decent work laptop for £400?

[suicidal_monkey]

TLDR: Anyone seen any good (non-gaming) laptop deals around £400 recently?

I'd appreciate some help/suggestions with a bit of a budget laptop challenge...

My Dad is not very happy with his laptop: it can be very slow loading things up and generally slow doing things, plus the narrow screen viewing angles are a problem for him as he uses it to show drawings and designs to clients. He uses an old version of AutoCAD and is currently doing more with SketchUp - I don't think he'll do a huge amount of 3D rendering.

His current laptop is an HP G56 with 4Gb ram and a Pentium T4500 2.3GHz running Windows 7 off the stock HDD.

The main requirements
- under £400 spend if at all possible
- reasonable viewing angles for the screen
- reasonably portable, probably a 14", but this is flexible
- enough power to run AutoCAD/SketchUp

I am having trouble squeezing something good into the budget - in particular the cheaper laptops never seem to come with an SSD - it's not like the price difference is that big any more! I could try swap in an SSD but that won't help with the viewing angles. He *might* get hold of a desktop for the main work, in which case the laptop becomes mainly a touchups and presentation device and all this criteria goes out the window but I'd like to have options ready for when he asks .

[OldBloke]

TLDR: Anyone seen any good (non-gaming) laptop deals around £400 recently?

I'd appreciate some help/suggestions with a bit of a budget laptop challenge...

My Dad is not very happy with his laptop: it can be very slow loading things up and generally slow doing things, plus the narrow screen viewing angles are a problem for him as he uses it to show drawings and designs to clients. He uses an old version of AutoCAD and is currently doing more with SketchUp - I don't think he'll do a huge amount of 3D rendering.

His current laptop is an HP G56 with 4Gb ram and a Pentium T4500 2.3GHz running Windows 7 off the stock HDD.

The main requirements
- under £400 spend if at all possible
- reasonable viewing angles for the screen
- reasonably portable, probably a 14", but this is flexible
- enough power to run AutoCAD/SketchUp

I am having trouble squeezing something good into the budget - in particular the cheaper laptops never seem to come with an SSD - it's not like the price difference is that big any more! I could try swap in an SSD but that won't help with the viewing angles. He *might* get hold of a desktop for the main work, in which case the laptop becomes mainly a touchups and presentation device and all this criteria goes out the window but I'd like to have options ready for when he asks .

I was recently asked to find a laptop in the sub £400 price range. The challenge is finding a full HD screen (1920x1080) with a minimum I3 processor at that price point.

I found a special offer at Laptopsdirect (no longer available - sorry) which was a bargain because it was in white!

A quick look found this. Not read any reviews.

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/lenovo-z5070-core-i5-4210u-8gb-1tb-8gb-ssd-2gb-dvdrw-15.6-inch-full-hd-a1-59439455/version.asp

[TeaLeaf]

It probably would not help, but I recently picked up a chromebook that was well under that price point and with a 1080p screen.  My own chromebook was sourced from the US and was roughly £230 with a 1080p touchscreen, SSD and a 12 hour battery life.

If you need/want Windows, then I also just bought an Asus Zenbook UX305 with a 3 year warranty using John Lewis' price match for £499.   A little over your budget, but it is a mac-killer, has 1080p screen, an SSD and the Dual-core Intel Core M-5Y10.   That CPU is just under 10% slower than an Intel Core i5-2410M in performance terms, but the incredibly low TDP also means the case does not need a fan, so runs silent in operation.  Very highly recommended.  I've met two macbook owners since then, and both drooled! :roflmao:

[suicidal_monkey]

thanks for the suggestions chaps! I can see there are some decent options out there. The Zenbook in particular looks very slick, but sadly no longer available for 499 (back at 599) in my searches?

I have seen a few laptop deals with i5 (usually -5200U?) or 'M' cpus, but an ordinary HDD, for around £300-£400, so I could always suggest one of those with the option to upgrade to a SSD as their prices keep on falling. My experience with upgrading to SSD has been a little mixed, although both attempts eventually worked. Aside from people hating ACER, are there any other brands to avoid?

I guess keeping an eye out as the pre and post xmas sales fly by is the name of the game - I would really appreciate a PM if anyone spots a good deal as the notification email might get my attention faster