As I age, I seem to become a bigger and bigger cheapskate. My latest money-saving exploit was to buy a refurbished laptop (my first laptop, believe it or not…) from Newegg when an insurmountable business need finally arose. I was absolutely staggered to see the prices. I was able to get a 5th-gen Core i5 with 8GB of RAM, 128GB SSD, 4 USB 3.0 ports, dual-band wifi, touchscreen, etc, all in an ultrabook format… for $200. I was completely gobsmacked. It even came with WIndows 10 Pro on it. The entire experience has been superlative.
I don’t think I’ll ever advise anyone to buy a new laptop again. This machine isn’t a world-beater since it has integrated Intel graphics, but my God… it’s got to be better than what most consumers have, and for a lot lot lot less. If I didn’t play games, this machine would be everything I could possibly need. And it dual-boots Ubuntu without a hitch (this post typed from 17.10).
Have these kind of machines always been available at this price? I just… good gravy, I still can’t get over what I was able to buy for so little. If this is pretty normal across the board, it would certainly explain why the PC market has slowed down… there is absolutely no reason to replace this 4+ year old machine.