Dear Josh, I appreciate tha time and effort to deliver all these videos, but if you want to make more pleasant and enjoyable videos, don't be stressed thinking whether or not you will be "perfect", the audience will not grade you, you are not giving any exams in any institution, so relax and talk to your audience as if you are talking to friends in your room. Your anxiety is imprinted and is troubling unlike Linus, or other laptop reviewers who seem to be relaxed about what they are doing and are having a good time while they are doing it. Please also stop mentioning that you are making your mother proud, and stop mentioning to smash the like button so desperately. If people enjoy you, they will smash the like button. If you keep asking them to do so, they will not. Finally, when you are presenting charts, stay a bit longer on the charts explaining what we see, and not be in such a hurry. A lot of your charts appear for half a second and it gets even hard to pause at the right moment in order to inspect them. Slow down your pace and let people enjoy you. Even if your videos are longer people will enjoy if you are relaxed. If you are in such a constant pressure to say too many things quickly in limited time people get tired. I would also appreciate if you update your charts in this video with Intel 185H graphs. Check Lenovo yoga pro 9i for instance.

What is your definition of budget?

@@Chokani Should be regularly available new for under $600

Please don’t buy super old, horrible garbage laptops. These PCs are not viable now and they won’t be in the future.

The latitude isn't as bad as he makes it out to be. I had a thinkpad with an even lower powered CPU from that laptop that I daily drove until around 6 months ago. It was honestly great and could run everything I needed like an office suite, browser and even Minecraft perfectly fine. If you can get an old business laptop for a low price like £100 and you don't need anything too fast, it's genuinely a good option (although personally I wouldn't buy dell as I'm used to thinkpads)

@@fantasypvpI agree. Some of these weren’t too bad. Especially with a few upgrades.

A good first laptop for a kid (if gaming isn't an intention) is a $300-400 brand name (ie Dell, HP, Acer). My first laptop was one of these and I used it up till I bought my own laptop like 10 years later, it was perfectly serviceable

@@RouthornAlex07 they are viable, problem is windows doesn't do well on low end hardware, remove windows and you'll have a viable laptop

I love this idea. Let me see what we can do

​@@JustJoshTech The T480 (non-S) is the best model you can get for $200-250 that is going to still be relevant for many years. It's a reliable and upgradable workhorse with 4 cores, as most ThinkPads have 2 weak cores. T490 and later models just don't have the upgradability and repairability that it has. Same with T480s. You can also undervolt the processor by downgrading the BIOS version from 1.26. You should mention to avoid the following pitfalls: 1. Make sure that Computrace is not enabled. 2. Make sure that the screen is not the awful 1366x768 TN panel. If you have no choice, make sure to get a proper 1080p Innolux IGZO panel as soon as possible to replace this eyesore of a screen. 3. Check if the Thunderbolt firmware has been updated. Many ThinkPads have to have their Thunderbolt firmware updated to avoid breaking the USB-C and Thunderbolt port functionality (including charging the laptop). The Thunderbolt version should be higher than 20.0 on the T480. Don't skip out on this - you may be risking making your laptop unusable and in need of a repair, so it's best to avoid this.

@@JustJoshTech You wouldn't need to focus on that brand specificially, just generically windows pro big business machines such as probook & latitude would also be competitive I have found better deals on them because they weren't fetching the thinkpad premium. Before my framework I got the latitude 7490.

​@@JustJoshTechnow that's a real budget laptop guide. The t480s and p50 are built different

The latitude in this situation is probably fairly similar to a thinkpad of it's age, put an SSD in it and it should run windows 10 great

I got a 2017 ThinkPad for £170 with 16GB and a touchscreen XD (X1 yoga gen3)

yeah rating inflation. I'm not sure what Josh considers the average

I consider that 4.3 to 4.4 star is the average, and at least 4.6 star is good. Also ALWAYS read the 1-3 star review first before the 4-5 star one, because high star rating sometimes indicate a "fake review trap"

I guess he is talking mathematically, anything above 2.5 would technically be above average due to the definition but you could argue average as in average of all ratings which I would say would be much more harder to calculate

Yeah it sounds like a scam. We are going to call it to check

​@JustJoshTech I wouldn't be surprised if it was a tech support scam number from India or somewhere around there. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor. 😂

​@@cameronbosch1213*Indian scammers swearing in their language*

​@@JustJoshTech So any update?

Not all Mac users. Some of us run both platforms.

In this case at least one of the computers was used, so not what we usually talk about when it comes to e-waste.

I have no idea what current Mac users tend to think about Windows UX. Vista ran awfully on budget hardware, and Apple ran ad campaigns capitalising on that, but that was 17 years ago. For me, "awful Windows UX" means the bloatware that comes on OEM PCs, ads in the Start menu, badgering people about how great Edge and Office 365 are, and generally being so intrusive with notifications that it's hard to get work done. I have no idea how modern macOS treats its users-my last Mac was from 2010 and had its OS support dropped in 2018's Mojave release. And most of the above Windows problems can be avoided. But most Windows users don't know how, and just put up with them.

