I would never buy another hp product. Had too many problems across different arms of their business (laptops, printers, etc.)
I spent about 10 years working in IT and HP won the worst laptop in the world every year. They used to be designed to fail in about 1 to 2 years, depending on the warranty. That was about 10 years ago, but they were such shit back then that I will never buy a HP anything.
Lenovo and Asus used to be rock solid, probably still are.
Same. HP could stand for “heaping pile.”
It’s… Not great. It’s on par with other $300 laptops, which isn’t saying much. 8Gb of RAM in current year isn’t really enough anymore, and the screen is basically the cheapest possible. You’re looking for a laptop with a screen resolution near 1920x1080, and ideally 16 Gb of RAM.
It’s gotten very hard to recommend laptops based on the brand name, since pretty much every brand has started pumping out crappy laptops to capitalize on the brand.
Like others said, try looking at business laptops, either surplus or liquidation sales. They’re not great either but at least you’re ideally not getting fleeced.
If you’re feeling adventurous (and I’m mincing my words, this won’t be a breeze if you don’t know much but you’ll learn a ton), the best bang for buck you can get in a portable format is a Steam Deck with USB hub + mouse and keyboard (could be travel size if you want). Can be had for less than $500, if you have the budget portable screens also exist, and for that price it beats any modern laptop under $1000. I understand that it’s not exactly for everyone though.
I will not answer the “good deal” aspect of your question, as I have no idea of the laptop market on your side of the Atlantic. But what I can say is that I steer away from HP in general nowadays:
- The good HP laptops are great. But they suffer a little from the Adidas syndrome, making them pricey just because of the brand name. The HP pavilion from 15-20 years ago was amazing. Good hardware, good build quality, incredible audio. I owned 3 or 4 of them. The only laptop with which I’ve been more satisfied is my current non-HP daily driver.
- …but their cheaper line has always been awful in every respect.
- Their business oriented laptops are pretty good, but Dell is just as good if not better.
What’s wrong with the old one?
A little bit slow and takes forever to download hospital programs and stuff. Been thinking about it for years and saw the HP Essential and thought it my work. I don’t play games I just watch tv and movies.
might want to consider a reinstall of the OS first, or some linux if you are up to it.
A new laptop, even the best in the world, won’t make your downloads any faster.
I also back what everyone else is saying. Unless of course you can update your current laptop. What have you got? An extra stick of ram and an SSD can make an old laptop feel brand new, especially with an OS reinstall
