this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
4 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

40854 readers
75 users here now

This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.


Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.


Rules:

1: All Lemmy rules apply

2: Do not post low effort posts

3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff

4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.

5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)

6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist

7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I recently bought a Dell Latitude 7430 with an i7-1265u, 10 cores, 1.8Ghz, 16gb of (I think) DDR4 RAM, and a 256GB SSD for 250$. I still have time to return the machine. I was wondering whether I got a good deal here or not.

My purpose is mostly for general school stuff. Spreadsheets, docs, Zoom meetings, and the like. I might be getting into the world of CS, but I'm not at a point yet where I would need much power.

Still, the 256GB of storage worry me. And unfortunately it can't be upgraded. Still, if I'm not doing much besides all of the basic tasks expected of a work laptop, do I really need more?

Should I consider returning it and try to get another deal? Keep it? Or something else altogether?

top 5 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] ms_lane@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

It's a good deal.

RAM can't be upgraded but Storage absolutely can, it's just a standard 2280 m.2 drive, you can even chuck a second 2242 drive in if you remove/never had WWAN (LTE/5G modem).


Edit: If you're using Linux, grab a cheap Intel Optane M10 drive from AliExpress, 16GB drives are <$5 32GB and 64GB are ~$1/GB- they have incredible endurance and 250MB/s Q1T1 random read (better than any consumer NAND ssd...) - perfect for swap partition on a 'low' ram machine.

[–] glitching@lemmy.ml 4 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

nah it's utter shit, you should send it to me so I can dispose of it properly.

wtf, dude 12th gen i7, is it enough?! I run a 1st gen i7 on desktop and a 4th gen on laptop and my workload exceeds yours significantly.

storage can totally get upgraded with a bog-standard NVMe SSD. RAM can't but it's doubtful you're gonna need more than that for standard desktop work, unless you're into VMs, docker, and the like.

[–] baggins@beehaw.org 1 points 1 day ago

Get an external drive. You can then have as much as you want. And more importantly you'll have backups.

[–] etbe@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago

7430 is a nice system. I've done a lot with 7400/7410/7420 systems and some of my friends use them daily for programming.

Sure 16G is a restriction in some ways and some compilers take so much ram that make -j10 will fail on 16G but it's still pretty decent.

What OS are you using? Linux works nicely on 16G, Windows is usable but not so good.

[–] paper_moon@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

$250 for a 12nd gen Intel I would think is a pretty good deal, especially with ram prices slated to increase even further. The storage should be upgradeable if you need to. I guess it's the ram that isn't upgradable.

https://laptopmedia.com/highlights/how-to-open-dell-latitude-14-7430-disassembly-and-upgrade-options/

16GB of ram is okay for most stuff. If you're a heavy browser tab user, it might be a little low when you start programming and compiling things locally on the machine, but for usual school and regular office type tasks, it should be fine.

To upgrade ssd, again ram isn't upgradeable:

https://www.dell.com/support/contents/en-us/videos/videoplayer/how-to-replace-the-ssd-2230-on-latitude-7430/6368386655112