Buying New Laptop

[countrykid]

Seeking a new laptop. Ideally sub £350. New not refurb.

Simple home stuff, surfing web, emails, creating basic documents, letters, simple spreadsheets etc and opening and amending docs made via Microsoft Word, Excel.
Prefer free software and local storage on laptop not cloud storage or Microsoft subscription).

Storage options seem now to be something called eMMC on most budget ones and SSD on £350 upwards. Should we try and stretch to get SSD? Any pitfalls of eMMC?

Processor? Been advised to avoid Intel Celeron - slow speed. Should we try and stretch to Intel Pentium Gold/AMD Ryzen 3i? Or might Celeron be ok for our basic needs mindful though that nobody likes a sluggish pc

Summary: we prefer to store stuff on laptops memory or a portable hard drive,not in the cloud.
Not used for gaming or work, just general home stuff, transfering photos over from phone but not for editing, just storage.

Any help appreciated, plus where to buy from (or where to avoid!!).

Many thanks.

[barry1010]

This one has a huge 1TB hard disk for lots of storage, decent RAM, good size screen and is a decent make
https://www.argos.co.uk/product/9192562
Argos is okay to buy from, their refund policy is pretty good. If you fancy that laptop search the internet and see how much it sells for elsewhere - you may get it cheaper.
This a big and bulky machine, you are not going to want to carry it about all day but is ideal for what you want

[barry1010]

Regarding Word and Excel, you are not going to get them installed on any laptop in your price bracket. There are excellent free alternatives that will save your files in the Word and Excel format as well as read them, I prefer Libre Office and have been using it for years.

[ichkeria]

I got an Acer laptop with additional purchase of Microsoft Office for £350-ish last year.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the processor if that’s all your doing. Battery life might be more of a consideration.

[barry1010]

Avoid eMMC. All my machines have SSD and the boot up time is much quicker and overall SSD is faster than HDD in use. Having said that they are still more expensive than HDD and do you really need the extra speed for what you use your laptop for? You do not really use it for anything demanding that is going to slow a new machine to a crawl.

[countrykid]

Thanks so much for helpful guidance. I'll check out the link shortly barry1010. If our budget allows, I'll try and stretch to one with ssd but note what you say about processor speed perhaps not being so vital for our needs