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Help needed choosing a laptop & office package please

Lotus

I need to buy a new laptop and I don't want to pay a lot for it. I only use one for browsing the internet, making online purchases, using Excel and occasionally watching YouTube or an online TV service like ITVX or Prime video. I don't need much storage as I only save a small amount of documents on it - I don't download music, videos, etc. and I don't use it for gaming either.

There are cheap laptops on the Argos website - some have Windows 11 and others use Google Chrome. The googling I've done suggests one with Windows 11 would be better if I want to install a Microsoft office package which includes Excel - is that correct?

I think that 4gb RAM and 64gb of storage would be enough for my needs?

Also, can anyone advise about buying an office package that includes Excel with a lifetime licence, as I don't want a subscription. How much is this likely to cost and where is best to purchase it?

  • You are correct that a Windows 11 laptop is required to run Microsoft office but 4GB RAM and 64GB storage won't get you very far at all with a Windows 11 machine. Those are Chromebook specs. I have a 5 year old 8GB personal laptop which is starting to struggle a bit now if it needs to to do more than one or two things at a time, the base level of RAM now seems to be 16GB. It may be more than meets your needs at the moment if you'll mostly be web browsing without multiple tabs open but if you want to keep the laptop for more than a year or two then it's worth getting that bit more RAM to keep things running efficiently if you can afford to. Storage I think absolute minimum 128GB (which I don't think is actually widely offered anymore) but 256GB will be good. Windows 11 itself will take up a fair chunk which will increase as more updates are applied, then also Microsoft Office as well. I have a new work laptop as we are finally upgrading to Windows 11 and my old one couldn't run it (no prizes for guessing which organisation I work for) it has no documents saved onto it, just system files and programs and it has already taken 70GB. The Windows folder alone is over 36.5GB. It has 16GB RAM and is running far more quickly and quietly than the old laptop ever did. 

    As for Microsoft office you can still buy it as a one off without subscribing to 365, Microsoft charge £120 but there might be some discounts around at the moment with students preparing to go off to university in the next few weeks

    To summarise I think you should be looking for a Windows 11 laptop, minimum 8GB, preferably 16GB with 256GB storage

  • Lotus said:
    can anyone advise about buying an office package that includes Excel with a lifetime licence,

    have a look on Groupon or Pricerunner websites for Office licenses - i paid 11 pounbds for 2 lifetimne licenses for office 2024 pro.

    Microsoft direct wanted to makeme pay 110 pounds for the same thing but that was for a 1 year license subscription.

    The companies use a volume licensing scheme and issue you a key for a license withing their "tenant" so there is a chance it may stop working at some point, but for about a fiver it is worh it and you just need to buy another license key when you need to.

    I've had some of these working for over 8 years already so they are not all dodgey.

    Lotus said:
    I think that 4gb RAM and 64gb of storage would be enough for my needs?

    I would suggest a bare minimum of 8Gb or RAM and 256Gb of storage, ideally 16Gb of RAM as Windows 11 is a bloated beast of an operating system and web browsers will use up memory surprisingly fast.

  • Hi. I don’t know much about the packages but I do recommend you go with windows as opposed to Google chrome. I’m not up on all the models but I have an hp convertible so you can use as a tablet device as well if you want. I got mine back in 2022 but I can’t remember the price. Sorry I’m not much help