4 expert tips to ensure you don't buy a dud laptop this Black Friday
It’s the season when you can grab a great deal, but is it really a bargain if you save money on a product that's not actually worth buying? When shopping for a laptop this Black Friday, follow our top tips and make sure you don't end up with a laptop that our experts think is a dud.
Most of the tips here apply to laptops that were on the cheaper side already (think under £300). But the rules apply to pricier models as well - although they're less likely to be a problem.
Our advice will help if you're not yet a Which? member and don’t have access to our in-depth laptop reviews, or if you’re looking at a laptop we haven’t tested. If you can access our laptop reviews, log in and get the lowdown on the good and bad points of every laptop we've tested.
Need a new laptop? We'll help you find a genuine bargain - see our expert pick of the best Black Friday laptop deals
1. Terrible/old processor
We tested a laptop last month that had a processor that was six years old. This would be a problem in any laptop - but it gets worse. This processor was even slow six years ago, and in our tests struggled to cope when trying to handle modern applications and websites.
Fortunately, this problem can be avoided with a little research. First, understand that processor branding fits into a hierarchy:
- The slowest processors are the likes of Intel Atom and Celeron, with Pentium processors a step above, followed logically by Core i3, i5, i7 and i9 processors.
- For laptops powered by AMD, you’ll see models such as AMD A4 at the very bottom. AMD Ryzen 3, 5, 7 and 9 are roughly equivalent to the Intel Core models mentioned above.
If tempted by a cheaper laptop, it's important to find out when the processor was made. This is easy; just paste the full processor model name into a search engine, click on the link that takes you to the processor’s page on the Intel or AMD website, then look for where it tells you the year of release.
If you’re buying a laptop new – not used or refurbished – and it’s much cheaper than others, check you’re getting one with a processor that’s no more than three years old. This will help your laptop feel faster for longer and ensure it doesn’t run into as many issues as a much older processor might.
Just want to know which laptops excel in our tough tests? See our expert pick of the best laptops for all budgets
2. Too little Ram
Ram is important for ensuring your laptop can keep up with what you're doing, even when you have lots of programs and websites open. We recommend 8GB as a general rule. But 4GB is usually enough if you only use your laptop occasionally and for very basic tasks, such as checking emails and writing simple documents.
However, occasionally it’s possible to find a laptop with just 2GB. This is nowhere near enough to do anything in a remotely timely fashion, and these devices are best avoided.
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3. No software updates
We’ve increasingly found that laptops on sale have a short shelf life when it comes to software updates. Once a laptop stops receiving software updates, important security fixes also cease. This means the further you get from the laptop’s last update, the more susceptible it is to online threats such as viruses.
There are a few reasons why this could be a problem.
- First, don’t buy a laptop that runs Windows 7 or 8, as these are no longer supported.
- Second, if you’re buying a laptop that has Windows 10, make sure that it’s able to be upgraded to Windows 11. This is because Windows 10 will stop receiving security updates in October 2025. So if you can’t upgrade, you’ll be without security updates less than three years from now.
You can check whether your laptop is likely to be compatible by using our free Windows 11 compatibility tool.
There could also be a problem with Chromebooks. All Chromebooks released in the past couple of years started their lives with at least eight years of security updates, but those launched before then have a surprisingly short shelf life, and lots of them are still on sale in major retailers.
Luckily, this information is public knowledge, and we’ve put together a list of expired or soon-to-expire Chromebooks in our guide to the best Chromebooks. We also put the expiry date on every one of our Chromebook reviews.
Our laptop reviews page also allows you to filter results by remaining security support, so you can pick a model that will last.
4. Poor screen
Reading the results of our in-depth lab tests in our laptop reviews will let you find out exactly how bad or good a screen is. But if you're not yet a Which? member and don't have access to these, there is one basic spec you can look at that will give you a pretty good idea of whether a screen will definitely be bad. This is the resolution. We recommend people buy laptops with at least a Full HD display. That’s 1,920 x 1,080 pixels.
However, some of the cheapest laptops have 1,280 x 768 pixel screens, which are substantially poorer in quality and a lot less pleasant to look at. Screens with this resolution never score well in our lab tests, so check the tech spec in the laptop you’re looking at to ensure the screen will meet your needs.
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