Looking to buy a new laptop. Prefer DVD drive but only seeing 2 with that feature. Any recommendations for a laptop under $650 (with or without DVD)? Thanks for your input. Jan
Don’t have an exact recommendation it’s very hard to choose a laptop for somebody else it depends a lot on budget and features (do you want 13 inch screen or 16 inch) Maybe you can start with a site like this and narrow down by budget, screen size, etc. https://www.productchart.com/laptops/ and then look on Amazon or other shopping site for the models you narrowed down to.
$650 is tough. DVD drives have gone the way of the Dodo. Probably not going to find one in your budget. In all honesty, not sure there is anything in the sub $650 range I’d recommend.
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It’s tough to find one with DVD drives anymore.
I had to buy a USB DVD drive a few months ago. They can be found for $30-$50 - depending on hitting the right sale. So, that should not be an exclusive make it or break it thing.
Most people do not use the drive that often. Can you have an external one that you can plug in when you need it?
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I’m with @Mistershipwreck, my last 4 laptops haven’t had (home and work) have not had a DVD drive. I did buy a USB DVD drive, but I probably used it half a dozen times in 4 years.
I’d look at the HP line-up and also look at AMD Ryzen processors, they offer very good performance for the money.
You can get a good refurbished deal for that price, with an HP Elitebook Core i5 or a new HP laptop with Ryzen 3500 processor (looking on Amazon Germany, for 600€ (incl. tax), you can get a 17" HP laptop with Ryzen 3500, 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD or a refurbished Elitebook with Core i5-6600, 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD).
Obviously, the reconditioned Elitebook is 5 generations behind a new laptop, but it is a higher quality device (the ones offered here in Germany also had a wirelss modem for UTMS - not LTE).
Personally, I would try and stretch to another $200, for that you should be able to get something modern and with good performance that also looks good.
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If you are a Costco member, they nearly always have several decent laptops in the $650 and under range available. I am on their site now and counted about a half dozen nice laptops with 14-inch screens, good processors, plenty of RAM, decent-sized SSD’s. They are major brands like Lenovo, HP, and Acer.
Thank you everyone for your replies. Narrowing it down …
I did exactly the same!!
Chromebooks now run Edge…