I've seen tons of mac users go from cheap, god awful windows laptops to quite expensive macs and trying to compare the experience

Sorry but thats just absurd to think. You cannot compare a $200 laptop to a $2000 laptop. Buy a Windows laptop at similar price point of Mac and then compare. Just because the Windows Laptop marketplace has options at which Mac doesn't even exist it does not mean such a irrational comparison is valid.

Basically, the ThinkPad T480 (non-S model) is like a Framework 13 for $250, but already assembled and ready to go and with same top-notch customer support. Make sure to either get the i5-8250U/8350U model if you're an average user, or the i7-8550U/8650U model if you're a programmer or you love ThinkPads, just like I and a lot of other people do.

Yeah and they are around 200 bucks. Beastly machines. These used to cost around 2000 dollars in 2007. Missed opportunity for Josh to review a Thinkpad

I'd say get the 490. The T480 is dual core, while the T490 is quad code. I made the mistake and bought the T490s for a little under $200. I regret it already since I can't upgrade the RAM. I didn't research the difference with the S model. Don't be like me.

​@@argeus3639the T480 could come with 7th or 8th-gen CPUs, some with 2 cores, others with 4 cores. e.g. my T480 has an i7-8650U, a 4-core part. The T490 had 8th and 10th-gen options, ranging from 4 to 6 cores. The T490 does have a couple of disadvantages. It only has one SO-DIMM slot, the rest of its RAM is soldered. The T480 (non S) was the last model to have 2 slots. Then again, RAM is pretty unlikely to fail, so 8-16 GB of soldered memory + one slot for upgrades is pretty good for most people. The T490 also just has an internal 50Wh battery. My T480 has an internal 24Wh battery and a hot-swappable 72Wh battery pack. I don't have any extra batteries so the hot-swap is pretty irrelevant, but the extra battery life is fantastic, in the same ballpark as the 13" M2 Macbook Air's 15+ hours of wifi web-browsing (I can't find other apples-to-apples comparisons). Obviously the M2 Air achieves that with just a 52.6 Wh battery. The battery also props the laptop up at a nice 5° typing angle, which probably improves airflow too. Though you could do the same with a paperback book or a couple of Lego bricks. Unfortunately the extra battery means it does weigh quite a bit (1.81 kg vs the 1.46 kg of the T490, or the 1.24 kg of the 13" M2 Macbook Air), and I do wish the screen was 4:3, or even the 16:10 of newer Thinkpads.

@@argeus3639the t480 is quad core. It’s the t470 that your thinking of

Totally agree with what you said about pricing!! Even $150 vs $200 is a big deal if you’re really on a budget

Thanks!

Right now I think the Ryzen version of the Zenbook 14 probably is a steal, especially if you can get one with 16 GB of RAM at under $600

I hold out some hope that the upcoming Acer Aspire Go refresh will have decent build quality, including screen, keyboard & trackpad, and overall durability. They may just have E-cores, but Intel's Alder Lake-N CPUs are adequate for a lot of people's computing needs (light office tasks, web browsing, skype/zoom meetings). $250 USD for a laptop with an N100, 8GB RAM and 1920×1200 14" screen certainly **sounds** like an attractive budget option, and hopefully Acer won't nickel-and-dime people for the upgrade to 16GB of (soldered) RAM. It'll be nice to have a go-to budget recommendation besides "secondhand Thinkpad".

@@wereoctopus Unfortunately a refurbished ThinkPad T480 is going to be a much more attractive option. Acer could easily add a RAM slot, making it upgradable to 32GB RAM with a single stick (or potentially 48GB with an NB-DIMM stick), but they deliberately soldered the RAM onto the motherboard. Unlike a refurbished T480, which can be obtained for the same $230-250 with an i5-8350U, that's going to be faster than the N100, can be upgraded to 64GB RAM easily, have better battery life (can be upgraded from 24Wh to 72Wh with a $30-40 battery), have a much better keyboard (it's a ThinkPad), be virtually indestructible (it's an old-style "thick" ThinkPad), all in the same 14" chassis. That's the laptop to buy if you don't want the big and heavy 15.6" laptops, as only those seem to have two RAM slots.

@@one_step_sideways I have a T480, you don't have to convince me ;) However, even if the Aspire Go has, say, a 50Wh battery vs my T480's 96Wh, it's not immediately clear which will get longer battery life. The N100 is a more efficient CPU¹. Soldered, un-upgradeable RAM is obviously a dealbreaker for many users, but it's also more energy efficient. The LCD is larger and brighter, but there might have been efficiency gains there too. Without the two side-by-side, running the same tasks (and at same screen brightness) I honestly couldn't say which would last longer. ¹The N100 has a 6W TDP, the i5-8250U is 15W. They have pretty comparable performance too, e.g. the N100 is slightly faster at single-core Geekbench 6, slightly slower at multi-core. My T480 and my N95-based mini-PC both run Debian and feel similarly responsive.

