Sometimes, a laptop deal comes along that needs to be double checked for misprice. This HP deal from Ebuyer is one of them; at £215 including delivery, this exclusive offer is very cheap and we don’t expect it to be cheaper even for Black Friday 2019. But looking closer at the specs reveals an extraordinary set of features with one massive letdown.
Let’s start by the pros: this laptop is part of the HP 255 G7 series, so aimed at SMB. You won’t find any bloatware on this one and the design is solid without being adventurous. It comes with 8GB DDR4 system memory anda staggering 256GB SSD, none of which are usually available at this price.
- These are the best business laptops of 2019
- Check our our shortlist of the best ruggedised laptops of 2019
- This is how you can install Windows 10 from a USB key
A CPU that's too slow
Both the memory and the SSD are upgradable, which only make this deal sweeter. To cap things off, it has a 15.6-inch full HD display, albeit an SVA model, not the superior IPS one. Note however that the device runs on FreeDOS, a 21-year old OS; there’s no Windows 10 or Linux here so you will have to install your own OS. More of an inconvenience than a deal breaker given how easy it is to install Windows 10 nowadays.
The real letdown has to be the CPU used; the AMD A6-9225 processor is woefully slow, scoring a pathetic 2,137 points on CPU Benchmark. It might only be 18 months old but the fact that it is based on an old, obsolete architecture doesn’t help at all. And this is a real shame. It will be good enough for a bit of light office work or YouTube streaming. Anything more taxing will bring the poor thing to its knees.
To be fair though, Ebuyer does sell the same model but with a far, far more capable Ryzen 3 CPU and a licensed Windows 10 PS for £350.
- Is Microsoft bothered about very cheap Windows 10 licenses? We think no
