu or Linux Mint!
Yeah, just any app that’s come out in the last 5-10 years won’t work! All the good ones are browser based anyway!
If you’re that fixated on saving money, why not just install Linux? (Yes, I know there are real answers for this. At most one applies to you.)
Since they’re corporate grade, they ought to be easy to open up and fix yourself. (All it takes is screws instead of glue.) Even if it’s not a Dell, the Dell repair manual (available online) works well enough. That means that you can change the parts. (You normally don’t do this because the retail price of a computer is way less than the retail price of the parts. But if you’re scavenging, it’s all cheap/free.)
> EDIT: using a special ISO writing tool named Rufus and a windows 11 iso, you can bypass all the requirements for windows 11 install, meaning you can also upgrade them to 11.
That’s not even really that necessary. You can buy refurbed Lenovo ThinkPads with 8th gen i5 Intel processors that fully support Win11 for under $200. And these machines are way capable of school and work tasks.
My business laptop I purchase in 2014 is still usable for personal use.
Now where can I get windows 10? Steam about to drop support for my win7 laptop.
Lol corporate grade. Sounds like military grade. Just means lowest bidder.
I put tiny11 on a laptop I had bought a few years ago before I understood processesors and stuff, thing was slow af out of the box with windows 10. It’s got like a 1.5ghz and 4gb of ram.
Tiny 11 on it is WAYYYYY better. Hardly uses any ram or cpu.
Look into tiny 11, it’s just a barebones version of windows 11. Works great on low ghz cpus and low ram.
Note that any laptop with a hard drive rather than a solid state drive will run very slowly. This is cheap and, usually, easy to sort but if you want something that works without any faff then don’t get a HDD.
Bad LPT. Windows 7 laptop would barely hold up. Why spend $150 today for a laptop that will last 2 years tops, when you can spend $450 to get one that will last you maybe 10
If there are some auctions in your area, go there and look for some used laptops. You will be also be competing with resellers. Most of them buy from auctions and sell it on Facebook or Craigslist.
Got some old laptops on an online auction 3 years ago and still using them:
Two dell Core 2 duo laptop for $15 4GB RAM – one is running opensuse tumbleweed and the other is running windows 11 pro (only for doing lightweight tasks). Upgraded to ssd and they work very well.
One lenovo i5 laptop with 8GB RAM for $25 – ssd with windows 11 pro, my daughter is using it for her school
Three i5 desktop dell SFF small form factor for $15 each – my main pc for my freelance and office work, upgraded to 16GB RAM with 1TB SSD. I sold the other one for $50. Other one is on my garage.
Some things i bought are in my garage: Four core 2 duo desktops for $5 each, an intel i7 laptop for $20 with busted screen (it sucks, i didn’t check before bidding), imac for $15, plus lots of other things.
My wife doesn’t allow me to join any auctions anymore because she thinks I’m hoarding..
4gb of RAM is a squeeze. I wouldn’t recommend going to all the trouble of setting up a new-to-you computer in 2023 without first upgrading it to at least 8gb of RAM. Not when a stick of 16gb of laptop RAM can be had for $32.
Also, if you can add more RAM, that will be a huge benefit. RAM for older computers is really cheap. I’ve seen people giving it away for free.
And if the laptop doesn’t have a SSD, I would buy one since it will improve the performance quite a lot too.
Yeah sometimes, I just bought a Dell latitude 32 ram, 4.8ghz. $400, sent it back next day, was having a world of trouble just with browser and a launcher open. Might have got a lemon
There is literally no reason to try to buy a machine today without 8gb+ of ram. 4gb is not ideal and noticeably worse than 8 which is still cheaply obtainable.
Want a laptop, but the environmentalist in me doesn’t agree with buying a laptop for the few situations my desktop can’t be used, so this tip seems great.
Are those the series names that we should predominantly look into? (elitebooks, thinkpads, Dell latitudes)
Microsoft has artificially added a TMP requirement to Windows 11, which technically is not required, but they made it mandatory anyways.
Install Linux.
I need the easy version of what OP said
Just make sure you windows 7 software works under 10.
Use Atlas OS to make windows 10 run like a cheetah
Then again you can have a perfectly useable laptop that is even older if you pick the right Linux distro.
Used Panasonic Toughbooks out of police cars and fire trucks, etc, that are refurbished are the bomb. Extremely reliable and rugged,and only a few hundred bucks. I’m tired of laptops breaking when they take a few whacks.
A lot of those fly on Chrome OS Flex (the free version) if you can live with the awkward keyboard: https://chromeenterprise.google/os/chromeosflex/
Perfect for “just browsing and emails” family members, less tech support effort for yourself.