Be careful here. That was a thing with DDR4 Memory, where a single stick of memory was single channel. In the DDR5 space each stick of memory is already dual channel. So 2 sticks (1 soldered and 1 replaceable) gets you to quad channel. The difference in most applications of dual to quad is not as impactful as it was single to dual. So you need to ask... is it DDR4 or DDR5 first before being concerned about the impact. Hope that helps

Thank you

True.

Good comment. Thanks you Andrew

While true, Windows 11 has largely been disliked and has never made a significant market share of installed users vs Windows 10. Many people will run Windows 10 on their computers that came with Windows 11. I have both installed as multi-boot. I haven't used Windows 11 enough to have an opinion on it so far. Microsoft will likely have to come out with Windows 12 or something else to get Windows 10 users to leave it. I suspect they will extend the deadline because Windows 10 still dominates. Windows 10 is the most popular OS in use with computers today.

You can bypass the requirements. Unfortunately, you won't be getting any feature updates unless you join Windows Insider, and who knows what will happen down the line. This is exactly why I hate Microsoft now. Making people throw away perfectly good computers for no reason.

​@@classicarcadeamusementpark4242they did extend the windows 10 deadline, but there's a catch... Extended security updates only + it's a subscription

@@0w3nnI have windows 11 on an “unsupported” computer from 2008 and it runs fine and gets updates regularly.

Yeah, with all due respect to Josh, who is a great reviewer. Some of these laptops are still usable with the right upgrade (more RAM, and swap to SSD). I have an old laptop with Intel atom N4020 which is a horrible dual core atom processor. It became perfectly usable after I upgraded its hard drive to SSD. Perfect for basic work laptop, and can be used to stream KZfaq.

I've still got a thinkpad x61 which is somewhat usable lmao

I've got several old Dells and HP's which are pretty decent, however I need to finally switch to something newer. Which I do have.

They would not. They are way too slow even for them. I tested Fedora on the Asus $100 laptop video I have linked below.

That $250 starting price is for 8GB RAM, Acer haven't said how much the 16GB variant will cost.

@@wereoctopus being Ram is so cheap, thats not really an issue most should care about. And at the $250 price do you need more? You arent gaming or do anything other then a media machine and office.

From my experience of running a laptop with similar specs it should have no problem running windows 10 with an office suite if a cheap SSD was put in it

agree@@fantasypvp

Yes, I agree. We have put many of those on our website for laptops to consider that are older ones but still good in this price range

Hello. I always thought improved codes meant better performance. Why are we seeing the opposite?

@@fromabove422 Because developers have gotten lazy and rather than properly optimizing apps for the native platforms they ship heavy runtimes like Electron

Trade it for a thinkpad, they may not look shiny but they're honestly exceptional laptops

@@fantasypvp thinkpads are trash (the new ones) and fucking garbage value, and way too large bulky and heavy and have borderline no battery life, and are cheap plastic crap, the slim 7i is built like a tank with a solid aluminum chassis and actually is decent value, and meets my requirements, also next time you make a suggestion phrase it as a suggestion, dont tell me what to do Legitimately though though a thinkpad with worse specs would cost me more money and be a bulky piece of trash

I've only used the original Lenovo Chromebook Duet, but that seemed to run fine with 4GB RAM? Its MediaTek SoC (a Helio P60T) was probably the bigger limitation. But I was mainly using it for word processing, PDF viewing, and relatively light web browsing (in Firefox with an adblocker and most javascript disabled).

@@wereoctopus I have an Acer 2n1, the Spin 713. I use it for lite video editing, photo editing, etc using Chrome, Android and Linux desktop apps. 8Gb is fine, but 16 Gb would be better!

Definetely a steam deck, even if it technically isnt really a laptop, could be made into a around $500 laptop with tons of longevity

So do I, and well said

I did that in my older Asus video linked below this one. Honestly nothing can save those processors. They are just too slow, even with Linux. Plus a website is still a website and is still being run through Chrome

@@JustJoshTech Yeah, I saw the video after I posted the comment. When I think of how modern-day computers are, I am astounded that I had an acer, with an Intel Celeron processor, 128 GB HDD, 2 GB ram, which I bought in 2006 and used till 2016 - and it took me through undergrad and my PhD. And I did some serious simulations using that thing. 🙂

Wow. Thats impressive. Yeah even modern web pages are very complex now@@qanittakmeel

Yeah, but that cpu should be avoided if it only have 8gb of ram cuz for some reason it does not support sodimm memory which is it is soldered

You are spot on. I did that on a prior video with similar hardware. It still wasn't usable. It's linked below btw

Hmm ok, let me guess.. was it Alienware? 😂

No, it was an Asus Strix 18@@fantasypvp

@@danvanderknaap3401 oh wow, I thought Asus were generally known for having really good laptops

that's what hours of research led me to believe as well. I think the problem is more software/driver related. It seems to be happening to a lot of laptops from almost every manufacturer. I'm just not interested fighting with a $3000 device in the hopes of making it useable. I miss some of the windows software and ability to do some gaming, but for now I'm sticking with my 10 year old Macbook Pro. It is what it is, but it has been depenable. @@fantasypvp