Powerful (enough) laptop circa $500?

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  scrimshaw on 28/04/2015 - 01:59

  +8

  You're looking at possibly a used business machine, or a refurbed device from the Dell Outlet.

  $500 will get you a Core i5 Haswell-era machine, although it is unlikely that a $500 device will be specced with 8GB of RAM. You can also forget about accurate color reproduction… a budget machine probably won't cover more than 50% AdobeRGB color space.

  Dell Outlet is here
  http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/product…

  There are a number of sub $500 Latitude 14 5000 Series laptops, with i5-4210U and 4GB of Single DIMM RAM. Storage is just 500GB (5200RPM drive).

  Decent enough for photoshop? probably. The storage could be better with SSD and the RAM needs an upgrade, but these parts are user replaceable.

  refurbed Dell machines are usually in limited quantity— sold on a first come first serve basis.

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  FirstNameLastName on 28/04/2015 - 07:55

  scrimshaw tells it like it is.

  there are also a heap of 'recommend a laptop for under $500' threads over at whirlpool forums if you want to read more.

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  subywagon on 28/04/2015 - 09:41

  So perhaps I should up my budget to around $700 for something decent? I should have stated that color accuracy isn't an issue, as everything I do these days is web based and rarely print.

  • 

    mrmarkau67 on 28/04/2015 - 11:29

    You can always spend more money to get something better. But you can do OK with $500.

    For example you can find Dell M4500s on eBay for $500. They are built like tanks (for better or worse), have plenty of room for SSDs and HDDs, FHD screen and great keyboard and trackpad.

    Buying something so old always has the no-warranty risk though.

    If you want the peace of mind of a warranty, go for one of the low end Dell Latitudes that Scrimshaw has mentioned, and you can upgrade to SSD and more RAM when you have some more cash.