Been looking for a portable laptop/netbook for the wife for Christmas - looked at everything from a 13.3" touchscreen i5 for £350 down to the X205TA which is a steal at MS for £120, but out of stock. Settled on this after much consideration. The netbook comes in two varieties; with N2840 (which is better than many netbook processors, but gets little love on performance in reviews) or this N3540 which is high end (by netbook standards) - up around the benchmark of a 1st gen i3: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+N3540+%40+2.16GHz&id=2408
From the listing:
Lenovo S21E-20 11.6 Inch Intel 2.16GHz 2GB 32GB Windows 8 Laptop - Silver.
Refurbished With a 12 Month Argos Guarantee
This item is an Argos Manager Special, our top grade of refurbished item.
This thin, lightweight design is the perfect travel companion. So whether you're off to another meeting or another country, this latop means portabilty is a walk in the park.
CPU, Memory and Operating System:
Intel Pentium n3540 quad core processor.
32GB eMMC hard drive.
Microsoft Windows 8.1.
This device can be upgraded to Windows 10 for free.
Display features:
11.6 inch screen.
High definition display.
Resolution 1366 x 768 pixels.
Graphics:
Shared graphics card.
Interfaces and connectivity:
SD media card reader.
1 USB 2.0 port.
1 USB 3.0 port.
Wi-Fi enabled.
Multimedia features:
VGA webcam.
Built-in mic.
Dolby sound system.
General features:
Up to 5 hours battery life.
Size H1.89, W29.5, D21.24cm.
Weight 1.15kg.
Catalogue number 457/0505
Top comments
DonDraper to pablomalin
13 Dec 154#9
Same old question, same answer : virtually all the 'refurbs' sold by clearance sellers like Argos-eBay are manufacturers' surplus stock being cleared out under this guise. It's usually brand new stock being sold cheaply. I'm amazed so many posters on here haven't caught on.
All comments (33)
jnm21
12 Dec 15#1
I see that there have been some cold votes - please tell me what deal is better in a sub 14 inch laptop under £150? Genuinely interested as I can cancel this order.
Picard123 to jnm21
13 Dec 151#4
If you're a very, very light Windows user, then its not a bad machine per se - screen, keyboard and general build is decent - but it's a very compromised one in terms of performance. 2gb soldered ram, non-upgradeable 32GB eMMC (probably half of that is usable) coupled with a resource hungry and inefficient Windows OS don't make for happy bedfellows when one of the points of a OS like Windows is it's multi-tasking. You're going to have to spend another £40 or so buying a high capacity nano flash drive for permanent storage, so you'd really be better spending another £100 and getting something more suitable. There was a great refurb on here recently - I think it was the Inspiron 14/15-7000 for <£300. More expensive but it will do a lot more and last you much longer.
Picard123 to jnm21
13 Dec 15#24
Not <£150 but not far off and given that you're going to have to spend money on additional storage with that S21E, this offers better value for money IMO as there's more ram, more storage, and an upgrade path:
Question should be, why they had so many returns in a first place..
jnm21 to pablomalin
13 Dec 15#3
Yes, I thought about that, but then again, have they actually repaired that many or are they open box returns/damaged box stock? Clearly I'm hoping for the latter. :smiley:
Or then again, could have been botched win 10 upgrades - this model needs extra storage (or is that the acer, hmmm, I've read too many posts/reviews).
DonDraper to pablomalin
13 Dec 154#9
Same old question, same answer : virtually all the 'refurbs' sold by clearance sellers like Argos-eBay are manufacturers' surplus stock being cleared out under this guise. It's usually brand new stock being sold cheaply. I'm amazed so many posters on here haven't caught on.
team_a
13 Dec 15#5
Low price but can't help feel its a poor machine. Emmc appears to be comparable to sd cards in terms of performance. This spec gives me flashbacks of when i had an atom netbook....useless...couldn't do anything of note.
If you can afford it. ...get the hp 250 from ebay for £275. Brand new i5, 4gb ram, win 10, 500gb hdd.
jnm21 to team_a
13 Dec 15#17
I sort of agree, but I had an atom netbook & loved it for travel/day to day browsing. As for the 250, stonking deal, but about 25% bigger than I want. 11.6" is sweet for travel - will often fit in a safe in a hotel. At £125, will loose less sleep if it doesn't.
abar121
13 Dec 152#6
Please remove the reference to the i5 machine this is not. It can be seen from the summary page and is misleading.
coventgamer
13 Dec 15#7
Top notch i5 laptop
Picard123 to coventgamer
13 Dec 152#8
Except that it's neither an i5, nor top notch.
Scotty Boy
13 Dec 152#10
+1 - If your on a budget and need a cheap system to use for traveling with, then I'd seriously consider this - it should be easy enough to upgrade to Windows 10 (the support from Lenovo & 3rd Party Forums will cover it) plus the CPU is decent as well. Only concerns thought is the inability to upgrade the RAM & internal storage - only option for the storage aspect would be to use a MicroSDXC card (via the SD Card Reader), use external storage (i.e. USB Stick, USB HDD, etc) or use network/internet storage.
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Opening post
From the listing:
Lenovo S21E-20 11.6 Inch Intel 2.16GHz 2GB 32GB Windows 8 Laptop - Silver.
Refurbished With a 12 Month Argos Guarantee
This item is an Argos Manager Special, our top grade of refurbished item.
This thin, lightweight design is the perfect travel companion. So whether you're off to another meeting or another country, this latop means portabilty is a walk in the park.
CPU, Memory and Operating System:
Intel Pentium n3540 quad core processor.
32GB eMMC hard drive.
Microsoft Windows 8.1.
This device can be upgraded to Windows 10 for free.
Display features:
11.6 inch screen.
High definition display.
Resolution 1366 x 768 pixels.
Graphics:
Shared graphics card.
Interfaces and connectivity:
SD media card reader.
1 USB 2.0 port.
1 USB 3.0 port.
Wi-Fi enabled.
Multimedia features:
VGA webcam.
Built-in mic.
Dolby sound system.
General features:
Up to 5 hours battery life.
Size H1.89, W29.5, D21.24cm.
Weight 1.15kg.
Catalogue number 457/0505
Top comments
All comments (33)
https://www.lambda-tek.com/Lenovo-59404956~sh/B2060273&viewSpec=y#productTop
Or then again, could have been botched win 10 upgrades - this model needs extra storage (or is that the acer, hmmm, I've read too many posts/reviews).
If you can afford it. ...get the hp 250 from ebay for £275. Brand new i5, 4gb ram, win 10, 500gb hdd.
EDIT: Here's a link to the previous deal for the S21E from Argos during the BF Sales - it's the for the dual-core Intel N2840 CPU but may have handy notes for those considering purchasing this one.