Holiday Season 2015 – UK Laptop Top 10 Christmas Wishlist

Around this time of year, I often get asked which laptops I recommend people buy for their kids (or themselves!)

After some extensive research, here is my top 10! The criteria here was must have a DVD drive, not for gaming, fairly quick and look nice.

Screen CPU RAM Disk Price Link
15 i3 4g 1.9 4 500gb 360 http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/hewlett_packard_450_g2_i3-4030u_j4s48ea/version.asp
15 i5 4g 1.7 4 750gb 387 http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/hewlett_packard_hp_450_g2_core_i5-4210u_450_windows_8.1_professional_downgr_j4s78ea/version.asp
15 i5 5g 2.2 4 1tb 430 http://www.ebuyer.com/721895-asus-x555la-laptop-x555la-xx842t
15 i7 5g 2.3 4 500gb 480 http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/acer_aspire_e5-571_15.6_led_black_imr_intel_core_i7-5500u_4gb_500gb_hdd_dv_nx.ml8ek.079/version.asp
15 i5 5g 2.2 8 500gb 355 http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/hewlett-packard-hp-350-core-i5-5200u-2.2ghz-8gb-500gb-15.6-dvd-sm-win-7-pr-k9j04ea/version.asp
17 i5 4g 1.7 8 1tb hybrid 460 http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/lenovo-g70-70-i5-4210u-8gb-1tb-8gb-uma-shared-camera-dvdrw-17.3-inch-textu-80hw005wuk/version.asp
15 i5 5g 2.2 8 2tb 430 http://www.ebuyer.com/722351-acer-aspire-e5-571-laptop-nx-ml8ek-067
15 i3 5g 2.0 8 1tb 350 http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/lenovo-g50-15-6-laptop-silver-10137557-pdt.html
15 i3 5g 2.1 8 1tb 380 http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-15-ab269sa-15-6-laptop-white-10137876-pdt.html
15 i5 5g 2.2 8 1tb 399 http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/acer-aspire-f5-571-15-6-laptop-black-10137492-pdt.html

I would personally go for one of the last 3 – the last (acer) is the best performing one. They will all have the free upgrade to Windows 10 – so don’t base a decision on this, it really is which one you like the look of best.

Whichever one you go for; I would highly recommend replacing the hard drive with a solid state drive. This will make them so, so much quicker. You will need to take this to a “computer person” in order for them to install, unless you are comfortable about reinstalling Windows yourself.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-2-5-Inch-Solid-State-Drive/dp/B00P73B1E4/

and buying an external drive holder for the drive that comes out of the laptop. (So it can be used to back data up).
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anker%C2%AE-Drive-External-Enclosure-9-5mm/dp/B00KCEY3WU/

You may also want to buy a year of Office 365 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc). This is a yearly cost, but includes Office for up to 5 computers.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Office-Licence-Users-subscription/dp/B00A2ILUZO/

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