Good performance laptop for decent money

[techmot]

I am wanting to buy a new laptop as my current Toshiba satellite is getting worn, not helped recently when I managed to damage the side where the power cable connects in, plus I accidentally stepped on the screen a few months back but luckily it's in working order. I've noticed on the sites I've been on that the spec my laptop is they seem to be alot more expensive now. My laptop has 8GB ram, an AMD A8 processor, a 1TB HDD and a DVD writer, good enough for what I used it for even with video editing, and I only paid about £240 for it. Now looking at anything close to those specs you're talking at least £300 and none that I've seen on the site I bought mine from (which was Argos in the UK) have a 1TB internal HDD, and the 8GB ram machines seem to upwards of 400 quid. I must've bagged a real bargain when I bought it, which was about 2015.

[usually_quiet]

If you want a good recommendation, you should describe the kinds of things do you plan to use the laptop for. For example, reading and writing emails, surfing the Internet, watching streaming videos, and light video encoding won't require as much processing power, memory, or storage as sophisticated video editing or re-encoding 4K H.265 or AV1 video. Few if any new laptops have an optical disc drive built-in. You should plan on getting a USB drive if you need an ODD. Also, fewer laptops have an HDD now. More of them have an SSD of some kind, often an M.2 SSD.

[techmot]

If you want a good recommendation, you should describe the kinds of things do you plan to use the laptop for. For example, reading and writing emails, surfing the Internet, watching streaming videos, and light video encoding won't require as much processing power, memory, or storage as sophisticated video editing or re-encoding 4K H.265 or AV1 video. Few if any new laptops have an optical disc drive built-in. You should plan on getting a USB drive if you need an ODD. Also, fewer laptops have an HDD now. More of them have an SSD of some kind, often an M.2 SSD.

My main intention is for video editing and capturing, not so much HD but SD files. But as I said the spec of laptop I have currency seem to be alot more expensive now for some reason, anything more than 8GB ram are around the £300 mark, yet I paid less than that for my Windows 8 Toshiba with 1TB HDD and 8GB ram. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place but I've tried different places like PC World, Amazon, ebay etc. Bought my kids notebooks last year from John Lewis which seemed a bargain at £180, yet all they sell now are standard laptops and they seem very expensive. Notebooks don't seem to be popular for some reason.

[usually_quiet]

Most laptops are assembled in China. Due to Covid-19, production hasn't quite kept up with the demand, resulting in higher prices and fewer relatively inexpensive new and older models on store shelves because fewer customers can afford the higher prices asked for something with better specs.

I may not be the best person to advise you about what good inexpensive laptop to buy. I didn't get an inexpensive model in December of last year to replace my 2012 HP Pavilion G6 with an A6-4400M AP 8GB RAM and a 1TB HDD. I can only tell you about what I bought.

I got a midrange HP laptop that cost about $620 with tax and shipping. The specs were similar to this one: https://www.amazon.com/HP-i5-1135G7-i7-1060G7-Fingerprint-Accessories/dp/B08VNKMZMN/ Upgrading to a 1TB M.2 SSD would have cost about $180 so I got an external 1 TB SSD for storage. My new laptop is lighter than my old laptop, faster, much cooler, and almost silent. It is great for browsing the Internet, watching videos and light video encoding. My only complaint is that the keyboard design is flawed. The down arrow key under the right-hand shift key fell off within a few months.