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I suspect you will go to one of the retail outlets who will try and sell you insurance on it at the same time. Don't know if I am allowed to mention a company I use so will send you a PM
Hewlett-Packard is a good reliable brand as is Lenovo and Dell (avoid Toshiba for example)
AMD is just another chip manufacturer but you tend to get more bang for your buck from them. Try out both, that's the only test that matters.
Don't buy M$ Office unless you really need to use VBA because LibreOffice or OpenOffice do exactly the same job and they are free.
I'm to buy something as powerful/fast as the one I have at the moment which is Intel i5. There's a very similar laptop but with AMD which is cheaper, and I'm told, slower.
I really do need a good spreadsheet - when the business software transfers over to the new laptop, that also needs a good spreadsheet and I think it specifies excel.
Without the model numbers, any specific recommendation is impossible, but HP laptops have a high reliability rating (76%) with Which magazine.
HP Computers are also available from Amazon and Argos.
The only intel i5 laptop from Argos is £100 more which is why I'm inclined to get the one from PC World before their sale ends.........but there are two refurbished Dell computers on Amazon which is substantially cheaper and says "save hundreds of pounds of hardware and software" but doesn't say what software is installed! Just noticed the Dell computers are smaller - only 14" - I really want a 15.6"