What Is Wrong With This Pc?

I am looking to purchase a new laptop. It is not required to do anything fancy. It will be primarily used with MS Office, to surf the net (but not download films/games) and to send/receive emails. I like the laptop at the link I provide below because of its HDD capacity. What am I missing on the spec that means I should avoid it because at £199 it seems to cheap to be good? The laptop is for sale online at Tesco and its spec is at: https://www.tesco.com/direct/hp-14-...-1tb-black-laptop/760-8535.prd?skuId=760-8535

 

I agree the spec does not list USB ports, but if the image is correct it has two on the left side and one on the right. Like, I say I do not want it to have many whizzes and bangs. I will not be playing games on it or downloading large files. At most I will create Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Word docs, surf the Net and send/receive emails. I might compare its speeds with my desktop PC and other laptop to seem if it is the same or not as good. I'm not sure how they can do it for £199. Most others I have been looking at and only by companies like Lenovo are £260+.

 

On the HP site, it shows 2 x USB 3.1 (which is great!) plus 1 x USB 2.0.

Actually, for that price, it has some pretty good specs with fast charge, 10.5 hours battery run time, 802.11n and Bluetooth, dual speakers, camera, HDMI and more.

Okay, it does not have the fastest processor around at 2.2GHz/2.5GHz, but for what you say you will be using this notebook for, that is plenty fast. It also comes with 64-bit W10 and that is good because being 64-bit, it will be able to take advantage of the full 4GB of RAM installed.

As far as the price, it seems the suggested retail price is £225 (without VAT) so I can only assume Tesco (the 3rd largest retailer - by profits - in the world!) bought a million of them at a big volume discount which they are passing along to their customers.

So is the price too good to be true? Well it does have a 1 year warranty (at least according to the HP site) so that is good. You might consider an extended warranty if one is offered.

BTW, I would avoid Lenovo. While they make good products, there is a long and repeating, fully documented history of Lenovo installing malware on their systems. I suspect and am afraid that, like Kaspersky, Lenovo's communist government overseers have their fingers too deep in their business.

 

Thanks for your advice Digerati. I don't know if you're UK-based but the 1-year warranty will include nothing more than they are required to provide by English law. I have yet to encounter a warranty that does. In my experience extended warranties are usually not worth much and again English law says that anything you buy must work for a reasonable period of time. The law does not prescribe that time but for a laptop it'll be longer than 1 year.

 

That HP site is in the UK and it clearly says,

I live in the US but I used to live in the UK (Mildenhall in East Anglia). And yes, the UK has decent consumer protection laws but pretty sure if the stipulated warranty states 1 year, that is all HP has to provide. And 1 year is pretty common, if not generous as I have seen warranties of just 90 days.

Now Tesco, by UK law, also has to provide a return policy. But I am pretty sure that is just 30 days, though it might be 90. But after that return date, any warranty repair is on HP.

I agree extended warranties are generally a waste of money - especially with consumer electronics items. I never get them. But for notebooks, extended warranties often are not a bad idea because extended warranties often cover damages from accidents and abuse too - like cracked hinges and screens, or spilled coffee. And this can be important (and expensive to repair) with "mobile" devices which are often subject to knocks and drops and other physical abuse. And to that, "inexpensive" mobile electronics are often less rugged and robust - more easily susceptible to damage than their more expensive counterparts. For that reason, purchasing an extended warranty may be worth looking into. Note extended warranties are typically provided by a 3rd party, not the manufacturer.

If this notebook will be sitting on a desk in your home its entire life, then it likely will not be bumped, dropped or kicked about. Only you know how it will be used. But then if it is to be stationary, I would get a PC instead of a notebook. But that's me.

 

I may consider an extended warranty. I shall have to get my reading glasses on and do some reading of small print. It will probably never leave my home but it will not always be used in the same room.

 

If the extended warranty is an extra 100 quid, I wouldn't do it. But if considerably less and provides comprehensive coverage, as well as at least a couple extra years, I would consider it. It could pay for itself if you ever do something like trip over the power cord and break the notebook's power/charger jack (a common repair job), or worse, yank the notebook to the hard floor.

 

As far as I can tell there is no extended warranty being offered. I have gone as far as checking out but without paying. May be they will offer one near the end of the one-year warranty.

 

Well, a year is still better than nothing. BTW, 1 year is the warranty time required by Microsoft of OEM suppliers to provide Windows tech support for computers with OEM/System Builder's licenses for Windows installed at the factory. Just something to keep in mind.

 

The standard legal UK 12 month period is normally perfectly adequate.
The up selling of extended warrantees is virtually always bad value....it does make the retailer a good profit on top of the actual product.
I use a similar HP product for casual holiday storage and surfing use and it is OK.
The only hiccup is it takes ages on start up...I have SSDs at home which obviously take only a few seconds to load......however on holiday it doesn't matter and that is the only time it is obvious.

 

That was interesting can someone please remove the duplicates.....it wouldn't load so I obviously pressed the 'Post Reply Button' too much!